The Boston Red Sox Wednesday, November 11, 2020

* The Boston Globe

Alex Cora is back as Red Sox manager, and he’s sorry: ‘I got my penalty and I served it'

Julian McWilliams

Alex Cora admitted that his heart was racing Tuesday afternoon at Fenway Park.

It was the first time in nearly a year that Cora was in the public eye. His season-long suspension as a result of his involvement in the Houston Astros' 2017 sign-stealing scandal stripped him of his managerial position with the Red Sox for the ’20 season.

Yet Tuesday marked his reintroduction as the Sox' manager and his reintroduction to baseball, something Cora didn’t expect to happen so soon. And for good reason. The scandal left a damaging mark on baseball, the Sox organization, and, most importantly, Cora’s family.

“I want to apologize,” said Cora on bringing negative attention to his family. “I deserved what happened this year. It was something that I’m not proud of, but at the end I got my penalty and I served it. I want to apologize to the organization, putting them in such a tough spot coming into the season. I never thought I would be in that situation but I was. As a leader, as a person who enjoys the game and loves to manage, I put this organization in a tough spot, and for that I’m sorry.”

Cora said he’s not treating this as a “comeback story.” Instead, the Sox manager intimated that he will use this as a situation to make people better.

Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom reached out to Cora a few days after the World Series. First with a text, then a phone call. The conversations got deeper and ultimately Bloom made the decision to bring Cora back onboard.

“I knew the strengths that he had,” Bloom said. “Also, over the course of the year in observing the organization I got to learn about things that would have been areas of improvement for him had he stayed with us. When we started the process after the season, we spent a lot of time coming up with a list of candidates. We vetted them very thoroughly. I knew that I wanted to have some type of conversation with Alex when it was OK to do so. At the end of the day, I thought he was the right choice to lead us forward.”

For Bloom, the vetting process was meticulous. Bloom went into his meeting with Cora telling himself that it was paramount that he ask all the questions on his mind, considering the seriousness of the scandal.

“We all went through something,” Bloom said. “And it was a lot to process. I told myself that I needed to address everything that I needed to address. I tried to stay in the moment with that and then process it after the fact.”

Cora is aware of the backlash that’s ahead, but said he’s ready for it.

“I know it’s going to be tough in certain places, but I understand,” Cora added.

The 2018 Red Sox underwent their own sign-stealing investigation. The findings weren’t as abhorrent as the Astros' cheating scandal, but the Sox were still punished. The team lost its second-round pick and J.T. Watkins, the Sox' video replay operator, was suspended for a season. Cora, on the other hand, was exonerated. What did Cora learn from that process?

“If you read the report,” Cora explained, “as a leader, as a person who is running the clubhouse and the dugout, we need to avoid the gray areas. I think that’s the most important thing.”

Cora stated that he didn’t bring the operation from Houston over to the Sox because he didn’t feel like the team needed to do something like that. Additionally, Cora said he and the organization had conversations surrounding sign-stealing in baseball in the spring of ’18. At the time, MLB started to get word that these type of cheating schemes were taking place in the game. Cora ultimately thought it wouldn’t be worth the risk.

Cora is inheriting a completely different roster than the one he left behind. Mookie Betts is in Los Angeles, as is David Price. Chris Sale is recovering from Tommy John surgery. The team still has some of its core players left — Rafael Devers, J.D. Martinez, and Xander Bogaerts, to name a few — but the overall talent isn’t as strong as it once was.

Furthermore, Dave Dombrowski is no longer running the show. It’s Bloom, who takes more of an analytical approach than the old-school Dombrowski. But Cora doesn’t see the use of a team that relies heavily on data as an impediment to his managerial approach.

“I love the information,” Cora said. “I love to go into a game prepared the best I can. I don’t think there’s a script. I feel managers now have more information given to you. You prepare your game based on that information and, obviously, with the scouting reports and what you feel makes sense.”

Alex Cora’s relationship with Chaim Bloom will determine whether it works out for Red Sox

Peter Abraham

Before any questions could be asked on Tuesday, Alex Cora apologized for his role in helping the Houston Astros cheat in 2017.

That was expected, of course, and Cora hit his marks as he perched on a stool adjacent to home plate at Fenway Park and addressed reporters via a video feed on a November day fit for nine innings.

Cora said he deserved his season-long suspension, never should have put the Red Sox in the awkward position he did and knows the stain of what he did will follow him throughout the rest of his career.

This is no great comeback story, Cora insisted, and he understands how fortunate he is the Sox granted him another opportunity to manage.

“I was humbled by this whole situation,” Cora said.

That Cora admitted to that emotion, being humbled, was notable because it’s not something you’d normally associate with him.

Cora has plowed through his baseball career fueled by confidence, if not swagger. It’s what enabled him to become a star at the University of Miami, play parts of 14 seasons in the majors, succeed as an analyst at ESPN and win the World Series in his first season managing the Sox.

Even when the Sox fell into third place in 2019, Cora’s light never dimmed. He’s one of those people who charges ahead convinced he’s right, especially in matters related to baseball.

There’s an audacity that serves Cora well. It’s also what burned him in Houston.

The force of Cora’s personality, his passion for the game, was just what the Sox needed the first time around. But it’s no sure thing it will be again.

Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom certainly had to be convinced. He said it took some “intense conversations” to arrive at the decision and there were a lot of questions he needed to have sufficiently answered.

“This is a big deal what happened [in Houston]. It was an event that took its toll on all of us,” Bloom said.

Bloom is a believer in collaborative effort based on his experience with the Tampa Bay Rays. But he is now paid to lead baseball operations, not be part of a chorus.

Forming an in-season alliance with Cora will be much different than with grandfatherly Ron Roenicke.

Rays manager Kevin Cash pulled Blake Snell out of Game 6 of the World Series last month because the timing had been agreed to beforehand.

Once the leadoff hitter came up a third time, Snell was done. That he was working on a two-hit shutout and had thrown only 73 pitches against the Dodgers didn’t matter.

Would Cora follow a similar dictum?

Cora pointed to Game 4 of the 2018 World Series when he let Eduardo Rodriguez try to work out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning.

One run scored on an error. Yasiel Puig then crushed a three-run homer to left field. Cora said that decision was based on matchups and faulted himself for not recognizing Rodriguez was tiring.

Cora said he doesn’t want a script, but he does want to be as prepared as possible.

“If you’re not ready to digest the information and use it the right way, I don’t think you’re going to be successful in this game,” Cora said.

Cora and Bloom discussed the Snell move as part of the getting reacquainted process.

“The way I see it, it’s a partnership,” Cora said. “They’re going to provide information. I’m going to manage the dugout and the clubhouse and manage the game and hopefully we can be successful.”

Said Bloom: “I know it’s a big topic right now obviously. I know a lot of folks over with the Rays. Not being there, I can’t speak to the decision itself.

“The only thing that has bothered me a little bit from a distance with respect to [Cash] is that somehow people think he didn’t do what managers have been doing for decades, which is get as prepared as you can before the game and then make a decision in game based on all the information, including your own read on the situation.”

Red Sox CEO Sam Kennedy believes the general manager and field manager must work in unison for a team to reach its potential.

He sees Bloom and Cora being a force together, the baseball guy who embraces analytics and the quant who loves baseball.

“I’m personally a big believer in second chances,” Kennedy said.

Cora, now apparently humbled, is getting his and it was Bloom who allowed it to happen. Their relationship moving forward will determine whether it works out.

Red Sox hope to have fans at Fenway Park in 2021

Julian McWilliams

The Red Sox are optimistic that they will have fans in the stands in some capacity in 2020, team president and CEO Sam Kennedy said Tuesday afternoon.

“We are very much looking forward to some sense of normalcy,” Kennedy said. “We feel very confident that we should be in a position to welcome fans back next season, likely in a socially distanced environment to start. We do feel that, given our outdoor environment, we feel that we have a plan that we presented to the state of Massachusetts that will work.”

Despite Pfizer announcing Monday that data suggested that the COVID-19 vaccine was found to be 90 percent effective, Kennedy noted that, ultimately, the trajectory of the virus will be the determining factor. The number of COVID-19 cases continue to rise in Massachusetts, and, as of Tuesday, it was reported that the state had 2,047 new cases and 21 deaths.

With winter around the corner, experts project that the COVID-19 numbers will continue to rise. However, there is a lot of time between now and the start of the season in April, and the Sox are holding out hope that fans will have the opportunity to, again, enjoy somewhat of a ballpark experience while socially distanced.

“We saw the World Series take place, and the playoffs take place in a socially distanced environment,” Kennedy said. “We see NFL stadiums around the country have fans in a socially distanced environment. We’ve seen international soccer matches with fans in a socially distanced environment without an incident, as far as we know. We have not seen any major outbreaks.”

Alex Cora might have been out of baseball for a year, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t keeping tabs on the Red Sox or the rest of baseball for the matter. From his house in Puerto Rico, Cora, a natural student of the game, noticed a trend with his Red Sox: They have to get faster.

“I still believe that you have to play fast,” Cora said. “You take a look at the teams around the league, the Rays, the Dodgers, the Padres, for how powerful they are — they still hit the ball out of the ballpark — they run the bases well. I felt like watching the Red Sox, they were a little bit behind. That’s what I mean when I say catching up with speed. We did a good job in ’18 with that. In ’19, we were a little bit slower compared to ’18. The way the game is going with stolen bases, there’s value in scoring from first. There’s value going first to third. There’s value on defense.”

Speaking of defense, the Sox were one of the worst defensive teams in baseball by any metric. They committed the third-most errors in baseball (45), compiled a -0.5 defensive WAR, and a -2.5 ultimate zone rating.

“It’s not about having 25 superstars out there,” Cora said. “It’s about playing clean baseball.”

Backpedaling on defense After taking a leap forward defensively in ’19, Rafael Devers was arguably the worst defender in all of baseball last season, committing the most errors in the game at 14. Cora, who has played an integral part in Devers’s development, is confident Devers can get back on track.

“We’re going to talk about positioning with him a lot,” Cora said. “I believe that we put him in a good spot [in 2019]. He was very consistent. We can get him to that point. I believe his arm plays at third base, he has good footwork, it’s just a matter of seeing what we can do position wise that could put him in a better spot. As you guys know, he’s always been one of my main projects in the offseason and it’s not going to change this year.”

J.D. Martinez, who hit just .213/.291/.389 with seven homers and a .680 OPS, is another player Cora expects to have a bounceback season.

“He made a lot of bad decisions at the plate,” Cora said. “He expanded in and he expanded down and away. I read the stuff about [him not having video] I think with his work ethic and what he does on a daily basis, he was just in a bad spot physically to attack pitches. That wasn’t J.D. We talked a few days ago. I got a few things for him. I don’t like to gamble but I’m pretty sure he’s going to have a better season next year versus this year.”

Meanwhile, Alex Verdugo, who hit .308/.367/.408 with six homers and an .844 OPS, is a player that impressed Cora.

“I saw him with the Dodgers,” Cora said. “He’s a guy that brings a lot of energy on a daily basis. He’s a good hitter. He can hit lefties, he can hit righties. I think he settled in, in the light. Defensively, he did an outstanding job for the team. I do believe that he was the best player on the team. The MVP.”

Cora had TV on his mind If managing didn’t work out, Cora would have considered a return to television, talking baseball.

“The media part of it was always there,” Cora.

Cora was asked to do some in-studio playoff work this postseason but ultimately declined, saying he wasn’t quite ready.

Cora said it’s still a bit early to figure out who his bench coach would be. When asked if Ron Roenicke would be a candidate, Cora didn’t rule it out.

J.T. Watkins, suspended for alleged use of video to decode sign sequences in 2018, returns to Red Sox

Alex Speier

Alex Cora is not the only member of the Red Sox organization who is back on the job after a season-long suspension.

J.T. Watkins, whom MLB suspended for the 2020 season for the alleged use of a video replay monitor to decode opposing teams' sign sequences during games in 2018, has returned to work with the Red Sox. The former advance scouting assistant and video replay coordinator has joined the team’s professional scouting staff, according to multiple major league sources.

Watkins is also going to work in the Puerto Rican Winter League with the Caguas Criollos, a team managed by Red Sox coach Ramón Vázquez. Watkins is slated to work with the team’s catchers and also to do advance scouting work.

Watkins, 31, is the son of Red Sox amateur scout Danny Watkins and a West Point graduate who spent parts of three seasons playing in the Red Sox minor league system (2012 and 2015-16), with his playing career wrapped around his military service. In 2017, he was hired as an advance scouting assistant — breaking down video of opponents to help the team develop its game plans — while also assuming replay duties.

A 2017 MLB investigation found that Watkins had been part of an MLB rules violation because he’d texted sign sequence information (which sign in a catcher’s sequence was being used to identify a pitch) to the Fitbit of a Red Sox trainer, which was then conveyed to Red Sox players — potentially positioning a runner on second to steal a catcher’s sign and relay it to a batter. While sign stealing and sign sequence stealing are not legal, the act of texting information to the dugout was deemed a violation of an MLB prohibition on the use of electronic devices in the dugout. The Red Sox were fined for the infraction.

This year, an MLB investigation into sign sequence stealing by the 2018 Red Sox found that Watkins — in his capacity as in-game replay monitor — used the live replay feed to identify opponents' sign sequences and convey them to players. In his conversations with MLB investigators, Watkins — who was part of the legal pregame efforts to decode opponents' sign sequences — vehemently denied the charge that he had used in-game information to revise sign-sequence information from the pregame report.

Nonetheless, the MLB investigation concluded that Watkins had been part of the illegal use of a live replay feed to steal sign sequence information. In addition to penalizing the Red Sox with the loss of a second- round pick, MLB suspended Watkins for the 2020 season. (He was also banned from serving as a replay room operator in the 2021 season.)

