Two things can simultaneously be true.
On the one hand, Alex Cora is a great baseball mind who is capable of guiding teams to championships. On the other, the 2026 Red Sox won't miss him much, if at all.
That, though, says a whole lot more about this baseball team than it does about its now-former manager.
And with Cora now free to spend his spring, summer and fall in beautiful Puerto Rico while being paid roughly $13 million through 2027 to not manage the last-place Boston Red Sox, the question obviously becomes what's next for the franchise?
Clearly, by firing Cora along with a half-dozen other coaches, the people in charge decided to initiate a new era of Boston baseball. Whether that was right or wrong can be fairly debated, but it's more interesting to examine whether Sam Kennedy and Craig Breslow are actually capable of steering the franchise in the right direction -- a job that's difficult enough on its own before even considering the financial restraints that John Henry clearly applies to the roster.
Before we get to that question, consider these two quotes from Breslow, delivered the morning after Cora's ousting.
Quote one: "[Firing Cora and the coaching staff] really comes down to the belief that we have in the players, and the belief that we have in the group to accomplish what we set out to accomplish. And by acting today, it gives us 135 games ahead of us. So, we've got almost a full season's worth of run to take advantage of this fresh start and ultimately to compete for a division and a deep postseason run in the way that we talked about it and envisioned and believed heading into spring training."
So, the chief baseball officer still sees this year's team as one capable of competing for the AL East crown and making a deep postseason run.
Sure.
Got it.
Quote two: "Ultimately, responsibility for the performance on the field, it falls on me as the leader of the baseball operation."
That comment was the closest we got to the crux of the matter in this mess. Because the Red Sox' roster is bad.
Real bad.
Want to know how bad? Let's run through which parts of the roster are really even worth keeping as the team tries to reinvent itself on the fly in the middle of a baseball season while somehow still maintaining the goal of a deep playoff run.
The Good
In the long-term view, there are some promising young pitchers in Connelly Early and the recently called-up Payton Tolle. The latter's electric start vs. the Yankees -- albeit in a loss, thanks to the bullpen -- provided a spark that has sorely been missing from this largely lifeless team. And Early, whose spot in the rotation wasn't guaranteed