Fair Territory: Ken Rosenthal reacts to Red Sox firing Alex Cora

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Speaker 1: Welcome everyone to the Monday edition of Fair Territory. I'm Ken Rosenthal, here with you for the next half hour or so. It was one week ago today I wrote a column about managers potentially being on the hot seat, and in that column I said that an early move with Alex Cora, who was in the second year over three year twenty one point seventy five million dollar deal, seems unlikely. I focused on Carlos Mendoza of the Mets, Rob Thompson of the Phillies, both of whom remain in deep trouble. Joe Spot of the Astros. Not sure exactly where that stands, but I should have known him better, and I should have known better with the Red Sox because they are the league leader in dysfunction, in overreaction, and in scapegoating. So what happened on Saturday about I don't know. Two minutes before we went on the air on Fox, Alex Cora was fired along with five of his coaches, and it's really six because you can count Jason Vertek in that group, and the Red Sox hired an interim their Triple A manager, Chad Tracy. Now Cora indeed was in the second year of a three year, twenty one point seventy five million dollar contract. He has basically almost two years left on that deal. The Red Sox will be obligated to pay that off unless he gets another job. We'll get to that, and this is a situation where Craig Breslow and the Red Sox. Craig Breslow, being the chief baseball officer, insisted that it was his decision and this was his push to make these changes at this time. Remember the date of these changes was April twenty fifth. That's remarkably early. The Red Sox at that time were ten and seventeen. Okay, yes, they had been struggling, but this move shocked the entire industry. It shocked the entire industry, not just because of the timing, of course, but because of who Alex Cora is in the game. He's one of the more spected managers in the game, and it shocked people because they thought, well, he was pretty safe. Breslow was maybe the guy more on the hot seat simply because he put this team together. He's the guy who didn't trade an outfielder, who didn't sign Alex Bregman, who stressed run prevention for a team that has not been all that good at run prevention just yet. So where do we stand here? Well, the first big question to me is going to be how the Red Sox played. But the bigger question in terms of the broader picture the industry is Alex Korra and what is he going to do now? He saw his Instagram post and he did this on Twitter as well. I'm happy whatever, he's happy. Okay, that's an odd reaction. But at the same time, I don't know what you expected to say. I don't know that he was going to rip anybody publicly in the wake of this, And maybe he's happy to get out of a place where they run through people left and right. And I'm sure Cora, being experienced in these particular soap operas, maybe was getting worn down by it. And you remember, he's no innocent here. As I wrote in my column that appeared Sunday morning, He's no innocent because he won a power struggle with heim Bloom to get heim Bloom out of there. That was the scapegoat before Alex Cora, and he also last year with ralphield Devers. This manager, who was supposedly known as a great communicator, was not able to get Devers on board with playing first base. Now, fans, some Red Sox fans at least, were not happy with the way the team has performed under Cora in recent years, and you can make a case that they should be or should have been better. Just two playoff appearances since twenty eighteen, and Cora was the manager for all but one of those years. Of course, he was also the manager when they won the twenty eighteen World Series. But none of that stuff ever seems the matter with the Red Sox. You win a World Series, you can be out the next year, whatever the case by We've seen that time and time again. Terry Francona, John Farrell from the managing side, Ben Sherrington, David Dombrowski from the executive side, and now of course we see Cora getting ousted as well. Now the focus here will be from this point on Craig Breslow, chief baseball Officer. And I wrote in my column on Sunday, Craig Breslow is next. And the reason I wrote that is because he now is under scrutiny. He now will be responsible for the successes or failings going forward. You can't blame the manager anymore. Can't blame the hitting coaches, can't blame all the other coaches you dismissed. No, it's on Breslow. And here's a guy that we have not seen yet put a really good team together. They put a team together last year that made it to the playoffs, ultimately lost in the first round. But then what happened. They lost the guy who was supposed to be the fixture, Alex Bregman. Alex Bregman was a big influence on their younger players. They don't really have that right now. And here's Craig Breslow again taking to this decision or making this decision. And then and here's the key part here in a way, the key part, of course is the dismissals. But the way they handled that clubhouse meeting yesterday, Breslaw and Sam Kennedy, the team president, what do they do? Did they open the Florida questions? Did they allow players to express their feelings? No, they spoke, No one else did, and the players were not happy. You might have seen Trevor Story's comments. Trevor Story, I can tell you from years of experience covering him, it's one of the more mild mattern guys in the game. Not a guy to make waves. And what he said was, Hey, this wasn't cool, and it wasn't cool. You got to let players have their say too. And I know they're the employees, these guys are the bosses. We all know that. It's obvious every single day who's running the show. But at the same time, if you have feel, feel for your clubhouse, feel for your players, feel for the organization, then you're going to handle this a little bit differently. And that is the biggest issue with the Red Sox. It's feel, it's Breslow's feel, it's John Henry's feel. We haven't heard from him in agency. He's the one running this show, and this is just a lack of respect for your players, and ultimately, in Henry's case, when you don't address anything, it's a lack of respect for your fans.

