The advice Alex Cora gave the Red Sox players should serve as a caution to ownership and front office.
The Boston Red Sox still have games to play in the upcoming season, regardless of what transpired or, perhaps more accurately, what didn’t happen this winter.
Training games for spring are quickly approaching. Preseason exhibitions for the Red Sox are about to begin, and not many supporters are enthusiastic about the team’s current situation. The players have also voiced their worries to the front office regarding the team’s situation, but it didn’t seem like the men in charge were paying attention.
In addition to motivating the team for spring training, manager Alex Cora reminded the players of their identity during his preseason speech.
“You simply need to discover who you are. That’s the most crucial factor, Cora declared. “Whatever we have gone through the last two years, we’re still the Boston Red Sox. You try to get better in certain areas.”
The Red Sox speech by Alex Cora ought to serve as a cautionary tale for management.
His remarks seem more intended as a wake-up call to ownership and management than to the players, who are trying their hardest with the resources at their disposal.
Management determined what needed to be improved before the offseason in order to transform the team from a bottom-dwelling unit into a competitive one. The starting pitching, which is, in some ways, worse than it was last season, was the largest of those areas.
In his speech, Cora addressed every single tender spot for supporters and athletes. He brought up the team’s two consecutive last-place finishes, the fact that no free agents were signed, and the management’s shift in the team’s direction.
Cora seems to be begging for assistance from the front desk. The team it currently plays with is a shell of the roster that once belonged to one of the biggest spenders in the league and was a consistent playoff contender for nearly 20 years. The need to save money has overcome the need to compete — the need the front office promised it would meet this season.
Sam Kennedy, the CEO of the Red Sox, commented on Cora’s remarks and said it was everything fans could hope for from John Henry’s lamb sacrifice.
“A reminder of what this organization has been about and what we want to be about, which is playing competitive baseball into October,” was how he described Cora’s speech. He added that Cora stressed “trying to
However, the front office brought about the current state of the Red Sox. The front office made decisions to hold off on fielding a competitive team, to make lowball offers to free agents, and to lack experienced players on the roster while maintaining the pretense that it was doing its best. Put differently, each of these results was entirely within our control. Rather than take the necessary decisions to be competitive, Boston decided to be bad this upcoming season.
Cora repeated herself, saying, “[They’re] still the Boston Red Sox.” but later on, he contradicted himself. “Hopefully, we can get back to who we are,” he added.
And the reason for that is most likely that he is aware that his team isn’t as good as the Red Sox.
