The Red Sox and manager Alex Cora have recently engaged in talks about a contract extension, per Jeff Passan and Buster Olney of ESPN, as relayed by Passan on X. Passan says there is momentum towards a deal with a multi-year deal possible. In a subsequent tweet, he adds that the sides have talked about a three-year pact. Olney tweets that the discussed deals would pay Cora in the range of $21.75MM over those three years.
Cora, 48, has been the subject of speculation for a while since he is in the final year of his current contract. The club finished last in the American League East in both 2022 and 2023, which led the franchise to fire chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom. Cora stayed on with Craig Breslow replacing Bloom, but it wasn’t clear if Cora would stay beyond the current season.
Some had speculated that Cora might look to pivot to a front office role, something he has openly expressed an interest in. Others wondered if he might follow the path of Craig Counsell, who surprised many by becoming a free agent and signing with the Cubs for $40MM over five years, changing the landscape of salary expectations for high-profile managers.
After those aforementioned last-place finishes, the Sox went on to have a fairly modest offseason. Their most notable deal in the winter was signing Lucas Giolito to a two-year deal, but they also traded away Chris Sale and then Giolito required season-ending surgery, seemingly leaving the club worse than where they were before.
Expectations were therefore fairly low but the Sox have easily surpassed them. Thanks largely to breakouts from incumbent players like Tanner Houck, Jarren Duran, Wilyer Abreu, Kutter Crawford and others, the Sox are 54-46, putting them just one game back of a playoff spot.
As recently as last month, Cora told reporters that he and the club had no plans to discuss a midseason extension, but it appears that has now changed. Perhaps that’s due to the club performing better than expected or simply because Cora and Breslow have now had a few months to work together and become comfortable with one another.
The franchise has shown loyalty to Cora before. He managed the club in 2018 and 2019, winning the World Series in the first of those years, but he missed the 2020 season after being suspended by Major League Baseball. Cora was the bench coach for the Astros in 2017 and received that punishment for his role in their infamous sign-stealing operation. Ron Roenicke served as the bench boss in Boston that year but Cora was re-hired after his suspension was served, a two-year deal with club options for 2023 and 2024.
The Sox then went on a surprise playoff run 2021, despite finishing in last in the East the year prior. On the heels of that strong season, the Sox preemptively exercised both of their club options, keeping Cora in the dugout through 2024. That contract is now nearing its completion but it sounds as though there’s a good chance of a new deal getting done to keep him in Boston.