But once the World Series concluded, so did Watkins’s suspension, opening the door for him to return to the Red Sox. As a pro scout, Watkins will be part of a staff responsible for evaluating players in other organizations for potential trades, waiver claims, and signings.

* The Boston Herald

Alex Cora returns to Red Sox with apologies, but without explanations

Jason Mastrodonato

There were plenty of apologies from Alex Cora on Tuesday, when he was reintroduced as the Red Sox manager at Fenway Park.

Otherwise, it sounded and looked like the same exact guy as the one who was jettisoned out of town in January (albeit a thinner version).

“I started running like Forrest Gump,” Cora said. “All of a sudden, I started losing weight.”

Taking a year away from baseball to serve a suspension for being the alleged mastermind of the 2017 Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scheme, one of the most public cheating scandals in baseball history, did have its advantages.

“We ended up kind of building a gym in our garage,” Cora said. “I became a good cook and a good pre-K teacher. I mean, amazing. Primary colors, secondary colors, the kits with the English, amazing. But we ended up buying one of those bikes, we got the rowing machine, we got a treadmill.”

Sounds like a decent way to spend a year.

“It was great for (my family), it was great for me, but I was there for the wrong reasons,” he said. “I’m not proud of that. I want to make sure that everyone knows, this situation is part of who I am. For the rest of my career, as a man, I have to deal with it. I don’t want people to make it seem like it’s a great comeback story.”

Cora acknowledged that there are many throughout the game of baseball who no longer want anything to do with him.

The hard part for baseball fans, even for Red Sox fans, is that Cora is unquestionably a good manager of the clubhouse, a wise in-game decision-maker and an inspiring leader. He’s someone that is generally a great public figure for the game of baseball.

And yet he’s the same guy who looked fair play in the eyes and spat at it during the entire 2017 season, his first as a big league coach.

His 2018 team was also found guilty of cheating, albeit in a different way, and albeit without Cora getting any of the blame from the commissioner’s office. Instead, it was a video coordinator and advance scout, J.T. Watkins, who took the entirety of the fall.

Asked about Watkins’ fate, Cora said only that he would be better at dealing with the grey areas of the rulebook going forward.

It’s fair to wonder if Cora actually learned his lesson or if one year off to spend time with his family, get comfortable in the kitchen and lose some weight on a rowing machine is actually enough of a deterrent to keep cheating out of the game in the future.

MLB is all-in on trying to limit sign-stealing, and there will surely need to be a revolution in the game as technology continues to get more advanced. But public trust in the game is low. World Series ratings this year were the lowest in history. It’s the only big-four sport in America that went the entire 2020 regular season without gate receipts.

And watching Cora get his job back less than a year after being suspended will undoubtedly rub some the wrong way.

Still, every American League East manager reached out to him to welcome him back, he said.

“A lot of people stayed with me through the process, through the down times, but some of them decided to look the other way,” Cora said.

Another question was presented: “You talked a lot while you managed the Red Sox the first time about the importance of paying attention to details and playing the game the right way. Do you think you knew what you were doing in 2017 was wrong? Or did it take you getting caught and very publicly disciplined to understand that?”

Cora chose not to answer it.

“Honestly, I can only speak how I felt this year,” he said. “I don’t want to get into details about what happened in ’17, but it’s a tough lesson. Like I said, all I can do right now is apologize and get better and move forward.”

But usually those who made a mistake don’t get to decide when it’s time to move forward. Rather, it’s those on the receiving end of the mistake; fans, employees, anyone who played vs. the 2017 Astros, etc.

A few questions later, Cora was asked what stopped him from taking the trash-can-banging scheme from the ’17 Astros to the ’18 Red Sox.

“I didn’t feel like we needed to do something like that, honestly,” Cora said. “I know people will not believe me in that sense. Why not bring it here if it was that effective? I don’t know. I just decided in that offseason not to bring it here. … I think at that point, people were starting to talk about what was going on around the league. It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth it.”

It’s not because he learned his lesson. It’s not because cheating that way was wrong. It’s not because he soiled the integrity of the game.

Instead, he chose not to cheat as extensively in Boston in 2018 because he thought the risk was not worth the reward.

It was a bit too cavalier for a manager that acknowledged he won’t get a second chance if he gets caught cheating again.

“If I fail at this, I’m out of the game,” he said.

Other than that, on Tuesday afternoon Cora seemed like the same confident guy he’s always been.

Maybe that’s just what the Red Sox wanted.

Alex Cora considers options for next Red Sox bench coach, doesn’t rule out Ron Roenicke

Steve Hewitt

Now that Alex Cora has been reintroduced as the Red Sox’ manager, his work begins. Part of that starts with finding his next bench coach.

Cora said Tuesday that he’s had initial conversations with chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and general manager Brian O’Halloran about the role, and they’ll have further discussions this week. Ron Roenicke, who was Cora’s bench coach for his first two seasons as manager in 2018 and 2019, is gone after he served as the Red Sox’ manager this season, and Cora has a few people in mind.

“I’m going to float some names. They’re going to float some names,” Cora said of his meeting with Bloom and O’Halloran. “Kind of the same process that we did with Ron. For experience, everybody was like, ‘He’s so experienced.’ I’ve only managed in the big leagues for two years and been a bench coach for one. I’ve been on the bench for three. I still need help in that department. It’s not like I know everything, I’ve got the system down. I still need help. We’re going to go over names. We’re going to pick the right guy.”

Cora didn’t rule out the possibility that Roenicke could return as his bench coach. Roenicke said on the last day of the season, after he and the Red Sox parted ways, that Cora should manage again, and even endorsed Cora for the job, he said in an interview with MassLive.com last week. Roenicke didn’t comment to MassLive about if he could return as bench coach, but Cora left the door open on Tuesday.

“We’ll talk about it,” Cora said. “I don’t want to go into specifics in the bench-coaching job. He’s a person I really appreciate. He put me in a great spot a few years ago. It’s a guy that we respect as a baseball man. We’ll have conversations about it and we’ll go from there.”

Cora also needs to find a bullpen coach after Craig Bjornson’s contract wasn’t renewed for 2021. Those are the only two vacancies on Cora’s coaching staff, which the manager is excited about.

“One thing for sure – we’re going to have a great all-around coaching staff,” Cora said. “I feel pretty confident that we are ready to take the next step in that department and we’re going to be better than in ’18 and obviously ’19. Obviously in ’19, we lacked a few things, starting with the leader, with myself. There were a few things that I saw throughout the season this year with different teams that I would love to apply here with the Red Sox.”

Red Sox ownership backs Chaim Bloom’s decision to rehire Alex Cora

Steve Hewitt

As Chaim Bloom was on his way to his in-person meeting with Alex Cora to discuss his potential return as Red Sox manager, there was a lot on the chief baseball officer’s mind.

Most of all, Bloom knew a hard conversation needed to be had regarding the fallout from Cora’s involvement in the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal that cost Cora his job and a season-long suspension. It weighed heavily on Bloom, who understood he had to get all the answers he needed in order to make a fair judgment on if he should rehire him.

“As we were heading to the meeting, I was really telling myself you need to make sure you get every question answered that’s on your mind,” Bloom recalled. “That you ask everything you need to ask, again not just for determining his fit as a manager, but also because this was a big deal, what happened. It was an event that took its toll on all of us.”

Among other things, one thing was clear: This was Bloom’s decision, and his alone.

When the Red Sox let Ron Roenicke go and opened their managerial search, Sam Kennedy made a point to say the decision would come from Bloom, and ownership wouldn’t step in the way. And as the club on Tuesday recounted the process that led them to ultimately rehiring Cora, it seems as though that’s exactly what happened.

In late September, Bloom and general manager Brian O’Halloran met with Kennedy and the ownership group of John Henry and Tom Werner to discuss the process of hiring the next manager. One thing was made pointedly clear: Bloom and his baseball operations team would be making the final call.

“We brought Chaim here to run the department and make baseball operations decisions,” Kennedy said. “That is my philosophy. John Henry and Tom Werner have had more success than any Major League Baseball owners have had over the last 20 years and I think that philosophy has served them well. …

“Did we let him know how we felt about Alex? Absolutely. We were honest and genuine and direct that we would be supportive of the concept of Alex coming back if he and his teammates felt that was the right thing for the Boston Red Sox, but that was their decision to make.”

Of course, Kennedy and ownership weren’t mad about the outcome. Despite his transgressions with the Astros, Cora is still extremely popular and a talented manager who delivered the Red Sox possibly their greatest season in franchise history in 2018. And though they claim that they didn’t impact the final decision, they had certainly moved on from Cora’s involvement in the sign-stealing scandal enough to approve his return less than 10 months later.

“It would be disingenuous to say that John Henry and Tom Werner and (part owner) Mike Gordon, myself were not supporters,” Kennedy clarified. “We were very disappointed in what happened, but it would be disingenuous to say we were not supportive or honest about how we felt about Alex. I can tell you that Chaim did an outstanding job of again, running a process, bringing in highly qualified candidates and ultimately he made the decision. …

“We brought in Chaim for a reason, and he and BOH and (assistant GMs Raquel Ferreira) and Eddie (Romero) and Zack (Scott) ran this process and did a great job running the process and keeping me and John and Tom and Mike informed throughout. We were very pleased with the outcome.”

Even though he was the one making the call, it still seems as though Bloom wanted a blessing from ownership on Cora. This was a big decision with big implications for the organization as a whole, and he thought it was appropriate that they have a say in the process.

“I’m not sure anybody is going to believe me, but I’ll tell you the truth anyway: I think first and foremost, it was important that they play a role,” Bloom said. “They are responsible for the entire organization. … Not only do I think that was appropriate, I think it was necessary really to know how they felt. And they also made sure that I know if I or baseball ops felt differently, that was OK, too. But I think that’s important just given how big this decision was for the organization, and how the people who are responsible for the organization would feel. …

“But from that point on, obviously we kept them looped in on who we were interviewing, what stage of the process we were at, but they were emphatic that it was very important that this be a baseball operations decision and they would fully back whatever decision we came to.”

In the end, that’s what happened. Even Cora said he didn’t talk to anyone in the ownership group until Tuesday just prior to his press conference. The manager said he’s glad they let Bloom lead the process and grateful to have the faith from everyone above him.

“They’ve been very supportive. They all understand that we make mistakes,” Cora said. “It’s what I’m going to do from now on to avoid those mistakes and put this organization where it should be. I do believe that we have the group to do it. We have the vision. Of course it starts up there, with John, Linda, Mike, Tom and Sam to trust me, to trust Chaim to make this decision.

“As a group, we’re going to be fine. I get why people are supportive now. I know that they are also disappointed in what happened. I’m not going to hide it. I understand all of that stuff. We’re in a great place as an organization and now it’s time to move forward.”

Sam Kennedy: Red Sox ‘very confident’ fans will return to Fenway Park in 2021

Steve Hewitt

If everything goes according to plan, the Red Sox expect to have fans back at Fenway Park in some form next season.

“We feel very confident that we should be in a position to welcome fans back next season in likely a socially-distanced environment to start,” Red Sox president Sam Kennedy said on Tuesday.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Red Sox did not host fans at Fenway during the shortened 2020 season, but Kennedy has hope that circumstances will change by the time Opening Day comes on April 1.

The team had presented a plan to the state of Massachusetts for fans to return to a socially-distanced Fenway in September, but were denied. On Monday, Gillette Stadium announced that it would not host fans for Patriots or Revolution games through the end of the 2020 season.

But with promising news Monday about a COVID-19 vaccine being produced by Pfizer, and after seeing Major League Baseball host socially-distanced fans during last month’s playoffs and World Series, as well as other sports around the world doing the same, Kennedy is optimistic that there will be some sense of normalcy next season at Fenway.

“We feel that we have a plan that we presented to the state of Massachusetts that will work,” Kennedy said. “We felt that we were ready in September, we certainly respect and understand the trajectory of the virus will determine this, not us, but we saw the World Series take place and the playoffs take place with fans in a socially-distanced environment. We’ve seen NFL stadiums around the country have fans in a socially- distanced environment. We’ve seen international soccer matches with fans in a socially-distanced environment. …

“So we’re hopeful that in 2021, we’ll be in a position to do that. But we also understand if the virus takes a turn and we’re not in a position to do that. I hope and pray that we are. There’s been such a profound impact on our industry, on our business, on the people that work in our industry, and so I’m hopeful that we can get back to some sense of normalcy and recovery in 2021 and beyond.”

* The Providence Journal

Red Sox welcome back Alex Cora

Bill Koch

Alex Cora’s second chance started on Tuesday afternoon at Fenway Park, his reintroduction press conference as Red Sox manager.

The 45-year-old sat on a stool near home plate in front of an official club backdrop. Cora was socially distanced from Boston president and CEO Sam Kennedy, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and general manager Brian O’Halloran while taking questions virtually.

It was far from normal. Nothing has been in 2020, and Red Sox fans had a head start in the sports world two months before the COVID-19 pandemic claimed our attention in a far more serious and all-consuming manner. Cora and the franchise mutually parted ways in January following a suspension imposed by Major League Baseball, punishment for his central role in an electronic sign-stealing scandal as bench coach for the Astros during their 2017 championship season.

“It’s not back to normal,” Cora said. “It will never get back to normal. I know that. But as a manager, it’s back to normal. As a person, I have a lot of work to do.

“I disappointed a lot of people. We’ll be talking about this in a month, four months, in years to come. I’ve got to deal with it. But as a manager, it feels close to it.”

Boston’s front office reportedly interviewed nine candidates and cut down to five finalists. Cora was among them and met in person with Bloom and O’Halloran at his Puerto Rico home. The Red Sox ultimately decided that, after 10 months and a shortened 60-game season, the exile was a sufficient period for Cora to spend outside the spotlight.