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Speaker 1: Breslow, he made a number of decisions here that were rather interesting. The coaching decisions. Clearly he wanted a new hitting department. We saw that the only hitting coach that remained is one with a background in drive line and we'll see how it goes with this. Now that Pete Fatcy's gone, and now that doing loss and is gone, you can make the case that a change in hitting coaches was warranted. They certainly were not performing offensively the way they should. But as I've written many times, said many times on this show and Foul Territory, this team was built in a way that put too much pressure on their young players. I've said this and I'll say it again. They're asking a twenty one year old Roman Anthony to essentially be David Ortiz Wilson Contrera's good addition, not Bregnan, not Pete Alonso, and I know Alonzo's off to a slow start, but that kind of presence for the younger players and for the team as a whole would have been welcome. Contreras's was gone for most of the WBC. Not his fault, of course, but he wasn't there to establish those kinds of relationships. And he's a different guy than those two guys. So that's one thing. The other thing here, let's look at the Dever's trade. For a second, Raphael Devers goes and they get Kyle Harrison back, Well, they'd send Kyle Harrison to Milwaukee for Caleb Durbin. Durbin struggling Kyle Harrison twelve strikeout game yesterday early to judge the Dustin may trade in which they parted with James Tibbs, who is now tearing it up at TRIPAA for the Dodgers. You can say early to judge, we'll see how this all plays out. There's the full trade right there. But at the same time they botched the devor's situation. They were unable to reach him. This is another guy who was ever a problem before. This problem arose with them displacing him a third and then wanting him to play first. Now he should have played first. I think we probably can all agree on that. But the Red Sox completely mishandled it as well. That's on Breslo. It was to some degree on Corps, and it is in some ways the start of this whole thing. Actually, you can go back to Mooky all those years ago when they didn't sign him long term and then traded him in another bad trade with David Price to the Los Angeles Dodgers. But no, now here's Breslo. This guy is in his third season on the job. As Jen McCaffrey has written in The Athletic Predecessors, Hein Bloom, David Dobrowski, and Ben Sherrington all were fired within their first four years so you got to think he's feeling the heat, right, Yeah, I'm sure he is feeling the heat, and this was his move to somehow make things right. We'll see how it goes. I am still not convinced they're gonna hit, even though of course they've changed. They're hitting coaches, which is another perhaps problem in the middle of the season, this kind of disruption where you bring in new coaches, you have this whole program change. We'll see how it works. It's the team that's tied for last in the Majors in home runs. They are down in the bottom and runs per game. It's early. I know. Well, if you thought they were gonna hit, well, we'll see because they're not hitting so far. And if you think they're gonna hit with your new guys, well we'll see how that goes. Now, John Henry the owner, and granted, even with Bresle, they've done some good things. Of course, the Garat Crochet trade other good things. It's not like it's been a complete whiff. But John Henry, well, this is a team that ranks eleventh in cash spending according to spot rack this season. You could argue that they could have spent more and you could argue, certainly that they should have got one of the big bats and Rangers Suarez if that's what they wanted to do. This emphasis on run prevention not a bad idea, but you've got to have run production as well. You see the payrolls right there. You see Boston down at number eleven, right ahead of Detroit and Baltimore. And I wrote that under Henry, the Red Sox have been incoherent, dysfunctional, and forever poised to overreact. Yet why should he operate differently When Fenway is filled pretty much every night, when the fans and the opposing