Alex Cora has garnered a lot of praise for how he’s managed a pretty diesel Red Sox team in the early parts of the 2018 season.
His ball club stands atop the American League with a ridiculous 39-18 record. This record, perhaps wrongfully so, has vindicated T&L writer Alex Hamel, who wrote a blog titled “Manager Cora > Manager John” on April 21st, when the Red Sox were 17-2 through their first 19 games of the season.
Cora has done a really good job of keeping this Red Sox team engaged and firing on all cylinders through the first two months of the season. I don’t think, however, that he has proven himself to be anything more than the average manager that Farrell was during his stints with the Blue Jays and Red Sox.
If you remember, that 2013 Red Sox team basically faced no adversity throughout the entire season, making Manager John’s job extremely easy. For starters, that absolute wagon of a team never lost more than three games in a row. You read that correctly--the 2013 Red Sox won 97 games and never lost more than three in a row in the regular season. They also never trailed by more than one game during their impressive World Series run. Furthermore, the team was not unified by the wisdom of John Farrell. He didn’t have to pull together big personalities; the 2013 Boston Marathon had already done that for him. This team was playing for something that was bigger than themselves: a hurting city that needed them--not John Farrell. Regardless, a World Series championship is a World Series championship, and John Farrell deserves credit for doing just enough not to screw everything up.
Honestly, I feel like Cora has thrived under a similar set of circumstances during the early part of the 2018 season. The Red Sox manager has done just enough to not erode the Red Sox but hasn’t really made any impressive decisions or taken any radical, outside-the-box actions. His only claim to fame during the 2018 season is not having the clubhouse completely fall apart, but how hard is that when you’re essentially starting the season 15 games above .500? It isn’t. It’s easy to brush aside David Price having carpal tunnel syndrome when you’re 39-18. It’s easy to wear criticism because Carson Smith hurts his shoulder slamming his glove when you’re 39-18. Winning cures all of these infectious ailments and embarrassing stories. If you don’t believe me, just ask the New England Patriots, who have received a flurry of complaints from current and former players after losing the Super Bowl in February. Whether it be a series sweep against the division rival Yankees, a 2-0 series deficit in the playoffs, or a major injury to an elite talent, Cora will prove himself when this Red Sox team hits a bump in the road. He will have the opportunity to prove himself a good manager; he just hasn’t yet.
One potential problem that I see coming down the pipeline is Cora’s handling of Craig Kimbrel. If you remember, Kimbrel and Manager John butted heads in 2017. During the early parts of the season, Kimbrel was used for high-leverage, four-out saves on an unusually frequent basis, putting serious mileage on his arm. Cora has been smart to keep Kimbrel away from these situations, but I believe he’s put himself in a similar position to Farrell in the way he handled Wednesday’s game against the Blue Jays. With the Red Sox up 6-2 in the top of the ninth, Cora called upon horrendously bad lefty Brian Johnson to collect the last three outs of the ballgame. Naturally (and embarrassingly), Johnson threw just three pitches, giving up hits on two of them before he was given the hook. In came Kimbrel, who was forced to brave a dirty inning, something that closers typically take issue with. If I were Cora, I would send Brian Johnson to Triple-A, but more importantly, I would stay away from situations where I needed to bring Kimbrel into messy innings. After his weird beef with Farrell last season, Kimbrel has earned the reputation of being a sensitive closer, and there’s nothing a sensitive closer hates more than coming in with runners already on base.
I’ve made this clear before, but I’ll reiterate: I have a problem with the overall message that Alex Cora has given his players this year. Not to beat a dead horse, but the idea that this Red Sox team was on too short of a leash last season goes way over my head. John Farrell let them do a lot of whack off-the-field things last year, and all he asked was that they played hard and cared about the outcome of every game on a day-to-day basis. Cora’s strategy of trying to move on from big losses and look at the overall picture just seems to stray from what every good coach preaches and also seems to pander to what these players want. To me, it feels like Cora approaches tough losses this way in an effort to get on the good side of the players in the clubhouse. He’s trying too hard to be the anti-Farrell and has instilled a fairly weak policy of what’s acceptable in a pretty weak-minded Red Sox team.
I love this team, but I could see the season going completely off the rails if the Red Sox suddenly drop five or six in a row, and their holes become increasingly glaring. This is still the same team of petulant children it was last year; they just have a new manager at the helm.
Do you think Cora has the right message and demeanor to keep the 2018 Red Sox focused on winning a World Series? I’m not so sure.
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