“I think you saw today how remorseful he is about what happened and how appreciative he is of the opportunity to come back,” Kennedy said. “I am personally a big believer in second chances and I’m very excited Alex is going to have a second chance with us.”

Cora led Boston to a franchise-record 108 wins and their fourth championship this century during his storybook 2018 debut. It was no secret he was the favorite of ownership and the clubhouse to make a triumphant return, but Bloom and his baseball operations staff were given control of the managerial search after declining to exercise Ron Roenicke’s club option for 2021. Bloom met with owner John Henry, chairman Tom Werner and Kennedy among others prior to compiling his list of potential candidates.

“We kept them looped in where we stood, who we were interviewing, what stage of the process we were at,” Bloom said. “They were emphatic that it was very important this be a baseball operations decision. They would totally back whatever decision we came to.”

Cora was prohibited to have any contact with club officials throughout his suspension. Bloom sent him a text message and followed with a phone call soon after the Dodgers finished off the Rays in the World Series. That led to setting a date for an extended interview, as Bloom and O’Halloran made a private flight on Henry’s chartered jet.

“As we were headed to the meeting, I was really telling myself, ‘You need to make sure you get every question answered that’s on your mind — that you ask everything you need to ask,’” Bloom said. “Not just for determining his fit as a manager, but because this is a big deal what happened.

“It took its toll on all of us. Obviously, Alex has described that with respect to himself, but we all went through something. There was a lot to process.”

Cora had retreated to the embrace of his family and a garage he converted into a home gym. His penance included regular conversations with his long-time girlfriend, Angelica Feliciano, his teenage daughter, Camila, and his toddler twin sons, Xander and Isander. Cora also spoke with his mother, Iris, and his brother, Joey, while reflecting upon the professional shame he had visited upon them.

“A lot of people were saying, ‘OK, you spent time with your family — that's good,’” Cora said. “It was great for them. It was great for me. But I was there for the wrong reasons. I’m not proud of that.

“I want to make sure everybody knows this situation is part of who I am for the rest of my career. As a man, I have to deal with it. I don’t want people to make it seem like it’s a great comeback story. I don’t want that.”

Cora inherited a two-time American League East winner when he was introduced in November 2017. This time he takes over a club that just suffered through its fourth season in the divisional basement since 2012. Boston went 24-36 and posted the worst earned-run average in franchise history.

“As a leader, as a person who enjoys the game and loves to manage, I put this organization in a tough spot,” Cora said. “For that, I’m sorry.

“To baseball, the baseball fans, I’m here. I was humbled by this whole situation.”

* MassLive.com

Red Sox prospect Jacob Wallace of Methuen throws upper 90s fastball and is ‘through-the-moon excited’ about trade to Boston

Christopher Smith

Michael and Susan Wallace of Methuen spend the baseball season attending as many games as possible around the Merrimack Valley. They go watch Methuen High, other local high school programs and the Lowell Spinners, the Red Sox’s Short Season affiliate.

Michael and Susan invited their son Jacob Wallace to tag along for Lowell’s semifinal postseason game against Batavia on Sept. 5, 2019.

Jacob Wallace, a Methuen High graduate, had just returned home from Idaho. He had pitched in a game for the Rockies' Short Season affiliate, the Boise Hawks, just four days earlier, capping off a dominant first season in pro ball. The 2019 third-round draft pick out of UConn posted a 1.29 ERA (three earned runs, 21 innings) and 0.86 WHIP in 22 relief outings.

Little did he know as he sat there at Lowell’s LeLacheur Park — watching Red Sox highly-touted prospect Jay Groome start and Yusniel Padron-Artiles strike out 12 straight (14 overall) in relief — he was receiving a sneak preview of his soon-to-be teammates.

“It turns out I’m traded (to the Red Sox)," Wallace told MassLive.com during a phone interview Monday from the Red Sox’s fall instructional camp at JetBlue Park in Fort Myers, Fla. “And about five, 10 guys who are down here were on that team.”

The Red Sox acquired Wallace from the Rockies on Sept 18 of this year. He was the player to be named later from the Kevin Pillar trade Aug. 31. The 6-foot-1 righty is participating in Boston’s six-week fall instructional camp that wraps up this week.

The 22-year-old struck out 29, walked nine and allowed only nine hits in his 21 innings at Boise during 2019. He converted 12-of-13 save opportunities. He held the opposition to a .129 batting average against.

The Red Sox will develop him as a high-leverage reliever. His fastball sits at 94-98 mph. He throws a hard slider. He also is working on a changeup.

Fall instructional camp has been a perfect opportunity for him to meet his new teammates and coaches and connect with front office members.

“It’s kind of just a time to work on your own stuff and they’re there to help guide you,” Wallace said. “Especially for me and few other of the new guys, they’re not going to change too much right now because this is their first few looks at us at least hands-on wise. But they’re gathering data. And they’re going over video themselves and talking about different things that they’d like to and/or can see in the future as changes."

In mid-September, Wallace had received text messages from his then-Rockies minor league teammates about Colorado’s fast-approaching fall instructional camp in Arizona.

“They were all leaving the next week and I hadn’t heard anything,” Wallace said. “So I was just like, ‘OK, I’ll give it some time and I’ll wait. And then I got a call from an unknown number from Denver, Colorado. I was like, ‘OK. This is the call. This is when they tell me I’m going to instructs.”

He instead was surprised to hear Rockies GM Jeff Bridich and assistant GM of player development Zach Wilson on the other end of the phone.

“I’m like, ‘OK, this is a little different,’" Wallace recalled.

Bridich and Wilson informed Wallace about the trade to Boston. The Red Sox and Rockies already had agreed on Wallace as the player to be named later weeks earlier. But both sides had to wait to make the announcement because Wallace wasn’t a member of Colorado’s 60-player pool.

“I was through-the-moon excited as anyone would be if their childhood team trades for them,” he said. “It was pretty exciting. But it was also a little bittersweet leaving my teammates and the guys I had built relationships with.”

He immediately called his mom.

“I asked her if she was sitting down,” Wallace said. “And then my dad had pulled in the driveway five seconds after I finished up with her. And I ran outside and told him. He was on the phone with my grandma. So I got to talk to her a little bit and tell her."

His mother is a stat expert.

“As soon as I had a love for the game, they started really diving in,” he said about his parents. "My mom’s read up on everything and knows all the sabermetrics stats. She says, ‘Well, your FIP is this and your percentage is this.’ And I’m just like, ‘Mom, I don’t even know what that means.’

“She’ll break it down as if she’s the one that came up with the numbers and the statistics,” Wallace added. “It’s impressive. It’s unbelievable support from both of them. From my whole family honestly, but especially from them. And that’s where I get the love and the competitive spirit.”

He said his parents might even enjoy watching baseball more than him.

“They went to all my high school games three years after I’m out of there and at UConn,” he said.

His parents still try to make it to most Methuen baseball home game and some road games.

“They even go to other high schools in our conference,” he said. “They go to some Lawrence games or some Lowell games. Whatever it may be. They just love baseball.”

His parents also enjoy attending multiple Lowell Spinners games each year.

“They had the Lowell Spinners championship banner hanging outside,” he said.

Per his MLB Pipeline scouting report, "Wallace goes after hitters aggressively with a power two-pitch mix. His fastball sits 96-97 mph and he couples it with an absolutely nasty slider that’s a true out pitch. He creates good deception with the pitch, throwing his slider off the same plane as his fastballs with both sweep and depth to it, leading hitters to wave at it.

“There is effort in Wallace’s delivery, but that also adds to the deception and his arm works with good ease, so there isn’t real concern about it being too violent. He didn’t seem tired at the end of a long college season despite a fair amount of work during his pro debut, a good sign for the future. He has the right mentality for the back end of a bullpen, something that could keep happening assuming he continues to find the strike zone consistently enough.”

Wallace said about his fastball and slider combination,, “They play off each other well."

He also is working on a changeup.

“Just to broaden the repertoire a little bit,” Wallace said. “And get another look, a different pitch moving a different way. So it’s something I’m working on.”

He worked on the changeup during bullpen sessions at Short Season Boise in 2019. He threw it about 10 times his junior year at UConn, then about seven times in games at Boise.

“I was looking forward to using it this year because I had worked on it a lot over the course of spring training and my time out in Arizona prior to when the season got canceled," he said. “But this next year hopefully it’s going well and I’m using it in games more often.”

Wallace spent last offseason and the coronavirus shutdown in Methuen. He worked out at Cressey Sports Performance in Hudson and Batter Up in Methuen. He also threw to Brett Blackwell, a 2018 Methuen High graduate who is a catcher at Worcester State.

He’s looking forward to spring training and potentially receiving advice there from Red Sox alumni, including Pedro Martinez who often works with young pitchers during camp.

“The greatest pitcher of all time in my eyes,” Wallace said about Martinez who Boston acquired in a trade with Montreal nine months before Wallace was born.

“I’ve watched videos and film and clips and all that (of Martinez) on YouTube," Wallace said. "I mean, I didn’t really get too much time watching him with the Red Sox but I’ve gone back and watched pretty much all there is to watch on him.”

He studied the video. He also went back to watch video of other great pitchers, including Yankees legendary closer Mariano Rivera.

“Being a Boston and New England sports fan, it’s a religion up there,” he said. “So being a part of the Boston Red Sox organization now is unbelievable. I still get chills every time I say it. Putting on a Boston Red Sox hat, wearing the colors, doing all that, it’s crazy.”

Wallace attended his first Red Sox game at Fenway Park when he was about 4 or 5 years old.

“When the Red Sox were on, I was glued to the TV as a kid," he said.

Wallace sat between 84-86 mph and topped out at about 88 mph at Methuen High. He never reached 90 mph until college. His velocity gradually increased at UConn.

“I credit a lot of it to lifting,” he said. “I hadn’t lifted in high school. And as soon as I got to college I was lifting four days a week. ... I was definitely behind all the other recruits, all the other freshmen and so I knew I needed to step it up in that area in order to continue to compete with those guys and fight for a spot.”

He sat at 90-92 mph as a freshman. He reached 95 mph as a sophomore.

Like most young pitchers, he still needs to work on his command. His control improved at UConn. He averaged 2.1 walks per nine innings as a junior, down from 5.3 walks per nine innings during his freshman year.

“You’re command can always get better no matter who you are," he said. "And I definitely believe that’s one of the big things I can work on. It can always get better. Command, control, all of that with every pitch. And it’s something I felt like I really progressed in on my years at UConn. Just being able to feel the little movements and changes I need to make. The adjustments that I needed to make on the mound. Our pitching coach at UConn really harped on that all the time — being able to make that in-game adjustments, that between-pitch adjustment you need. And being able to feel that and make the necessary changes to throw a better pitch on the next one. And that’s something I’ve definitely gotten better at, but for sure still need to work on.”

Minor League Odds and ends ...

Josh Tobias, who the Boston Red Sox acquired for Clay Buchholz, announced his retired and accepted a job as a professional scout in the organization. ...

Former Red Sox prospect Kyri Washington also accepted a pro scout position with Boston after retiring at 25 because of three major injuries. ...

Nov. 20 marks the deadline for when Rule 5 Draft eligible players must be added to the 40-man roster. The Red Sox are expected to protect at least six Rule 5 Draft eligible minor leaguers, Jay Groome, Bryan Mata, Hudson Potts, Connor Seabold, Connor Wong and Jeisson Rosario. So at least six more roster spots will need to be opened on the 40-man roster. Mata is the top pitching prospect in the organization. Groome, the 12th overall pick in the 2016 MLB Draft, is throwing well after Tommy John surgery in 2018. Potts and Rosario were acquired from the Padres for Mitch Moreland. The Sox acquired Seabold with Nick Pivetta for Brandon Workman and Heath Hembree. Boston acquired Wong in the Mookie Betts trade with the Dodgers on Feb 10.

Boston Red Sox bring back J.T. Watkins, video staffer who was suspended for sign stealing, as professional scout (report)

Chris Cotillo

J.T. Watkins, the former Red Sox video replay coordinator who was suspended for the 2020 season after being implicated in Major League Baseball’s investigation into sign-stealing by the club in 2018, is back in an active role with the organization. According to Alex Speier of the Boston Globe, Watkins is now a pro scout for the Red Sox, who never fired him after the completion of the investigation.

Watkins, 31, is a West Point graduate and former minor-league catcher who has worked for the club in a front office capacity since 2017. From 2017 to 2019, Watkins traveled with the club and was in uniform, working alongside video coordinator Billy Broadbent and advance scouting manager Steve Langone on the team’s video staff. When Alex Cora was hired as manager in 2018, he overhauled the advance scouting department, taking Langone off the road and having the three-man crew travel with the Red Sox throughout the season.

In April, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred ruled that Watkins -- on an episodic basis -- used video feeds to view signs and revise his scouting reports during games in 2018, which is a violation of baseball’s rules. Manfred suspended Watkins without pay for the 2020 season and stripped the Red Sox of their second- round pick in this year’s draft.

“The issue in this case stems from the fact that Watkins—the employee responsible for decoding an opponent’s signs prior to and following the game—also was the person stationed in the replay room during the game to advise the Manager on whether to challenge a play on the field,” Manfred wrote at the time.

Manfred also ruled that Watkins could not serve as the Sox' replay room operator in 2021, so he was not allowed to return to his old role, even with Cora being re-hired as manager late last week. According to Speier, Watkins will also do advance scouting work for the Caguas Criollos, the Puerto Rican Winter League team for which Cora is a senior advisor and Red Sox coach Ramon Vazquez is a senior advisor.

On Tuesday, Cora said he would focus on avoiding the “gray areas” when it came to sign-stealing in his second stint as manager. The league’s investigation into the Red Sox found that Cora, who was suspended for a year after playing a key role in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal while bench coach in 2017, had not done anything against the rules while managing the Red Sox.