fans who come in has tourists seem rather happy when the cash is flowing. In situations like this, honestly, the only ways for fans to express their frustration is by not going to games, not watching on TV, that kind of thing. I don't expect that to happen with the Red Sox. Red Sox fans like baseball. I understand that they love their team. But at the same time, I feel for Red Sox fans here because, as I wrote the other day, this team kareems from one team building strategy to another. There never seems to be this kind of coherent vision that you have, and granted that's going to happen from time to time, you're going to shift the way you operate your club. But this is a big market club that should be trying to win always. We can question their effort with how they've tried to win over the years, simply by the spending question. But it's beyond that. You can win without having a top five payroll. We know that. So the Red Sox and their operation is still in question, and I still wonder what this team is going to do the rest of the season, and I wonder as well. Will conclude with this what becomes of Alex Korra for this season. Obviously he has the ties with David Dombrowski. Remember they won the twenty eighteen World Series together for the Red Sox. Dave Dombrowski's in Philly, Rob Thompson's in trouble. We know that Phillies have, along with the Mets, the worst record in the major leagues nine to nineteen. Could Alex Cora Marritt manage that quickly? I sort of doubt it, but you're never know. In this crazy game, it's not unprecedented for a guy, a manager to change teams in the middle of a season. It's happened before a couple of times in baseball history, So we shall see what becomes of Cora. And by the way, if he does go to another team in the middle of the season or even at the end of the season, the Red Sox will be obligated to pay some of that money. But the new team will sign him to I wouldn't say a representative contract, but they'll pay him, say three million dollars a year. The Red Sox will pick up the rest, So they're not done with Alex or yet, at least as far as paying Alex Korra. All Right, enough about the Red Sox. Nough, we're gonna get to them in the next segment as well. We're gonna come up with the Inside Dish right after this Five biggest surprises of the first month and five biggest disappointments. Guess which list Boston makes. Right back, look at that our new introduction for Inside Dish. It looks rather tasty, and we hope this segment is rather tasty for people that are watching and listening. So the Inside Dish, if you are unfamiliar, is the segment in which we go inside a story I've written, or a trend in the game, or today we'll do something a little bit different for us, and it's five biggest surprises of the early going and five biggest disappointments. We will start with the biggest surprises, the positive first, the kind of guy I am. We'll start with the guy who is the dominant pitcher in the major leagues right now, Jose Sri of the Los Angeles Angels. Now here's a guy came into the season good pitcher, three point eight nine career era in about three hundred and twenty four innings, maybe two seasons worth. No one expected this. His era right now after six starts, not exactly a small sample is zero point twenty four. He is allowed one earned run oh No. One in thirty seven and two thirds innings. And Tyler Kepna wrote about this in The Athletic about a week and a half ago. He has a great sinker. He actually has reduced the use of his sinker with Angels pitching coach Mike Maddox advising him, and it's made him an even better pitcher. He's expanded his repertoire. He has been brilliant. He is biggest surprise number one. Number two, I will go to the Cincinnati Reds and team that I'm accused of ignoring. No, they're eighteen and ten. You can't ignore them. We've talked more about the Pirates because the Pirates have been down for so long. Red's made the playoffs last season. But this version of the Reds team has been surprising. Surprising because they've been without Hunter Green and Nicolodolo, two of their top starting pitchers. They've had other injuries as well, most recently a Johanno Suarez, which