Sox name Roenicke skipper
Bloom: ‘No reason to think’ probe will implicate him
FORT MYERS — As Chaim Bloom progressed through his search to find a replacement for Alex Cora, Ron Roenicke’s name kept coming up.
A man he had never met before becoming the Red Sox’ chief baseball officer in November, Roenicke’s resume continued to impress Bloom, who reached out to many people he knew in baseball to learn more about the 63-year-old. During that time, Bloom had a number of people from around baseball reach out to him unsolicited to give raving reviews about Roenicke.
It all led to Tuesday when, after an exhaustive, nearly month-long search, Bloom and the Red Sox named Roenicke to be their interim manager. A name that initially floated as one of the first candidates, Roenicke will officially take lead of the Sox as pitchers and catchers report here at spring training today.
“(Conversations with people around baseball) really painted a picture that squared with what I saw during the interview process of a great person and a great baseball person who is extremely well-respected by everybody in the game, and certainly by the people in our clubhouse,” Bloom said. “So we’re very happy to have Ron leading us right now.”
It’s unclear if the interim tag will eventually be lifted for Roenicke. Bloom explained that the Red Sox are still waiting for the results of Major League Baseball’s investigation into the 2018 team and allegations of electronic signstealing.
Roenicke was the Red Sox’ bench coach in 2018 and 2019, and it’s yet to be determined if he will implicated in MLB’s report. But Bloom and the Red Sox are confident he won’t.
“We have no reason to think that there’s anything that would cause an adverse result for Ron in this investigation, but of course the investigation is not complete,” Bloom said. “It’s not fair for us to determine that. Obviously we can’t determine what comes out of the investigation, and so we’re going to respect the ongoing investigation and we’ll address permanency once it’s complete.”
In Roenicke, the Red Sox are getting a manager who is not only familiar to most of the current roster during a time of upheaval and uncertainty, but also one with extensive big-league experience. He’s been in baseball for nearly 40 years since being a player, and he managed the Brewers from 201115, leading them to the NLCS in 2011 before being fired shortly into the 2015 season.
Roenicke, who coached for the Dodgers and Angels before being hired as Cora’s bench coach, admittedly wondered if he’d get a shot to be a manager again. He’s certainly excited he will.
“I really enjoy the challenge of managing, and there are bigger challenges. Coaching is fun,” Roenicke said. “It’s fun. When you reach players and you see the improvement and you see all of a sudden that light that turns on and these guys become these great athletes, it’s just a different feeling.”
Roenicke’s familiarity with the Red Sox was certainly a factor in Bloom’s decision to choose him, but it wasn’t everything.
“Obviously him knowing our group, anybody would love that advantage to really know a group of players and a staff inside and out,” Bloom said. “So for us, it wasn’t necessarily that certain boxes had to be checked as much as I think the totality of everything Ron brought to the table as a candidate, including those things, made him a very strong choice.”
Roenicke described himself as a manager he believes gets the best out of his players, and he prides himself as being a strong voice and communicator. Those skills, he believes, were enhanced the last two years with Cora in charge.
Roenicke will be his own manager, he said, but there are certainly things he can take from his predecessor going into this season.
“If you watched the beginning of the games for the last two years, Alex was usually the first one out there on the bench,” Roenicke said. “You watched and those players, they come down in that dugout and end up sitting by him. That doesn’t happen that often. … I’d walk down there and you’d see four or five players sitting right next to him on the bench. You’d walk in the dugout, or excuse me, the locker room, and you’d see him sitting and he’d have this group around him.
“That told me something. It told me that, hey, that communication, even though I thought I was good at it, I can be better. I’m going to try to do that. I’m going to have as open a format as you can have and communicate as well as I can do it.”