Alex Cora isn't interested in being considered for front office, will be part of search process

BALTIMORE - The uncertainties regarding the Red Sox' future are slowly being chipped away.

The latest round of explanations when it comes to the organization's approach heading into the offseason came from Alex Cora during his pregame media session Sunday at Camden Yards.

Of note was Cora's proclamation that he has told ownership - which he met with last week - that he didn't want to be considered for a front office job, but the manager would be part of the search process for Chaim Bloom's replacement.

"I was very honest with the front office, John (Henry) and Tom (Werner) and Mike (Gordon) and said, I'm not ready to do that. I'm not ready," Cora explained. "If I felt that I think I can do that job I would probably tell them hey, I would like to be part of the process -- or not the process of but one of the candidates. But I'm not ready for that."

When asked if ownership had initially expressed an interest in Cora entertaining the idea of being in the front office, the manager said, "No. I'm not I don't want to be part of this because I'm not ready for this."

Cora also reiterated once again that he would definitively be back with the Red Sox in 2024.

"The only thing I know, I'll be here next year," he said, adding that he would be "part of the process" when it came to the exercise of finding a new chief decision-maker.

As for when and how it was relayed by ownership that Cora would be returning, the manager - who is heading into the final year of his contract - didn't directly say there was a vote of confidence but did insinuate his meeting with the owners served as the impetus for his recent declarations.

"First things first the whole Chaim situation it was tough," Cora said. "It was surprising and you never want somebody to get, let go. We loved our team from the get go and the team is not only 26 players on the 40 man roster, it's from top to bottom and that situation it wasn't easy to swallow. It wasn't easy to digest. And we're still talking about it. But they made a decision and with time we have talked about certain things. It’s good to feel this way but at the same time, we have finished the last two years. I have to be better. I have to improve. Yeah the vote of confidence is great, but what are we doing, what am I doing to put these guys in a situation to be successful? And I always said that you don't only learn in losing situations, you learn from winning situations. But as an individual, I got to be realistic, I feel like I haven't done my job the last two years. I have to improve in a lot of things. I’ll keep that personal, that's for me. I'm working on it. I will be working on it in the off season. And hopefully next year we get better results."

Within the conversation leading into Game No. 162, Cora offered a spirited response to how he viewed another last-place finish for the Red Sox.

"Very disappointed, to be honest with you," he said. "I mean, we can say, 'Blah, blah, blah, this and that, blah, blah, blah.' But, you know, like at the end of the day, we were disappointed. Alot of people thought that we were going to finish last and they were right. We finished last. So as an organization we have to take a look at what are we doing well, what are we doing wrong and we have to improve. I think the narratives and be positive whatever, doesn't fit right now. We have to be very honest to say to ourselves and see where we go. Obviously there's a big decision coming up in the next few weeks or months or whatever it's going to take. John, Tom, Mike and Sam (Kennedy) are going to make a decision. And from there we just got to go. But in the meantime, I think we have to be very honest with our program. There's a lot of things that we have to improve for these guys to be better.

"Conversations are going right now we're going to have a big meeting tomorrow. I'm going to spend some time in Boston talking to a lot of people and including people from player development and analytics and all of that just to have a better understanding of how we're doing things from the Dominican Summer League all the way to Triple-A and obviously what we are doing here to match up with that. That's something that's very important and right now, as the leader of the group right now and the spokesman of the group, that's the way I feel. That's how everybody feels about it. And we just got to make a conscious effort of improving. Finishing last, it doesn't play. It doesn't play here. It doesn't play in Kansas City. It doesn’t play in California. And we've finished last back-to-back years and we can talk about ‘18 all we want. The magical run in ‘21 or ‘07 or ‘04 or ‘13. We've got to turn the page, man. That's gone. We have to move forward and, yeah, we got some pieces that are in place for us to be better in the future, but we have to improve."

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