is going to be one that could hurt them. They haven't gotten much offense, at least in the early going. It was basically Elie Dela Cruz and salth Stewart, the rookie who is a strong Rookie of the Year candidate. Through April seventeenth, they were last in the majors in runs per game last and yet they're eighteen and ten. They're up to nineteenth in runs per game. They've gotten a great run out of their bullpen yesterday aside, they had a bad day yesterday with their bullpen. But that has been the biggest surprise within the surprise, I'm not totally convinced that the bullpen is going to be as good as it's looked, But Santi Ashcraft and Amelio Pagan at the end, they've been good. These guys have been good all around, and they'll get Green and Lodolo back at some point, Lodolo first. They're going to be an interesting team in what is become an interesting division. You could argue that the NL Central as a whole is the biggest surprise in the game. Okay, third biggest surprise, and actually this one ranks pretty highly too. The team with the best record in the major leagues that would be the Atlanta Braves at twenty and nine. Third in rotation era, even with basically an entire rotation on the injured list, including Spencer Stryder and Spencer Schwellenbach all spring I wrote and questioned on this show and others whether they would have enough for their rotation, whether they were just flirting with danger here, and it seemed to me they were, and it seemed that the alarm bells I rang were pretty justified. Well, look at the Braves now. It's not over, of course, we're only however, many games in, but their rotation has been brilliant and they deserve a lot of credit. Their bullpen is really good as well. Iglesia is currently down. He's their closer, but they've got Robert Suarez as well, who they signed, and they are first in the major leagues, first in scoring, first and runs per game. They've gotten great seasons so far out of Olsen and Drake Baldwin and Michael Harris the second A Kundrim really hasn't started to hit, Austin Riley really hasn't started to hit. And yet they've also done some good things around the edges. Guys like Dominic Smith and Mauricio Dubon have hit huge impacts for the Braves. So good for them. Great start and they look like they are back after such a disappointing season last year. Fourth on the Biggest Surprises list. Well, this guy has been amazing. Munataka Morikami. Now I know he's basically well, he's basically a three outcomes guy, home run, walker, strikeout. He ranks eleventh in the league in ops, though he has eleven home runs in twenty seven games. This was as advertised. People said he's gonna hit for power, people said he's going to strike out. People thought he would walk a lot as well. Now he's got the seventh highest strikeout rate, striking out about it one third of the time. He's got the ninth highest walk rate, so that's good. He's getting on base ops is way up there. As I said, the question is will pitchers adjust to him, and then how will he adjust? But we know now that the power certainly is there. We know he can hit major league pitching. The question is the cat and mouse game and how it will proceed. All right. Fifth biggest surprise, This one will be a pleasant surprise for fans. One that has kind of surprised all of us, I think, and it's ABS and the entertainment value that it has provided. It's been good for the game. We probably all can agree on that. Yes, it's slowed down the game just a touch from where it was with the clock in place and no ABS, but the challenges move very quickly and fans seem to get into it. The strategic element is a lot of fun. When do you challenge? When do you not? Why did that guy challenge there? Oh, he should have challenged this pitch. It's all been part of the new product of baseball and Rob Manfer, the commissioner, deserves a lot of credit for this, as well as the pitch clock. The esthetic changes to the games of the game in recent years have been fantastic, so ABS we applauded and certainly a great surprise in terms of the entertainment value for fans. We kind of knew what it was going to be, we just didn't know necessarily how much fun it would be.