Boston Red Sox’s Chaim Bloom made ultimate call to bring back Alex Cora, but owners weren’t shy about affinity for manager

Chris Cotillo

Shortly after the Red Sox parted ways with Ron Roenicke in September, the team’s top decision-makers had a meeting to discuss how they’d go about their second managerial search in a 10-month span. During that get-together, the team’s ownership group reaffirmed something team president and CEO Sam Kennedy had said publicly -- that the ultimate decision on the next manager would be made by chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and the baseball operations staff.

That proclamation was originally met with skepticism, as team owners John Henry and Tom Werner have meddled in managerial searches in the past (see 2012) and were known to have a soft spot for Alex Cora, the former manager who was thought to be the top candidate. Even though the search resulted in a reunion with Cora, those involved swear Bloom was the one who made the final call.

“We made it very clear at that meeting how we felt about the process, that it was Chaim and (general manager Brian O’Halloran) and the baseball department’s decision,” Kennedy said Tuesday. “We brought Chaim here to run the department and make baseball operations decisions. That is my philosophy.”

At first, Bloom and his staff compiled a list of potential candidates, vetting names before ultimately settling on an interview list of at least nine candidates. Once the World Series ended and Cora’s one-year suspension for sign-stealing expired, Bloom reached out to Cora, knowing he wanted to have some sort of conversation with the former manager even if it wouldn’t lead to a reunion. Though Cora had forged strong relationships with all of Bloom’s subordinates during his two years in Boston, he had only worked with Bloom for a few months before leaving the organization in disgrace in January. There were things left unsaid by the two men, and they couldn’t speak in an official capacity during Cora’s season-long ban.

The initial conversation between Bloom and Cora led to further talks, and Cora was surprised that he was advancing through the process. On Oct. 30, Bloom and O’Halloran took a private plane to visit Cora in Puerto Rico in what seems like it was a turning point in the process.

On Cora’s home island, the trio had a series of emotional conversations that ultimately led to a partnership. On the way to the meeting, Bloom said, he tried to stay in the moment and make sure his decision wasn’t clouded by outside noise.

“I was really telling myself, ‘You need to make sure you get every question answered that’s on your mind. You need to ask everything you need to ask,’” Bloom said. “Not just for determining his fit as a manager, but because this is a big deal, what happened. It’s an event that took its toll on all of us.

“We had a lot of different things to work through,” he added. “We were able to have some really intense conversations. Obviously, everything happened quickly within the week-plus after the World Series. We got to work through a lot of things and it was a question of trying to get as much information as I could to get Alex in full, the whole person, good and bad.”

Even if Henry, Werner and Kennedy weren’t constantly in Bloom’s ear pushing Cora, the group wasn’t shy about their affinity for the man who helped lead the Red Sox to a World Series title just two years ago. The fact Bloom and O’Halloran took Henry’s private plane to Puerto Rico was a sure sign that the group favored Cora. So were the endorsements -- both solicited and unsolicited -- from front office members, coaches and players.

“Did we let him know how we felt about Alex? Absolutely,” Kennedy said. "We were honest and genuine and direct that we would be supportive of the concept of Alex coming back if he and his teammates felt that was the right thing for the Boston Red Sox. That was their decision to make.

“It would be disingenuous to say John Henry, Tom Werner, (part owner) Mike Gordon and myself were not supporters,” Kennedy continued. “We were very disappointed in what happened, but it would be disingenuous to not say how we felt about Alex. I can tell you that Chaim did an outstanding job of running the process, bringing in highly qualified candidates and ultimately, he made the decision.”

Kennedy and Bloom speak at least once a day, so the chief baseball officer kept his boss informed on the process at each turn. Henry and Werner were obviously involved to some degree, though Bloom says the group was “emphatic” that the decision would come from baseball operations, pledging to fully support whatever decision he made.

Bloom knows that some people don’t believe the team’s version of events, but he stands by it. In the end, he said, a decision as important as a managerial hire wouldn’t be made with input from Henry and Werner.

“I’ve seen some of the stuff out there and I’m not sure anybody’s going to believe me, but I’ll tell you the truth anyway,” Bloom said, laughing. "I think first and foremost, it was important that they play a role. They’re responsible for the entire organization. There’s a lot of different opinions out there on Alex and what he did and what that should mean for any organization that might think about employing him. It’s obviously important, if they’re responsible for the organization, for me to know how they felt and to understand that if it was something baseball operations saw fit to do, they’d support.

“If that weren’t the case, it would have been a very different process,” he said. “Not only do I think it was appropriate, but I think it was necessary to know how they felt. They also made sure that I knew that if I, or baseball operations, felt differently, then that was okay, too.”

Late Thursday, Bloom called each member of the ownership group individually to inform them that he preferred Cora. There was no grand presentation of the candidate or second-guessing at that point -- instead, just a satisfactory outcome for those at all levels of the organization.

“We were very, very impressed with the process (the front office) ran. It was very thorough,” Kennedy said. “There were some great candidates. But I’m obviously extremely pleased that Alex Cora is back home here with the Red Sox.”

Alex Cora’s ability to balance feel with analytics is why he’s the right fit for Red Sox, Chaim Bloom

Matt Vautour

The first conversation Alex Cora and Chaim Bloom had after the former Red Sox manager’s one-year suspension ended was the same one baseball fans around the country were having.

Before planning to meet again more extensively, Cora and the Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer talked about Game 6 of the World Series and all the resulting analytics vs. baseball-feel debates that followed. Like everyone who watched the game they discussed Tampa Bay manager Kevin Cash’s decision to remove a dominant Blake Snell from the game and the Dodgers success against the pitchers who followed.

The debate at face value is interesting because it may have decided the World Series. But it’s sparked an underlying concern for Red Sox fans. They noted Bloom’s analytics background and that he’d spent all of his formative years working for the Rays. Before a manager had even been hired, it was fair to wonder if similar moves would be happening at Fenway Park.

Cora’s answer, when asked about it, was both interesting and solid evidence why he remains the right fit for the Red Sox.

He described his own decision to leave Eduardo Rodriguez in to face Yasiel Puig in Game 4 of the 2018 World Series in the sixth inning with the Dodgers leading 1-0. Puig hit a three-run home run. Cora made his call based on pregame data from the team’s analytics staff. Cora said Puig’s home run wasn’t evidence that the data was wrong. Simply that he hadn’t applied it correctly in the moment.

“I love the information and I love to go into a game prepared the best I can,” Cora said. “After the fact, I said ‘this is not the same Eduardo that our metrics says,’ you know. Eduardo hasn’t started a game since, what, six weeks before that?

“I don’t think there’s a script,” Cora continued. “I feel like managers now have more information and then you prepare your game based on that information and obviously, with the scouting reports and what you feel makes sense. We prepare lineups before games. We prepare matchups before games and we do it.”

Cora is neither afraid of the information nor beholden to it. He’s willing to risk mistakes trusting his instinct or trusting his info and take responsibility for them and learn from them. In the 2018 postseason, nearly every move Cora made worked. In 2019 a lot of them didn’t but Cora always had a reason behind his decision and was unafraid to explain them.

“If you’re not prepared to use the information and digest it in the right way I don’t think you’re going to be successful in this game,” Cora said. “We’re going to keep getting information and getting better and make decisions based on the right information ... It’s a partnership. They’re going to provide information. I’m going to manage the dugout, manage the clubhouse, manage the game. Hopefully we can be successful."

Boston Red Sox’s Alex Cora: Alex Verdugo was ‘best player on the team, MVP' in 2020

Chris Cotillo

Even from his home in Puerto Rico, Red Sox manager Alex Cora found himself very impressed with outfielder Alex Verdugo’s first year in Boston.

Verdugo, who hit .308 with an .844 OPS in 53 games this season, was acquired from the Dodgers on Feb. 10 -- nearly one month after Cora and the Red Sox mutually parted ways after a league investigation revealed Cora was a key player in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal back in 2017. On the day he was re- introduced as Boston’s manager after being re-hired Friday, Cora said he’s looking forward to working with Verdugo, who emerged as one of the Sox' brightest young stars in 2020.

“Alex is a good player,” Cora said. “I saw him with the Dodgers, the previous year, a guy that brings a lot of energy to the equation on a daily basis. He can hit lefties, he can hit righties. I think he settled in the lineup. Defensively, he did an outstanding job for the team. For everything that is going on as far as like n fans and the protocols and how quote-on-quote uncomfortable it was for a team that didn’t play well, I do believe he was the best player on the team, the MVP.”

During his first stint as manager, Cora saw Verdugo play in-person when the Dodgers came to town for a three-game series in July 2019. As he spent the 2020 season at home in Puerto Rico while serving a one- year suspension, Cora watched “as many games” as he could, keeping a close eye on a struggling Red Sox team for which Verdugo was one of the few bright spots.

Verdugo’s manager for his first year in Boston was Ron Roenicke, who was let go on the final day of the season. Come spring training, Cora will get his first chance to work with the fiery 24-year-old.

“I actually spoke to him a few days ago,” Cora said. “What I saw is what I heard on the phone. Looking forward to working with him and making him a better player.”

Martin Perez leaving Boston Red Sox as free agent? Lefty in talks with clubs, hints at possible imminent signing on Twitter

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox could be coming close to losing their first key free agent of the 2020 offseason.

Left-hander Martin Perez is drawing strong interest and is in serious negotiations with at least one club, an industry source said Tuesday night. Perez hinted at the possibility of a signing potentially being imminent on Twitter, telling his followers he “might tell (them) something new very soon" earlier in the evening.

If Perez is indeed close to inking a contract, the Red Sox do not appear to be the favorite to sign him. Earlier this month, Boston declined its $6.85 million club option over the left-hander, likely in an attempt to pursue cheaper options on the free-agent market.

Before declining the option, the Red Sox engaged Perez about possibly re-signing for a lower guaranteed total, but the sides were far apart. Boston can still re-sign Perez if the sides can find common ground on a contract, but the lack of headway before the deadline for an option decision suggests that the Sox aren’t rushing to get a new deal done.

Perez, who turns 30 in April, led the Red Sox with 12 starts in 2020. He went 3-5 with a 4.50 ERA, 4.88 FIP, 1.34 WHIP and .240 opponent batting average. Taking away his first and last starts (two duds at home against the Orioles), Perez had a 3.57 ERA in 53 innings over 10 outings.

Even though there were no fans at games this season, Perez quickly became a fan favorite in Boston. After his last start in late September, he pined for a return to the Red Sox.

“I want to be back next season,” Perez said. “I feel at home here.

“One thing I want to say to the fans is thank you for all of the support and all the good messages they’re sending to me to my Instagram and my Twitter,” he added. “It was amazing and I appreciate all the fans for the support. I know it’s not the way we were supposed to play but we’re just trying to do our best.”

Alex Cora: ‘hard to watch’ 2020 Boston Red Sox struggle but ‘I feel like we’re better than what they showed’

Christopher Smith

Alex Cora doesn’t know the exact number of 2020 Red Sox games he watched while serving his season- long suspension, but he certainly paid close attention to Boston and other MLB teams.

Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom re-hired Cora as manager nearly 10 months after letting him go for his involvement in the Astros' 2017 illegal sign-stealing scheme. The Red Sox reintroduced Cora at a press conference Tuesday.

“I watched a lot,” Cora said. “You’ve got Xander (Bogaerts). You’ve got Raffy (Devers). And you’ve got the organization that gave you a shot. You know how I feel about this city and the organization. And I’m a baseball fan."

The Red Sox went 24-36 during the shortened 2020 season in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. They finished with MLB’s fourth worst winning percentage (.400).

“As a fan — because that’s what I became during the summer — it was tough to watch,” Cora said. “As you know, I really care about the organization, the people who are running the organization and the players that were part of the team. And it was hard for me to watch them struggle the way they did. But we’ve got a lot of time to get better. We’re already talking about what we have to improve."

Cora thought the 2020 team was better than its performance.

“Don’t take it the wrong way, but I think we weren’t as good as we were in ’18. ’18 was the magical season, 108 (wins). That was unreal. I don’t think this team is as bad as last year. There’s something better. Honestly, the way they played at the end, it was a positive. Offensively, they brought in a few guys that did an outstanding job. Pitching-wise, (Tanner) Houck was amazing. (Nick) Pivetta, we know the upside. And then you see (Ryan) Brasier throwing the ball like the way he did in ’18."

Eduardo Rodriguez is expected to return in 2021 after missing the 2020 season because of myocarditis (inflammation of the heart), an after-effect of COVID-19. Ace Chris Sale is throwing again and expected to return at some point next year after undergoing Tommy John surgery in March.

“Overall, we should be a lot better," Cora said. “There’s some intriguing arms. There’s a few things we think we can do to put them in a better spot to maximize their talent. Eduardo is huge for us. And he didn’t pitch this year for the right reasons. And I’m glad he’s little-by-little working toward getting back to the training room and playing catch.”

Cora mentioned both Josh Taylor and Darwinzon Hernandez as “very important" relievers. Both started the 2020 season on the injured list because of COVID-19.

“When they were down right away, and Eduardo was down, it put the organization in a tough spot,” Cora said. “I feel like we’re better than what they showed last year. And we still have work to do.”

Cora said he watched other teams “for the right reasons” to learn things.

“I watched the Yankees a lot. I watched the Rays ... because of what they bring to the table. I watched Cleveland a lot. I watched (Trevor) Bauer whenever he pitched. That was fun to watch. By the time the Red Sox were done at 11:15, I could see Mookie and his second at-bat in LA. So that was my summer. I kind of followed my guys.”

He said he realized areas that the Red Sox need to improve by watching these other clubs.

“As a manager, as a coaching staff, I think spring training’s going to be a lot different than ’18, ’19,” Cora said. “I do believe we have to catch up with speed of the game."

