Sam Kennedy said Alex Cora and Chaim Bloom will both be back in 2023.
Case closed? Maybe not.
As the Boston Red Sox inch closer and closer to their eventual elimination from postseason contention, the team president and CEO put his support behind the duo in an interview with The Athletic. Considering the slew of injuries the Red Sox faced this season and the fact that both reportedly are under contract through at least next season, that isn’t entirely surprising.
Excuses aside, the reality is that the Red Sox underperformed this season after getting two wins from the World Series in 2021. And while Kennedy’s endorsement might help quell some of the speculation of a split, longtime ESPN MLB reporter Tim Kurkjian said he still isn’t certain both will return in 2023.
“I believe Sam Kennedy, everything he says, so I’m going to take him at his word here, but I’m not so sure this is the perfect marriage (of) general manager and manager,” Kurkjian said on the “Baseball Tonight” podcast. “And I’m not positive both of those guys are going to be back next year, mainly because of how poorly things have gone, especially lately, in Boston.
“Look, Alex Cora is a great manager. He should be the manager of that team next year. But to me, they’re just divergent personalities and they’re looking in different directions from what I can see. So, they’re going to have to really get it together if they’re going to make those two work together. Chaim Bloom is really smart, Alex Cora is a great manager and if he doesn’t come back to Boston, and I’m not suggesting he’s not going back, he would get a job very quickly.”
Bloom took over in the winter of 2019 and since has hugely improved the farm system while building a team that played far above expectations in 2021. The woeful 2020 campaign and current lackluster season, partnered with what seems like a lack of urgency to extend Rafael Devers and Xander Bogaerts, have marred the overall outlook. Frankly though, it’s too soon to judge which iteration of the Red Sox under Bloom’s watch is the aberration.
There’s no disputing the quality of manager Cora is, and it’s clear the team thinks highly of him. Considering they hired him right back after his suspension in 2020, pivoting away from him after two seasons would be surprising.
The Red Sox have a ton of money coming off the books this offseason, and some prospects added during the Bloom era are knocking on the door to the majors. For that reason, 2023 seems like the big year to judge the performance of Bloom and Cora.
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