00:20:31
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00:21:32
Speaker 1: Let's move to the five biggest disappointments, and the five biggest disappointments are all going to be teams, and we'll start, of course with the New York Mets, the New York Mets who were swept by the Colorado Rockies over the weekend. You remember the Rockies, they lose a zillion games every year. They mocked the Mets on X last night with this amazing tweet asking essentially for the Empire State Building to be lit in purple Rockies purple for the sweep of the Mets. Probably not gonna happen, but my goodness, how the mighty have fallen, or I should say, how the expensive have fallen? Because the Mets have not been mighty, except in twenty four when they made it to the NLCS, but they've been rather expensive. As I said earlier, tied with the Phillies for the worst record in Major League Baseball nine to nineteen. They lost Soda earlier, Soda comes back, they lose Lindor. These are problems, obviously that any team would face. But here they are in the middle of a make or break home stand and they're two and four against the Twins and the Rockies, with the Nationals now coming in off day today. Will Carlos Mendoza make it till tomorrow? We're going to find out, and certainly the Mets there are a myriad of problems. As Will Salmon writes in The Athletic Today, it's not just the offense, which has been really bad. It's also the rotation where you've got Peterson, Manya and Senga who have all underperformed, and really you have to stack all these guys in the bullpen now because they can't be in the rotation. It's essentially one thing after another. So let's go and continue with the other disappointments. The Phillies. Yeah, the Phillies. Of course, we talked about them a little bit earlier. This team, too has not hit bottom three offense Mets last in the Majors and runs per game Phillies third from the bottom. Phillies negative fifty four run differential worst in baseball. Dave Dombrowski summoned three scouts to Atlanta to evaluate the club this weekend, never a good sign. They had an outfield yesterday of Felix Reyis, Dylan Moore, and Adols Garcia. The Philadelphia Phillies did. They're in a bad place. The Red Sox. We talked about them. They are, of course, one of the biggest disappointments, tied for the worst record in the AL. Again, we don't need to go through this anymore. We know who they are and they have been Kansas City Royals now. This team, if not for the expensive teams falling all over themselves, would be right up there with the biggest disappointments and getting more attention. They made minor moves to fix their offense. They resigned Jonathan India, picked up Lane Thomas, traded for Isaac Collins. Hasn't worked. Pascalent Tweino and sal Perez off to really slow starts. They did score eleven yesterday. Maybe they'll come out of it. We'll see. But at the same time, huge disappointment and the loss of Steves in their bullpen has led to them having the ERA among relievers, next to last in the major leagues. Finally, the Houston Astros. Houston Astros are walking the world, leading the Majors in walk right. Of course they are because they have an entire rotation on the IL, including Hunter Brown their ace, and Tatsua in their big import this offseason, as well as Josh Hater being on the IL and Brian abre You struggling. They are sixth in the Majors and runs per game and yet they cannot get out of their own way because of the pitching. They too have been a huge disappointment. We'll see if Joe Spot has survived. He's in the last year of his contract. Dana Brown, the GM is in the last year of his contract as well. Okay, let's take a break here. We'll come right back after this with the final segment. Grillan ken A. Here we go with Grillan Ken back with another food motif. I kind of love it all, right, first question, let's get to it. This one is Bobby Whitt has gone from thirty two homers in twenty twenty four to twenty two in twenty twenty five to now so far only one home run in twenty twenty six. Is there a concern with his power decrease the last three years? This question comes from Sean Michael, who often has good questions, and this is a good one when you describe it like that, when you put it as Sean did, yeah, you have to be a little bit concerned. But it's early in the season. With like Pascuentino and Perez got off to a slow start, he seemingly is coming out of it. I want to see more this season before I passed judgment on whether he is in some kind of power decline. I tend to doubt it. Bobby Witch Junior is really good and I expect him to remain really good. All right, let's get to our other question. We're gonna have one more because I ran along on the previous two segments. This one is from Kyle Knapp. What is the lead? Kyle? The lead is the start of the show, and what it is in print journalism is the first paragraph. How you begin the story. Sometimes you write a good lead. Sometimes you write a bad lead. Sometimes the editor says, you know what, We're gonna rewrite the lead entirely because this ain't doing it for me. That happens, happens to all of us. All Right, With that, we're gonna say goodbye. We'll get back to your questions more on Thursday when I have the next show, the Thursday Show with Alana Rizzo. I want to thank everyone for watching and listening. Foul Territory coming up at one pm Eastern. That's a J. Prazinski, Eric Kratz, and Scott Braun. We're gonna have the Boston Globes, Pete Abraham. He'll have some insights on the Red Sox. I'm sure White Sox pitcher Davis Martin and former MLB and Red Sox executive Zach Scott stops By. Actually, Zach also worked for the Mets. He'll be an interesting liston as well. Again, we'll back Thursday with Alana. Talk to you guys then.

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