Cora pointed to the speed and athleticism of the Padres, Rays and Dodgers.

"How fast the game is, we have to catch up with that,” Cora said. "And it starts in the offseason obviously with the workouts. And then when we get to spring training, it’s not going to be what you saw in ’18, ’19. ... I think the drills are going to be more dynamic. It’s going to be more game-time stuff. And I think they’re going to have fun doing that. And if they do that, and we catch up with the speed of the division, and the other teams, we’re going to be in a good spot.”

He said the Red Sox need to play better at home. They also must play better against the Yankees and Rays, he stressed.

“I’m not here to say our goal is to win the World Series or bust. But one thing for sure, play better or else," Cora said.

Alex Cora apologizes to Boston Red Sox, fans: ‘This situation is part of who I am for the rest of my career’

Christopher Smith

Alex Cora delivered an apology to both the Red Sox organization and baseball fans during his opening remarks at his re-introductory press conference Tuesday.

Chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom re-hired Cora as manager nearly 10 months after letting him go for his involvement in the Astros' 2017 illegal sign-stealing scheme.

“I want to make sure everyone knows that this situation is part of who I am for the rest of my career," Cora said. "As a man, I have to deal with it. I don’t want people to make it seem like it’s a great comeback story. I don’t want that. I’m actually going to use this bad experience to make people better, starting at home.”

He said that process already began when he returned home to Puerto Rico to be with his family after parting ways with Boston in January.

“I know there’s a lot of people I disappointed, and for that I’m sorry,” Cora said. “And also telling those people, 'Hey, I’m still Alex. I made a mistake. I still love the game. I still love what I do. And I promise you, from now on, I’m going to use this experience the right way. I’m not proud of it. I’m not happy about it. But we have to move on. I’m happy to be back home. This is the place I really enjoy to work.”

Cora said he enjoyed the time he spent at home with his family but was there for the wrong reasons.

“For that, I want to apologize,” he said. “I deserve what happened this year. It’s something that, I’m not proud of it.”

He said he put the Red Sox in a tough spot entering the 2020 season. Boston was without a manager just one month before spring training began.

“As a leader, as a person who enjoys the game and loves to manage, I put this organization in a tough spot. And for that I’m sorry,” Cora said.

“To the baseball fans, I’m here. I was humbled by this whole situation. I learned a lot throughout the year," he added.

He said he already has had conversations with some players about what he did. He understands he might receive backlash from fans on the road.

“If I didn’t feel prepared for what’s coming, I probably would have declined the phone call (with Bloom about the open position),” he said. “I know it’s going to be tough in certain places, but I understand.”

Boston Red Sox ‘very confident’ they will host fans at Fenway Park in 2021 on limited basis, Sam Kennedy says

Chris Cotillo

The Red Sox feel good about their chances to welcome fans back to Fenway Park on a limited basis in 2021, team president and CEO Sam Kennedy said Tuesday. Boston hosted all 30 of its home games with no fans in attendance in 2020.

“We feel very confident that we should be in a position to welcome fans back next season, likely in a socially distanced environment to start. The world was excited yesterday with the news coming out of Pfizer. We hope and pray it’s accurate and that we’ll be in a place with vaccines and therapeutics. We do feel, given our outdoor environment, that we have a plan we presented to the state of Massachusetts that will work.”

This week, Major League Baseball’s owners are planning to meet virtually to discuss the 2021 season and will likely talk about procedures for how to welcome fans back into stadiums across North America. No fans attended any regular season games this summer but Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, allowed 11,500 fans for both the NLCS and World Series in October.

In September, the Red Sox had a plan in place to host 7,000 fans (about 20% capacity) but did not receive the necessary approvals from local government officials. Earlier this week, Gillette Stadium announced it will not allow any fans to attend Patriots or Revolution games for the rest of the year.

Kennedy pointed to successful limited openings in the NFL and European soccer leagues as evidence that teams can welcome fans back in a safe way. The Red Sox, of course, stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket revenue if no fans attend games next year.

“We’re hopeful that in 2021, we’ll be in a position to do that,” Kennedy said. “We also understand, if the virus takes a turn, and we’re not in a position to do that. I hope and pray that we are. There has been such a profound impact on our industry, on our business, on the people that work in our industry. I’m hopeful we can get back to some sense of normalcy and recovery in 2021 and beyond.”

The Red Sox are scheduled to open the 2021 season at home on April 1 against the Orioles. At this point, MLB plans to play a 162-game schedule, but that still could be shortened.

“We’re very much looking forward to some sense of normalcy,” Kennedy said. “We were one of the only major sports not to come back in a bubble, which was very difficult to pull off, as everybody knows. We were able to do it and I’m confident in our ability to get back and do it again. We have to be incredibly diligent with respect to the health and safety protocols.”

Alex Cora thought Boston Red Sox return wouldn’t happen, knows he can’t cross line again; ‘If I fail at this, I’m out of the game'

Christopher Smith

The Red Sox have re-hired Alex Cora as manager, giving him a second chance after they let him go nearly 10 months ago for his involvement in the Astros' 2017 illegal sign-stealing scandal.

Cora, who served as Astros’ bench coach in 2017, knows he needs to follow the rules or else he won’t receive another chance.

“It’s a no for me to cross that line. If I fail at this, I’m out of the game,” Cora said during his re- introductory press conference Tuesday.

During the interview process, Cora and chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom discussed what he can do to gain an edge and win without crossing the line.

“You’re still going to find ways to take advantage of the situation," Cora said. "I think as an industry, just watching from afar, MLB has done an outstanding job cleaning up a few things that teams did or were doing.”

He still will encourage his team to steal signs legally and watch for pitchers and catchers tipping. Sign stealing is legal in MLB unless done electronically.

“As a manager, I’m still going to push them to do everything possible to read the scoreboard, read the pitchers, read the catchers. Do all that stuff," he said. “I mean, that’s part of baseball. I’m going to keep pushing for that.”

Cora expressed some surprise that he is back as Red Sox manager.

“Honestly when the suspension happened, this is the last thing I was thinking,” Cora said. “I needed to take care of a lot of things on a personal level. Take care of my family. And baseball was far away from my thoughts.”

His suspension lasted the entire 2020 season. The Red Sox weren’t allowed to contact him until after the World Series ended.

Cora received a text message from Bloom a few days after the Dodgers beat the Rays in Game 6 of the World Series. A phone call followed.

“Like I told Chaim and BOH (GM Brian O’Halloran), I never saw that day coming, but it happened,” Cora said. “And little by little, the conversations got deeper and deeper. And they made the decision. But honestly, early in the year, throughout the year, to be here right now talking to you, I never thought it was going to happen.”

During his opening remarks, Cora apologized for his involvement in illegal sign stealing.

“I was spending time at home for the wrong reasons and for that I want to apologize,” he said. “I deserve what happened this year. It’s something that I’m not proud of it.”

Why didn’t Alex Cora bring Astros' cheating scheme to Boston Red Sox in 2018? ’Wow, I better not even try to do something like that'

Chris Cotillo

While serving as the Astros' bench coach in 2017, Red Sox manager Alex Cora helped Houston carry out a brazen electronic sign-stealing scandal that helped his team win 101 games and a World Series title. But the next season, in the first year of his first stint as Boston’s manager, he apparently decided to leave the trash can-banging scheme in Houston.

Why? Because Cora didn’t think the Red Sox needed to break the rules to win in 2018.

“I didn’t feel like we needed to do something like that honestly,” he said Tuesday as he was reintroduced as the club’s manager after serving a one-year suspension. “I know people will not believe me in that sense, why not bringing it here if it was that effective. I don’t know. I just decided in that offseason to not bring it here.”

In January, Major League Baseball found Cora to be a key player in Houston’s transgressions and later opened an investigation into the Red Sox after The Athletic cited sources claiming Boston used technology to improperly steal opponents' signs during the 2018 season. That investigation did not find Cora guilty of any similar violations in Boston; the league stripped the Red Sox of a second-round pick and suspended replay room operator J.T. Watkins for a year for some minor infractions.

Cora said his meetings with Red Sox and league officials -- including former president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski and then-assistant general manager Brian O’Halloran -- led him to believe that he would be at risk of being caught if he brought a similar scheme to Boston. The Red Sox, who had violated rules related to sign-stealing by improperly using an electronic watch in 2017, were under the watchful eye of the league.

“I think at that point, people were starting to talk about what was going on around the league,” Cora said. It wasn’t worth it.

“The organization was very loud and clear about the whole sign-stealing stuff and what happened before with the organization and other organizations,” he added. “They walked me through it in the meetings in spring training with MLB. When I talked to them, it was like, ‘Wow, I better not even try to do something like that.’”

In April, when MLB concluded its investigation into the Red Sox, the league levied a one-year suspension on Cora for his actions in Houston but decided not to discipline him for anything that went on in Boston. He sat out the season and was re-hired last week as the Sox' manager after a 10-month absence.

Shortly after the report was released, Cora issued a statement taking “full responsibility” for his actions in Houston and expressing relief that the league ruled that he had broken no rules with the Red Sox. In his second stint, he’ll try to make sure his club avoids even minor violations.

“As a leader and as a person who is running the clubhouse and the dugout, we need to avoid the gray areas,” Cora said. “I think that’s the most important thing. You’ve seen the report, seen what (the league) decided. Out of the whole thing, that’s one thing that moving forward, we had to do a better job.”

Red Sox president and CEO Sam Kennedy said the organization has taken steps to ensure the club will not break league rules in the future.

“It’s very important that our fans know, and we talked about this during the January time period, that we take the rules very, very seriously,” he said. “We did fall short of 100% compliance. That’s on us, no excuses. We have to be 100% compliant. There are steps internally we will take in terms of increasing awareness of the rules, increasing distribution of the rules and meeting with the players.”

* RedSox.com

Cora on return: 'I'm happy to be back home'

Ian Browne

BOSTON -- As thrilled as he was to be formally reintroduced as manager of the Red Sox on Tuesday while sitting on a stage at Fenway Park, Alex Cora knew that he had to own up to his past before he could effectively move forward.

So before the question-and-answer format started in the virtual news conference, Cora spoke from his heart in a display of contrition and accountability.

“First of all, I want to thank my family back home [in Puerto Rico],” Cora said. “It’s been a tough year. To spend time with you guys, it was amazing this year. But like I’ve been saying all along, I was spending time at home for the wrong reasons. For that, I want to apologize. I deserved what happened this year. It’s something that, I’m not proud of it. But we went through the whole process with the Commissioner’s Office, the Department of Investigations. At the end, I got my penalty and I served it.”

Cora’s penalty was being exiled from the Red Sox team he managed in 2018-19 and the city he has viewed as his second home ever since he played in Boston from 2005-08.

“I knew I was going to miss the game,” Cora said. “It’s my passion. I’ve been around the game since I was 4 years old. I missed the game. At the same time, I made some bad decisions. You’ve got to take ownership. Just being able to be a dad, the kids, obviously they’re still 3, they don’t understand what’s going on right now, but some deep conversations with my daughter, with [my partner] Angelica, with my mom, with [my brother] Joey throughout the year about how wrong I was. The only thing I can do now is get better. I will be better. I’m going to be surrounded by a team that, they’ll help me out and we’ll continue moving forward.”

And though Cora can’t erase his involvement as bench coach in the sign-stealing scandal of the 2017 Astros, he is sure that he learned his lesson enough to never repeat anything like it.

“Honestly, I can only speak how I felt this year. I don’t want to get into details about what happened in ’17, but it’s a tough lesson,” Cora said. “Like I said, all I can do right now is apologize and get better and move forward. I’m not proud of what happened. One of the things that you do as a leader is to put these guys in situations to be successful. The way I did it, that we did it, with that group over there [in Houston], it wasn’t the right way. For that, I’m going to say it today. I’m going to say it tomorrow. I’m going to say it the rest of my life, I’m sorry.”

What Cora felt worst about wasn’t his personal loss during the 2020 season, but the rough spot he put the Red Sox in.

“I think as a leader, as a person that enjoys the game and loves to manage, I put this organization in a tough spot, and for that, I’m sorry,” Cora said. “I was humbled by this whole situation. I learned a lot throughout the year.”

By apologizing, Cora knew that he wasn’t distancing himself from an unsavory situation. He knows it will always be part of him. Yet he is confident he can move on from it and get back to doing effectively what he loves most -- managing the Red Sox.

“I want to make sure that everyone knows, this situation is part of who I am. For the rest of my career, as a man, I have to deal with it. I don’t want people to make it seem like it’s a great comeback story,” Cora said. “I don’t want that. I’m actually going to use this bad experience to make people better, starting at home with [my kids] Xander, Isander and Camilla. The process started early in the year, and we’re going to keep continuing it.

“I know there are a lot of people that I disappointed, and for that, I’m sorry. And also, I’m telling those people that, ‘Hey, I’m still Alex. I made a mistake. I still love the game. I love what I do.’ I promise you that from now on, I’m going to use this experience the right way. I’m not proud of it. I’m not happy about it. But we have to move on.”

Cora feels blessed that the process of moving on will take place with the Red Sox again -- something he never dreamed would happen as early as the 2021 season.

“Honestly, when the suspension happened, this is the last thing I was thinking,” Cora said. “I needed to take care of a lot of things on a personal level, take care of my family. Baseball was far away from my thoughts.”

But after the Red Sox went 24-36 in a shortened season and decided not to bring back Ron Roenicke as manager, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom put together a list of nine candidates to write out the lineup cards in 2021 and beyond.

The Red Sox didn’t have any contact with the ninth candidate (Cora) until after the World Series -- when his suspension ended.

It took Bloom about 10 days to choose Cora from a talented yet inexperienced field that included Sam Fuld, James Rowson, Carlos Mendoza and Don Kelly, among others.

