McAdam: Does MLB report on 2018 Red Sox open the door for a return for Alex Cora?

For the past few months, it's been all I can do resist a giant eyeroll when people suggested that Alex Cora could potentially return to the Red Sox dugout in 2021.

Surrrrrre, I would think. Nice conspiracy theory you got there. The idea the Red Sox would turn around and re-hire someone whom they summarily dismissed within hours of the findings of the investigation into the Houston Astros seemed inconceivable.

Nope, not going to happen. Time to move on.

I gave it less than a one percent chance of coming true.

Until Wednesday afternoon.



Until Major League Baseball, more than 100 days after it began, finally finished its investigation of the 2018 Red Sox and announced that 1) video replay coordinator J.T. Watkins would be suspended for the remainder of the 2020 season and postseason and barred from assuming that role in 2021, 2) the Sox would be docked a second-round pick and 3) Cora would indeed be suspended for the entire 2020 season for, and here's the important part, "for his conduct as the bench coach of the Houston Astros in 2017.''

Note that there's nothing in there about his culpability with the 2018 Red Sox, other than a mild rebuke from commissioner Rob Manfred for failing to "effectively communicate to Red Sox players the sign-stealing rule that was in place for the 2018 season.''

That's not exactly damning stuff for Cora and it certainly falls miles short of his involvement with the Astros' for far greater transgressions only a year before.

The expectation all along was that Cora might be dealt with more harshly than anyone. He helped orchestrate the operation in Houston that involved banging trash cans to signal pitches to hitters at the plate, and now that he was linked to a second franchise caught breaking the rules, it was easy to imagine he might get a suspension of longer than a season -- more than either Houston GM Jeff Luhnow or manager A.J. Hinch received.

Instead, Cora got a suspension of the same length and, all things considered, got off lightly.

More than a month after jettisoning Cora, the Red Sox installed his former bench coach Ron Roenicke as interim manager, with the understanding that the "interim'' tag would be lifted once the investigation was complete.

That was said with the expectation that Roenicke would be unaffiliated with any of MLB's findings, which turned out out to be true. Roenicke had assured the Sox of that when interviewing for the managerial opening and that claim proved to be 100 percent accurate.

Indeed, on a conference call Wednesday night, chief Red Sox baseball officer Chaim Bloom confirmed that the interim tag had been removed. "Ron is now our manger,'' said Bloom.

But what wasn't necessarily expected was that Cora, too, would be untouched by the scandal. And that completely changes the landscape.

Asked whether things had indeed changed regarding Cora, Bloom said: "As we said when we parted ways with Alex, we were clear that was the result of his role in what happened with the Astros and everything that the investigation revealed and had nothing to do with what may or may not happened in Boston. And that's still the case. All the reasons we parted ways with then are still the case.''

Bloom also revealed that Roenicke's deal with the organization runs only through the 2020 season, providing another option for the Sox to revert back to Cora for the 2021 season.

Red Sox team president and CEO Sam Kennedy added that he believes Cora deserved a second chance in the big leagues.

"I do,'' he said. "That's my personal feeling. I think he does need to go through a rehabilitation process. What he did was wrong. He acknowledged that to us. But I'm a big believer in second chances so we all wish him well.''

It's unknown, of course, whether Major League Baseball will have a 2020 season at all. Various proposals have been floated, centered around games being played in as few as one state or as many as three (Florida, Texas and Arizona).

But that will require a flattening of the pandemic curve, the ability to frequently test everyone within a baseball biosphere, settled differences between MLB and the MLB Players Association regarding player compensation -- and myriad other issues that can't even be anticipated now.

With each passing day, as the number of infections and deaths rise, the less likely that prospect becomes.

If no games are played until 2021, it becomes that much easier for the Red Sox to reverse course and re-hire Cora to manage the team when they next play meaningful games. He'll have served his suspension even if MLB doesn't play a single inning and be available to return.

Such a move might seem grossly unfair to Roenicke, who waited five long years for another chance to manage again in the big leagues, only to see something completely unforeseen cruelly snatch the opportunity away from him.

But this is a business, and the Red Sox now have a clear path to re-install Cora in the dugout.

They clearly were torn when they announced his termination in January. They stressed their respect and admiration for him, thanked him for his contributions and cited his accomplishments.

From a public relations standpoint, it had to be done. The Red Sox couldn't be the subject of an MLB investigation into sign-stealing with a manager who was revealed to have been directly involved with another team that had already been found guilty. Bad optics.

Now, however, it's easier to bring him back, say he's paid his debt to the game, and pretend that the entire calendar year of 2020 never happened.

In this scenario, Roenicke becomes Rick Renteria -- the baseball lifer who was pushed aside by the Chicago Cubs after one year as manager in 2014 once Joe Maddon became a surprise free agent. It's not personal -- it's business.

The same fate could now befall Roenicke, a good man who gets sacrificed at the altar of unintended circumstances.

Stranger things have happened. And suddenly, this doesn't seem so far-fetched after all.