While there seemed to be an air of inevitability in Boston that the job could wind up back in Cora’s hands - - after all, he did lead them to World Series glory just two seasons ago -- Bloom went through an exhaustive process before coming to that conclusion. Keep in mind that Bloom had never worked with Cora during a baseball season before, having been hired to lead Boston’s front office in October 2019.

“When we started the process after the season, we spent a lot of time coming up with a really good list of candidates. We vetted them very thoroughly, we talked to a number of people,” Bloom said. “I knew at that time that I wanted to have some kind of conversation with Alex when it was OK to do so, which wouldn’t be until after the World Series.

“I really didn’t know then if he was in my mind a real consideration for the job. I just thought it would be good for me, good for him, good for the organization since we really hadn’t spoken since everything happened in January, and things happened very quickly in January. I think there were a lot of things to work through even before we got to the question of whether he could be a fit for this job.

“I knew obviously a lot of the wonderful things he brought to the table, and in the abstract, those are a lot of the qualities you look for in a manager, especially a manager for the Boston Red Sox. When the time came to speak to him, we had a lot of different things to work through, we were able to have some really intense conversations, obviously everything happened quickly within the week-plus after the World Series.

“But we got to work through a lot of things, and it was really just a question of trying to get as much information as I could to see Alex in full, the whole person, everything that he had done, good and bad. And everything that he might do if he were our manager again, and then to line that up along with the other candidates we were considering. And at the end of the day, I felt he was the right choice to lead us forward.”

And unlike the team Cora took over in November 2017 -- one that was positioned to win a championship and ultimately did -- the current Red Sox team needs a lot of work under the hood to get back to contender status.

It will start with Bloom having a productive offseason. It will continue with Cora molding his roster back and changing what he needs to schematically.

“I'm excited to be back with them,” Cora said. “It's a great group. It's a different group than 2018, but we still have some guys who were part of what we accomplished. I really appreciate how they feel about it, but like I've been telling them, we have a lot of work to do. We're ready to hit the offseason the right way and get ready for next season.”

And after not being a part of the 2020 season, nothing is more gratifying for Cora than having one to get ready for.

Here's what Cora thought of 2020 Red Sox

Ian Browne

BOSTON – Once his 3-year-old twins went to sleep, Alex Cora had a lot of time on his hands during the summer of 2020.

And as anyone who has ever known him would suspect, Cora spent much of that free time at night watching baseball.

That included the Red Sox, a team he will manage again in 2021. Here are some observations he picked up during a season-long suspension.

The Red Sox need to play faster “I still believe you’ve got to play fast. You take a look at the teams around the league. The Rays, the Dodgers, the Padres, for how powerful they are, they hit the ball out of the ballpark, but they still run the bases well and are plus teams defensively,” said Cora. “I felt like watching the Red Sox, they were a little bit behind. That’s what I meant with catching up on speed. We did a good job in 2018 with that.

“I do believe for the way the game is going, as far as stolen bases and all that, there’s value in scoring from first. There’s value in going from first to third, there’s value in defense and that’s something I’m going to preach.”

Devers needs to rebound on defense In Cora’s first stint as manager, the player he seemed to talk the most about was Rafael Devers. Cora fully enjoyed being on the ground floor of the development of such a youthful and talented player. So, yes, Cora noticed how much Devers regressed on defense in 2020 and he plans on helping the third baseman fix that.

“We’re going to talk about positioning with him a lot. And I believe we put him in a good spot two years ago, he was very consistent,” Cora said. “I don’t know about his routine, what happened this year, if it was the same. I’m going to have that conversation with him and [infield instructor] Carlos [Febles], and actually I’m going to talk to [former bench coach and manager] Ron [Roenicke] about it and we’re going to talk to our information department to see how they feel where he was or what he did wrong.

“I do believe his arm plays at third base. He’s got good footwork, it’s just a matter of seeing if there’s something we can do position-wise that can put him in a better spot. But as you guys know, he’s always been one of my main projects in the offseason and that’s not going to change this year.

J.D. will be ‘back’ Cora hardly recognized J.D. Martinez while watching the games on television. The DH was an elite slugger in 2018-19 before regressing with a .680 OPS and a -0.9 WAR, per Baseball-Reference, in ’20. So what happened?

“A lot of bad decisions at the plate. He expanded in. He expanded out and away. I read it. I read about the video stuff. I don’t know. I think with his work ethic and what he does on a daily basis, he was just in a bad spot physically to attack pitches,” said Cora. “Pitch recognition wasn’t there. That wasn’t J.D. We talked a few days ago. He’s very excited for me to get back. I’ve got a few things for him. I’ve got to talk to [hitting coach] Timmy [Hyers], too, to [assistant hitting coach] Pete [Fatse], over him and the rest of the hitters. I’m pretty sure he’s going to have a better season, of course, next year than this year. That’s not hard. I think he’ll be back.”

A new weapon with Verdugo While Cora will manage the Red Sox without Mookie Betts this time, he does have Alex Verdugo, the main piece of trade compensation the Red Sox got in that blockbuster with the Dodgers.

“Alex is a good player. I saw him with the Dodgers the previous year, a guy that brings a lot of energy to the equation on a daily basis. A good hitter. He can hit lefties, he can hit righties. I think he settled in in the lineup,” said Cora. “Defensively, he did an outstanding job for the team, and for everything that is going on as far as no fans and obviously the protocols and how, quote unquote, uncomfortable it was, the whole situation for a team that didn’t play well, I do believe that he was the best player of the team. The MVP, and I actually spoke to him a few days ago, and what I saw was what I heard on the phone. Looking forward to working with him and making him a better player.”

* ESPN.com

Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora apologizes for scandal, says he served his punishment

David Schoenfield

Alex Cora figured he would eventually get back into baseball -- maybe in two or three years. But not this quickly and not back as manager of the Boston Red Sox, the team he guided to a World Series title in 2018.

Cora and the Red Sox mutually parted ways in January after Cora was found to have been instrumental in developing ways to use the Houston Astros' replay room to illegally transmit signs when he was a bench coach for the team in 2017. Commissioner Rob Manfred's nine-page report mentioned Cora's name 11 times. In April, MLB officially suspended Cora through the end of the World Series.

"When the suspension happened, this is the last thing I was thinking," Cora said at Tuesday's news conference at Fenway Park that reintroduced him as Red Sox manager. "I had to take care of a lot of things at a personal level, take care of my family, and baseball was far away from my thoughts."

Cora apologized for his role in the Astros' sign-stealing scandal, saying it was a tough year.

"I was spending time in my home for the wrong reasons," he said. "I deserved what happened this year. I'm not proud of it. ... In the end, I got my penalty and served it."

As soon as the World Series ended, there was wide speculation that the Red Sox would rehire Cora to replace interim manager Ron Roenicke, but both Cora and Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said it was hardly fait accompli that Cora would get the job. The Boston front office conducted interviews with several candidates, but certainly Cora's prior success and popularity among the players and fans played a key role in bringing him back.

In Cora's first year in 2018, the Red Sox won a club-record 108 games, defeated two 100-win teams in the Yankees and Astros to get to the World Series, and then beat the Dodgers in five games. In 2019, the Red Sox dropped to 84-78, but Cora's 192 wins are still the fourth highest in a manager's first two seasons.

Still, Cora had to answer and explain his role with what happened in 2017. When Bloom met with Cora, he told himself, "You need to make sure you get every question answered that's on your mind, that you ask everything you need to ask. Not just for determining his fit as a manager, but also because this is a big deal what happened and it was an event that took a toll on all of us."

Cora described the interview process as intense. "It was genuine. It was tough. There were some tough questions," he said. Then he had to wait. "Little by little, I started to feel a little anxious because they were going through the process. I didn't have a job. If this doesn't happen, we'll be OK, you spend your time with the family. ... But I wasn't 100 percent sure it was going to happen."

Asked about whether he knew at the time that what the Astros did was wrong, Cora said he didn't want to get into details of 2017, but did say that the "way we did it with the group over there wasn't the right way." He said the cheating scandal will be part of who he is the rest of his life. "I don't want people to treat this like it's a great comeback story," he said.

Cora, 45, said he watched a lot of baseball while on suspension -- including a lot of Red Sox games. The team went 24-36 in 2020, the franchise's worst winning percentage since 1965. The team had traded away Mookie Betts and David Price as a way of creating better financial flexibility for the future while adding some young players, then saw starters Chris Sale and Eduardo Rodriguez miss the entire season.

"As a fan, because that's what I became during the summer, it was tough to watch," Cora said. "I really care about the organization, and it was hard to watch them struggle the way they did."

That rebuilding process will likely continue this offseason. Cora emphasized that the team needs to improve its depth as well as its athleticism to compete with World Series teams like the Dodgers and Rays. J.D. Martinez (.213 average) and Andrew Benintendi (.103), stalwarts on the 2018 World Series champions, also suffered miserable shortened seasons.

* WEEI.com

Free agent D.J. LeMahieu still in play for Red Sox

Rob Bradford

The Red Sox might need a second baseman and you aren't going to find many better than D.J. LeMahieu.

It's why the news regarding LeMahieu's approach to the Yankees' qualifying offer should be of some note.

It might be a reach to suggest the Red Sox will be prioritizing second base when it comes to allocating their financial resources this offseason. But LeMahieu's good enough to suggest a conversation should be had.

In his last two years with the Yankees the 31-year-old has hit .327 and .364, respectively. He finished with an .893 OPS in 2019, while totaling a mark of 1.011 last season.

LeMahieu has also proven to be the kind of leadoff hitter the Red Sox currently don't possess, residing in the Yankees' lineup's top spot in each of his 2020 starts.

The Red Sox continue to look for some sort of stability at second base since Dustin Pedroia's injury, with six players manning the position in 2020.

The favorite to win the spot right now would seem to be Christian Arroyo, who left a positive impression in his 14 games with the Red Sox, both offensively and defensively. Prospect Jeter Downs is also being watched closely, with the organization viewing him as potentially the highest-upside option going forward.

In their free agent projections, MLB Trade Rumors has LeMahieu going to the Blue Jays on a four-year, $68 million deal.

Red Sox focus on reeling in pitching, not Francisco Lindor

Rob Bradford

Francisco Lindor is available. Alex Cora has a great relationship with the Indians' shortstop. The Red Sox will be on the lookout for their next foundational superstar.

Dare to dream. At the moment, Chaim Bloom reportedly has other priorities.

Lindor is in the last year of his contract with Cleveland, which is reportedly exploring trading the 26-year- old this offseason.

It is understandable that the Red Sox would want to prioritize pitching considering both the performance of their staff in 2020 and some of the uncertainty heading into 2021 (the health of Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez and the consistent performance of Nathan Eovaldi, Tanner Houck and Nick Pivetta).

Still, Lindor -- who played for Team Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic when Cora served as the club's general manager -- is an interesting potential future piece. While some positional juggling would need to take place in the short-term, it's important to keep in mind Xander Bogaerts possesses an opt-out after the 2022 season.

As for how aggressive the Red Sox will be in acquiring pitching, we do know that they have already reached out to free agent righty Matt Shoemaker.

* NBC Sports Boston

Sox ownership insists it didn't force the hire of Cora as manager

John Tomase

Chaim Bloom knows no one believes him, but he wants to make it clear that Red Sox ownership didn't force Alex Cora on him.

The former Red Sox manager was officially introduced as the current Red Sox manager on Tuesday after a lengthy interview process that included four other finalists and a legit run at the job from Phillies data liaison Sam Fuld, but in the end, Bloom tabbed Cora, who was clearly the preferred choice of ownership.

"Did we let him know how we felt about Alex? Absolutely," said CEO Sam Kennedy. "We were honest and genuine and direct that we would be supportive of the concept of Alex coming back if he and his teammates felt that was the right thing for the Boston Red Sox, but that was their decision to make. It would be disingenuous to say that John Henry and Tom Werner and Mike Gordon, myself were not supportive or honest about how we felt about Alex."

According to multiple sources familiar with the search, Bloom began the process skeptical about Cora's candidacy, but was won over during a series of conversations with the former manager, including a face-to- face meeting in Puerto Rico. The new chief baseball officer still wasn't convinced that Cora deserved a second chance, given the severity of his actions in Houston, when he was labeled the ringleader of a sign- stealing scheme that helped the Astros win the 2017 World Series.

"When we were having our meeting with Alex, I really at that point was trying to stay in the moment," Bloom said. "And as we were heading to the meeting, I was really telling myself you need to make sure you get every question answered that's on your mind, that you ask everything you need to ask, again not just for determining his fit as a manager, but also because this was a big deal, what happened. It was an event that took its toll on all of us.

"Obviously, Alex has described that with respect to himself, but we all went through something, and there was a lot to process. I needed to make sure that I addressed everything I needed to address and that we talked about everything possible. So I tried to stay in the moment with that and then process it as we were headed back and in the days that followed."

It didn't hurt Cora's case that one of his greatest strengths as a manager -- communication -- helped him win over Bloom.

"One of Alex's great gifts, as I think anybody who's ever had a conversation with Alex Cora knows this, it's his passion for the game and how he's able to reach people and light up a room," Bloom said. "I don't think it's possible to have a conversation with Alex without feeling those things. Really, it wasn't until coming back and then processing everything and then getting down to the wire on a decision that things started to crystallize for me."

As for ownership's input, here's the part Bloom knows you might not buy.

"I'm not sure anybody is going to believe me, but I'll tell you the truth anyway: I think first and foremost, it was important that they play a role," he said. "They are responsible for the entire organization. And it's obviously important, since they're responsible for the organization, for me to know how they felt, and to understand if it was something that baseball operations saw fit to do, that it was something they would support.

"If that were not the case, it would have been a very different process. So not only do I think that was appropriate, I think it was necessary really to know how they felt. And they also made sure that I know if I or baseball ops felt differently, that was OK, too. But from that point on, obviously we kept them looped in on who we were interviewing, what stage of the process we were at, but they were emphatic that it was very important that this be a baseball operations decision and they would fully back whatever decision we came to."

When the decision turned out to be Cora, ownership had gotten its man and, Bloom insisted, he had, too.

* BostonSportsJournal.com

Pledging that he’s changed and humbled, Alex Cora returns for another stint with Red Sox

Sean McAdam

Alex Cora wasn’t sure the phone was going to ring.

In baseball exile since last January for his role in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, Cora was home in Puerto Rico, focusing on his family.

He would watch games at night and kept a close watch on his former team, the Red Sox, and monitor the rest of the league. Baseball had been part of his everyday life since he was a child, but for much of the last 10 months, he managed to keep it at arm’s length.

Then, a few days after the World Series ended — and with it, Cora’s season-long suspension — he first got a text, then a phone call from Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom.

“I never saw that day coming,” Cora said. “Honestly, earlier in the year, throughout the year, to be here right now, I never thought it was going to happen.”

His penalty served, his reputation battered, Cora returned to Fenway Tuesday, reintroduced as the Red Sox manager, just shy of 10 months since he and the Red Sox mutually agreed to part ways.

“It’s been a tough year,” said Cora. “I was spending time at home for all the wrong reasons. For that, I want to apologize. I deserve what happened this year. It was something I’m not proud of. I want to apologize to the organization for putting them in such a tough spot. I was humbled by this whole situation. I learned a lot throughout the year. I want to make sure that everybody knows that this situation is part of who I am. For the rest of my career, as a man, I’ll have to deal with it. I don’t want people to say that it’s a great comeback story. I don’t want that. I’m actually going to use this bad experience to make people better, starting at home (with my family).

“I know there’s a lot of people that I disappointed and for that, I’m sorry. I’m still Alex. I made a mistake. I still love the game, I still love what I do and I promise you that from now on, I’m going to use the experience the right way. I’m not proud of it, I’m not happy about it. But we have to move on.”

Cora expected that a return to the game would not come immediately. He knew that members of the Red Sox organization had warned that he would need some rehabilitation of his image. But the more Cora and Bloom spoke, the more Cora began to realize that perhaps his return path might not be so long and winding.

“So soon? I never saw it,” he admitted.

Even Bloom wasn’t sure it was the right fit. He didn’t have the history with Cora that others had. The two had worked together for a few months — between Bloom’s hiring in late October of 2019 and Cora’s departure two and a half months later — but never in-season.

“I really didn’t know if, in my mind, he was a real consideration for the job,” said Bloom. “I just thought it would be good for me, good for him and good for the organization. I thought there were a lot of things to work through even before we got to the question of whether he could be a fit for this job.”

What followed were “some really intense conversations.” Once those took place, Bloom lined up Cora’s strengths and weaknesses against others whom the Sox had interviewed. In the end, Cora’s return struck Bloom as the logical choice.

But strangely, even as Cora asked for forgiveness and pledged to not repeat the errors he once committed, he wasn’t ready to revisit his culpability. Asked if he knew at the time that what he was doing in Houston — helping to devise an elaborate scheme to help Houston hitters know what pitch was coming through a series of noises and sounds from the dugout — Cora, like Mark McGwire in his infamous congressional testimony, wasn’t interested in talking about the past.

“I don’t want to get into details about what happened in ’17,” he said. “It was a tough lesson. Like I said, all I can do is apologize, get better and move forward.”

Also, Cora was asked why he decided to not bring the system he developed in Houston in 2017 to Boston in 2018.

“I didn’t feel we needed to do something like that,” he said. “I know people will not believe me. I don’t know. I just decided in that offseason to not bring it here. We had some conversations in spring training (in 2018). People were starting to talk about what was going on around the league. It wasn’t worth it.”

Nor would Cora revisit what took place in 2018, when the Red Sox, too, were investigated for their own sign-stealing, resulting in some discipline by MLB, though Cora himself was largely exonerated. MLB found that some Red Sox players were utilizing video in the back room to help decode signs in-game and suspended staff assistant J.T. Watkins for the year.

“If you read the report, as a leader, we need to avoid the gray areas,” said Cora. “Moving forward, we have to do a better job.”

In the short-term, Cora has to fill out his coaching staff (bench coach and bullpen coach are currently vacant) and give some input on the current roster and how to improve it.

But Tuesday was mostly a day to reflect on a return that, last January, and maybe as recently as last month, he never envisioned.

“I’m happy to be back home,” he concluded. “This is the place I really enjoy to work. We’re in a good place as an organization and it’s time to move forward.”

Red Sox maintain that ownership didn’t dictate Cora’s rehiring

Sean McAdam

It may have been obvious to most that Red Sox ownership and upper management were rooting for the return of Alex Cora. But that doesn’t mean that they called the shot on his rehiring.

“As we said back at the end of the season, we brought in Chaim (Bloom for a reason), ” said team president Sam Kennedy as the Red Sox re-introduced Cora as their manager again following his departure in January and his subsequent season-long suspension by Major League Baseball.

“He and (GM Brian O’Halloran and assistant general managers Eddie Romero, Raquel Ferreira and Zack Scott) ran this process and did a great job running the process and keeping me and (ownership) informed throughout. We were very pleased, obviously, with the outcome, given how excited we are to have Alex back.”

Cora was ineligible to even speak with the Red Sox — or any other franchise — about working again in MLB until after the World Series was completed, signifying the official end of the 2020 season, and with it, his suspension for his involvement with the 2017 Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal.

Before the Series ended, the Sox had already discussed their managerial opening with a host of candidates, some multiple times. The Sox considered Pittsburgh Pirates bench coach Don Kelly, Miami Marlins bench coach James Rowson, Chicago Cubs coach Will Venable, Arizona Diamondbacks bench coach Luis Urueta, New York Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza, San Diego Padres associate manager Skip Schumaker, Minnesota Twins bench coach Mike Bell and Philadelphia Phillies player information coordinator Sam Fuld.

As the field winnowed down and some candidates were eliminated, Bloom reached out to Cora.

At the very least, he wanted to speak to the former manager himself. A talk turned into a phone call, and that, in turn, turned into a visit (with O’Halloran) to Cora’s home in Caguas, Puerto Rico.

First, Bloom wanted some answers on what happened with the Astros. He went into the interview without any pre-conceived notions. He knew of Cora’s reputation and understood his skill set. But he needed to have the banks filled in for himself.

Cora and Bloom had only worked together for a brief period over last winter, but the more the two talked, the more Bloom began to see what had made Cora so successful in 2018 and why others in the organization held him in such high esteem.

The call came down to Cora or Fuld, who Bloom had known from their time together with the Tampa Bay Rays. Fuld is widely seen as an intelligent and innovative baseball mind and will probably manage in the big leagues.

But the more Bloom thought it over, the harder it became to pass up a chance to bring Cora back. On his own.

“I’ve seen some of the stuff out there and I’m not sure anybody’s going to believe me, but I’ll tell you the truth anyway,” Bloom said, tackling the perception that Cora was forced upon him head-on. “It was obviously important, since (owners John Henry, Tom Werner and Mike Gordon, along with Kennedy) are responsible for the organization, for me to know how they felt. And to understand that if it was something Baseball Operations saw fit to do, that it was something they would support. Obviously, if that weren’t the case, it would have been a very different process.

“Not only did I think it was appropriate, but I actually think it was necessary to know how they felt. They also made sure that I knew that if I or Baseball Ops felt differently, that that was OK, too. But I think that’s important, given how big a decision this is for the organization, to know how the people who are responsible for the organization would feel. From that point on, we kept them looped in on where we stood, who we were interviewing, what stage of the process we were at. But they were emphatic that this was a Baseball Ops decision and that they would fully back whatever decision we came to.”

Coincidence or not, Bloom eventually landed on the same spot where ownership already stood.

* The Athletic

The Alex Cora apology tour begins: ‘If I fail at this, I’m out of the game’

Jen McCaffrey

When Alex Cora stepped onto the field at Fenway Park on Tuesday, his heart was racing.

He knew the words he used, the emotions he expressed, the way in which he answered every question for the ensuing 55 minutes would be scrutinized.

It was, after all, the first time he’d spoken with the media en masse this year, a year bookended by his unceremonious departure from the Red Sox on one side, his redemptive return on the other.

To win back the trust of his many doubters, he couldn’t be defiant or flippant or dismissive about what he’d done in Houston in 2017. He needed to own it. And by and large he did as he sat on the field — at an appropriate distance — between chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom and general manager Brian O’Halloran, with CEO Sam Kennedy nearby.

“I deserved what happened this year. It’s something that, I’m not proud of it,” Cora began his opening remarks.

“I want to make sure that everyone knows, this situation is part of who I am. For the rest of my career, as a man, I have to deal with it. I don’t want people to make it seem like it’s a great comeback story. I don’t want that.”

Cora expressed remorse, embarrassment and shame, describing heavy conversations with his family throughout the year about what he’d done. He acknowledged it will be difficult next season for his coaches, staff and players to deal with the negative attention he’s likely to draw on the road.

“I know it’s going to be tough in certain places, but I understand,” he said. “As long as we stay together and I surround myself with people that are going to be in my corner and understanding that some of what’s going to happen is for me. It’s personally for me, I can deal with that.”

It’s been almost exactly one year since Cora’s involvement in the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme was first revealed by The Athletic. The ways in which teams try to gain an edge on one another has been an ever- evolving facet of the game for decades. Consternation over how far to push the envelope and take advantage of situations is not new. But among the many lessons learned by Cora, who was suspended for the entire season by MLB for his role in the Astros scandal, is to “avoid the gray areas.”

“If I fail at this, I’m out of the game,” he said. “As a manager, I’m still going to push (players) to do everything possible to read the scoreboard, read the pitcher, read the catchers, do all that stuff. That’s part of baseball, and I’m going to keep pushing for that.”

At one point Tuesday, Cora was asked if he knew that what he was doing in Houston during the 2017 season was wrong. Or did it take getting caught to learn that lesson?

“I don’t want to get into details about what happened in ’17, but it’s a tough lesson,” Cora said. “Like I said, all I can do right now is apologize and get better and move forward. I’m not proud of what happened. I said it a few times already today, I did say it during the summer: One of the things that you do as a leader is to put these guys in situations to be successful. The way I did it, that we did it, with that group over there, it wasn’t the right way. For that, I’m going to say it today. I’m going to say it tomorrow. I’m going to say it the rest of my life: I’m sorry.”

The Houston scheme wasn’t reported on publicly for more than two years after the Astros won the 2017 World Series. Cora could have brought it to Boston with him. The system clearly worked, but when Cora was first hired to manage the Red Sox in November 2017, he opted not to implement a similar trash-can- banging system. It was too risky.

“I didn’t feel like we needed to do something like that, honestly,” he said. “I know people will not believe me in that sense, you know, why not bring it here? It was that effective. I don’t know, I just decided, in that offseason, to not bring it here. We had some conversations in spring training about a lot of stuff, from (O’Halloran) to (former Red Sox president of baseball operations) Dave (Dombrowski) to the people that were around. I think at that point, people were starting to talk about what was going on around the league. It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth it.”

The Red Sox were coming off their own punishment for using Apple Watches illegally in 2017. MLB had issued a strict directive that spring to not use technology to steal signs. Cora seemingly realized, or perhaps was convinced by the Red Sox front office, that it was too irresponsible to try in Boston.

“The (Red Sox) organization was very loud and clear about the whole sign-stealing stuff and what happened before with the organization and other organizations, and they walked me through it,” Cora said. “And in the meetings in spring training, with MLB, when I talked to them, it was like, wow, I better not even try to do something like that.”

Despite his decision not to introduce the system, the Red Sox were found to be relaying signs from the dugout replay monitors during the 2018 season and were punished with the loss of draft picks and the suspension of replay monitor J.T. Watkins. Cora was not found to be at fault for that particular transgression.

“I bet there are people still upset with me, and I understand,” Cora said. “A lot of people stayed with me through the process, through the down times. Some of them decided to look the other way. I understand that part.”

Some will say a one-year suspension isn’t enough for Cora. He knows people inside the game and out who have lost respect for him. But he’s also learned more about his inner circle. Cora said he received weekly phone calls from Dombrowski throughout the year. Some of his first congratulatory texts upon getting the job were from fellow AL East managers Aaron Boone and Kevin Cash.

And so there he was Tuesday, sitting on the Fenway infield having missed one season but with countless lessons learned.

“I was looking forward to this day for the right reasons, but understanding that maybe it was going to get uncomfortable,” he said. “My heart was pounding 1,000 miles per hour when I was at home plate.

“It’s not like the topic isn’t going to come up again, but I’m glad that this day happened for the right reasons because I’m back. But at the same time, I’m not hiding.”

* The New York Times

Alex Cora Repeatedly Apologizes for His Part in Astros’ Scandal

David Waldstein

Alex Cora’s return to the Boston Red Sox may be viewed as terrific news for the team’s owners and the fans who recall seeing him carrying a championship trophy on a duck boat parade two years ago. But if anyone is even slightly tempted to portray it in a shimmering glow of redemption, Cora himself flatly rejected the premise.

Cora, who was reintroduced as the Red Sox manager at a news conference on Tuesday at Fenway Park, said no one should misinterpret the circumstances surrounding his scandal-induced dismissal from the team in January, or his unusual return after his suspension.

“I don’t want people to make it seem like it’s a great comeback story,” he said. “I don’t want that.”

Cora did come back to Boston, though, after missing just 60 games because of the pandemic-shortened season. He was suspended for the entire season by Major League Baseball in January (before it was shortened by 102 games), and then fired by the Red Sox — all for his role in the Houston Astros’ illegal sign-stealing scandal in 2017.

Cora was the Astros’ bench coach that year, and an M.L.B. investigation found that he was one of the principal architects of a caper to steal signs from live video feeds and relay the information to batters at the plate by banging on a trash can.

During Tuesday’s meeting with the news media, Cora apologized a half-dozen times for his role in the scandal.

“I’m going to say today, I’m going to say tomorrow, I’m going to say the rest of my life: I’m sorry,” he said

A.J. Hinch was Houston’s manager and Cora’s boss in 2017 and was also suspended for the 2020 season and then fired by the Astros. Two weeks ago, he was hired to manage the Detroit Tigers. Two others who lost their jobs in the fallout from the scandal, Jeff Luhnow and Carlos Beltran, are still unemployed. Luhnow was the general manager of the Astros and is suing the team for breach of contract. Beltran, who was a player on the team, was not suspended by M.L.B. but was still fired by the Mets in January, leaving the job before he had managed a game.

Cora got his second chance because, like Hinch, he had a record of success. He led the Red Sox to the 2018 World Series championship, and he is generally adored by the Red Sox owners, John Henry and Tom Werner. But in January, Henry, Werner and Sam Kennedy, Boston’s chief executive, said that “it would not be possible for Alex to effectively lead the club going forward.”

That changed drastically over the past 10 months. The owners said that the decision to rehire Cora was made by Chaim Bloom, the Red Sox president of baseball operations, but Kennedy made it clear on Tuesday that it was also the choice favored by ownership.

“We are very pleased with the outcome, given how excited we are to have Alex back,” Kennedy said.

Bloom, who was hired by Boston one year ago, worked only a few months with Cora. He had interviewed several candidates to replace the interim manager Ron Roenicke but determined — after a lengthy interview process that Cora described as “intense” and “tough” — that the former manager was the right person to take back the reins.

“We all know him as a brilliant baseball mind who can lead and who can inspire as well as anybody in the game,” Bloom said of Cora. “He has shown he can get the best out of players, and we’re looking forward to a really bright future with him at the helm.”

Cora was originally hired by Boston after helping the Astros, through legal and illegal means, to the 2017 championship. The next year, Boston won the title. An investigation by M.L.B. this year determined that Cora did not bring the same illicit tactics to Boston, nor did he oversee anything on the scale of what happened in Houston.

On Tuesday, Cora was asked why he didn’t cheat again since it had worked the first time. Cora admitted that he was scared to try a similar system. He said there had been enough allegations of cheating (indeed, some Red Sox players were found to be using Apple Watches to illegally steal signs against the Yankees in 2017) to prompt him to proceed with caution.

During spring training in 2018, there were warnings by M.L.B. officials and, Cora said, from Red Sox executives, including the former general manager Dave Dombrowski, that cheating would not be tolerated.

“They walked me through it,” Cora said, adding that his reaction was “Wow, I better not even try to do something like that.”

M.L.B. did find that a Red Sox video room operator was involved in a smaller sign-stealing incident in 2018 but said it was more isolated, and the league did not find Cora or Dombrowski culpable.

Cora says the lesson from that episode is to avoid “gray areas.” But he did vow to keep trying to steal signs through legal means and said he was fully aware that he could never cross any lines again.

“If I fail at this,” he said, “I’m out of the game.”

* The New York Post

Red Sox quietly bring back another cheater

Mark Fischer

The Red Sox quietly welcomed another cheater back into their organization this week.

Former video replay coordinator J.T. Watkins, who was suspended last season after MLB said he illegally utilized game feeds to help players steal opposing teams’ signs during a few games in 2018, is returning to the team as a member of the professional scouting staff, according to the Boston Globe.

Watkins’ return was not met with the same fanfare as the rehiring of manager Alex Cora, who was reintroduced Tuesday after serving a one-year suspension issued by the league for playing a key role in the Astros’ electronic sign-stealing scandal in 2017.

Cora was found by MLB to be the ringleader of the Astros cheating operation that rocked the sport last offseason. Though Cora was manager of the Red Sox during the 2018 championship season, he did not face additional punishment from commissioner Rob Manfred for Boston’s transgressions.

Instead all the blame fell on Watkins, the 31-year-old who spent parts of three seasons as a catcher and first baseman in the Red Sox farm system before being hired to break down video of opponents before games.

Watkins denied the allegations but was suspended nonetheless and banned from serving as a replay-room operator through 2021.

The Red Sox were also docked a second-round pick as part of the punishment.

During its investigation of the Red Sox, the league also determined that Watkins was a “key participant” in the infamous Apple Watch scandal a year earlier, “when the Red Sox admitted to using a smartwatch to communicate opposing Clubs’ decoded signs from the replay room to the dugout,” including during a game against the Yankees.

Alex Cora seems diminished in return to Red Sox

Ken Davidoff

Quite a couple of hours Tuesday afternoon for the Yankees, who saw the Mets introduce their optimal owner and the Red Sox reintroduce their optimal manager in back-to-back Zoom news conferences. Maybe on Wednesday, the Rays can welcome new catcher J.T. Realmuto and new bench-clearing brawl enforcer Stipe Miocic?

As The Post’s correspondent sent (virtually) to Boston to cover the Bosox’s rehiring of Alex Cora, however, I report two takeaways:

They made the right decision.

Nevertheless, this feels like a diminished Cora who returns to his old job.

This is not the same unflappable, seemingly invincible man who steered the Red Sox to historic greatness in his maiden voyage of 2018. Still a brilliant baseball mind, still a dynamic presence, the 45-year-old no longer stands as bulletproof after sitting out for a season due to his involvement in the 2017 Astros’ sign- stealing scandal.

“If I fail at this, I’m out of the game,” Cora said of his second chance.

The ’17 Astros’ bench coach and an alleged mastermind of the illegal sign-stealing, trash-can-banging scheme that rocked baseball in January upon its full disclosure, Cora returned to the Yankees’ top historic rivals following an absolutely miserable season in which the Red Sox traded franchise icon Mookie Betts and posted a 24-36 record in the COVID-shortened schedule, putting them in the American League East basement. Such poor results and vitriolic fan feedback both made it easier to bid farewell to Cora’s successor (and his 2018-19 bench coach) Ron Roenicke and intensified the need to fire up the downtrodden customers.

In his first public comments since he and the Red Sox parted ways on Jan. 14 (Rob Manfred subsequently suspended Cora for the entire 2020 campaign), the immensely popular Cora aced the contrition test, saying, “I want to make sure everybody knows that this situation is part of who I am for the rest of my career. As a man, I have to deal with it. I don’t want people to make it seem like it’s a great comeback story.”

He didn’t fare as well with a reporter’s question regarding whether he fully appreciated the illegality of his actions in ’17 — “I don’t want to get into what happened in ’17, but it’s a tough lesson,” he replied — although overall he proved his usual adept self in this setting. Asked whether he considered implementing the ’17 Astros’ system with the ’18 Red Sox, he explained how a spring-training meeting with Major League Baseball, as it tried to better monitor clubs’ chicanery, gave him pause: “I think people were starting to talk about what was going on around the league. It wasn’t worth it. … [I thought,] ‘Wow, I’d better not even try to do something like that.’ That’s the best way I can put it.”

If you watched Cora run circles around the Yankees and the rest of baseball in 2018, even if you sat through the predictable post-championship hangover in 2019 as Boston’s owners fired president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski, you know he could slip some and still be elite at his profession. He represents a good risk for Dombrowski’s successor, Chaim Bloom, who acknowledged that of course the owners should have some say in who manages while asserting the decision ultimately came down to him.

Not as good a risk, though, as Dombrowski took on Cora three years ago when he tabbed him to replace John Farrell. During that championship ’18 season, the Red Sox did their own illicit sign-stealing, a misdemeanor compared to the ’17 Astros’ felony that resulted in Manfred punishing Sawx replay operator J.T. Watkins and no one else. The lesson from that, Cora said: “We need to avoid the gray areas.”

It’s a lot of dark arts to spin through, even as Cora acknowledged, “As a manager, I’ve still got to push them to do everything possible to read the scoreboard, read the pitchers, read the catchers, do all that stuff. That’s part of baseball, and I’m going to keep pushing for that.”

Can he walk that tightrope, maintain his edge while not going over the edge? If the Yankees should prefer that Cora work elsewhere, they at least should be grateful that such a strong nemesis has been compromised.

Alex Cora hopes Carlos Beltran gets second chance after Mets ouster

Ken Davidoff

Alex Cora is back to exactly where he was before he got sniffed out as a baseball cheater. He wishes the same forgiveness for his 2017 Astros partner in crime.

At a Zoom news conference to introduce him as the Red Sox’s manager, less than a year after he departed the job as a result of the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, Cora voiced support for his good friend Carlos Beltran, who lost his Mets managing job on January 16, two days after Cora and the Red Sox entered what turned out to be a trial separation.

“We’ve been in touch,” Cora said of Beltran. “He’s one of my best friends. I think the world of him. I hope that his dreams come true.”

Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred fingered Cora and Beltran as the masterminds of the ‘17 Astros’ scheme in which they set up a video monitor close enough to the Minute Maid Park home dugout that the club stole opponents’ pitching signs in real time, notifying the hitter at the plate what pitch was coming. While Manfred ultimately slapped Cora with a season-long suspension, as he did Houston manager A.J. Hinch (who was fired on Jan. 13 and recently became the Tigers’ manager), he issued no penalty to Beltran because he was a player on those Astros. Nevertheless, the mention of Beltran in the official report doomed Beltran’s future with the Mets, who had just hired him at the outset of the 2019-20 offseason.

“The question is whether he should be a big-league manager. Hey, I think so,” Cora said of Beltran. “He’s prepared. Let’s see what happens in the future.”

When pressed whether Beltran, who has not spoken publicly since his dismissal, still wants to manage, Cora laughed and said, “I’m going to reserve that one. But I wish he’d become a manager, yeah.”

* Associated Press

Back in Boston, Red Sox’s Cora vows to be above reproach

BOSTON (AP) — Alex Cora wants to make one thing clear — he deserved to have his dream job as manager of the Boston Red Sox taken away earlier this year.

He also is eager to prove he is worthy of his second chance to direct the team he led to a World Series title in 2018.

Cora was introduced as the new Red Sox manager on Tuesday, just 10 days after his one-season suspension for his role in the Astros’ sign-stealing scheme during their 2017 championship run came to an end.

Cora was Houston’s bench coach prior to being hired by the Red Sox in November 2017, and promptly led Boston to the 2018 championship after a franchise-record 108 regular-season wins. Now he’s back armed with the task of rebuilding both his reputation and a team whose roster looks totally different from the one he previously oversaw.

“It’s been a tough year,” Cora said Tuesday. “I was spending time at home for all the wrong reasons. For that I want to apologize. I deserved what happened this year. It’s something that I’m not proud of. We went through the whole process,,,and at the end I got my penalty and I served it.

“I put this organization in a tough spot. And for that, I’m sorry.”

Even at the time of Cora’s departure from the club in January, Red Sox owner John Henry and chairman Tom Werner, as well as team president Sam Kennedy, didn’t hide their affinity for Cora while acknowledging it was the right decision to part ways with him.

Still, after manager Ron Roenicke was let go following a last-place finish in the AL East this past season, Kennedy said the team made it clear to new baseball operations chief Chaim Bloom that the process and decision for hiring their next skipper was in his hands.

That point was reiterated in a September meeting that included Bloom, general manager Brian O’Halloran, the ownership group and Kennedy.

“Did we let him know how we felt about Alex? Absolutely,” Kennedy said. “We were honest and genuine and direct that we would be supportive of the concept of Alex coming back if (Bloom) felt and his teammates felt that was the right thing for the Boston Red Sox. But that it was their decision to make.”

Bloom, who was hired in the 2019 offseason, had only worked alongside Cora for a few months before Cora departed. So, his initial text and calls to Cora a few days after the World Series were more about getting to know him and his philosophies better.

“Honestly, when the suspension happened, this was the last thing I was thinking,” Cora said of the possibility of returning. “I needed to take care of a lot of things on a personal level, take care of my family and baseball was the farthest thing from my thoughts.

“I never saw that day coming. But little by little the conversations got deeper and deeper.”

He said he, Bloom and O’Halloran had several frank and candid conversations about not only what happened in Houston, but Cora’s vision for building a consistent product on the field following the trades of former MVP Mookie Betts and David Price as part of the salary cap-reducing moves the team has made since Cora left.

“It was intense. It was genuine and it was tough, you know, because there were some tough questions,” Cora said. “And then I kind of like, ’OK, you know, there’s a chance.’”

That process eventually grew into a formal interview. Bloom and the team’s internal search committee interviewed several other candidates as well, but it became clear to them that Cora deserved a second chance.

Bloom said while he didn’t presume to know how every player in the organization viewed the possibility of Cora returning, he said he received several “unsolicited” opinions from them.

“I have a pretty good idea of how they feel about Alex,” Bloom said.

While MLB’s investigation concluded that the sign-stealing scheme Cora orchestrated in Houston wasn’t used during the Red Sox’s 2018 World Series season, Kennedy said there have been internal discussions regarding installing safeguards to ensure their baseball operations staff adheres to all league rules going forward.

That’s just fine by Cora, who acknowledged he must still find ways to innovate during his second stint in Boston while running an operation that remains above reproach.

“You’ve still got to find ways to take advantage of the situation,” Cora said. “The MLB has done an outstanding job cleaning up a few things that teams did or were doing. And it’s a no. It’s a no for me to cross the line. If I fail at this then I’m out of the game.”

But he’s still going to push the envelope, he said.

“As a manager, I still going to push them to do everything possible to read the scoreboard, read the pitchers, read catchers and do all that stuff,” Cora said. “I mean, that’s part of baseball. And I’m going to keep pushing for that.”