Jul 22, 2019; St. Petersburg, FL, USA; Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora (20) and president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski prior to the game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports Kim Klement
The Boston Red Sox pulled off a stunner Saturday, firing manager Alex Cora and multiple members of his staff after a slow start. It's not unreasonable to think this move could affect the Phillies on a variety of fronts.
According to ESPN's Jeff Passan, the Red Sox dismissed not only Cora, but also hitting coach Peter Fatse, bench coach Rámon Vazquez, game-planning coach Jason Varitek and third-base coach Kyle Hudson.
It's pretty shocking not only because the Red Sox reached the postseason last year, but also because they beat the Baltimore Orioles 17-1 on Saturday. It's one thing to fire a guy after a win — which the Phillies did with Joe Girardi in 2022 — but to let him and a large chunk of his staff go after such a dominating victory raises eyebrows.
Then again, the Red Sox are just 10-17 even after today's win. And this is an organization that has typically moved quickly when they want to make a decision. They fired Dave Dombrowski as their president of baseball operations in September of 2019, despite winning the World Series in 2018. Boston and Cora parted ways in January of 2020 after his ties to sign-stealing scandals as Houston Astros bench coach in 2017 and Red Sox manager in 2018 emerged. Cora eventually returned as Red Sox manager in 2021, following a one-year hiatus.
So why is this relevant to the 2026 Phillies? First of all, the flood gates are open. A team who has a better record than the 8-18 mark the Phillies enter play with Saturday night has already dismissed their manager. It's always easier to be the second team to fire the manager than the first, and if the Phillies don't soon snap their 10-game losing streak, you wonder what the future holds for Rob Thomson. Dombrowski did give him a vote of confidence on Tuesday, but the Phillies have lost four more games since then.
It's possible the Phillies begin to climb out of this and turn their season around in the near future, and Thomson, signed through 2027, remains the skipper. But the Phillies have to begin to win — and win in bunches — pretty soon for this not to be a lost season.
We're not suggesting if the Phillies did move on from Thomson during the season that Cora would replace him. That almost certainly would be either bench coach Don Mattingly or third base coach Dusty Wathan. When the Phillies fired Giardi in June of 2022 and named Thomson interim manager, Dombrowski explained why an external candidate — many speculated on Jim Leyland — wasn't a real option at that time.
“First of all, they probably didn’t understand the process for naming a manager in the middle of the season,” Dombrowski said. “So, unless you go through a full interview process, you have to name an interim manager, because Major League Baseball has rules that you need to go through a complete process of diversity. So first of all, it was an interim basis.”
Dombrowski would go on to state that he remained friends with Leyland — who was 77 at that time — from their days together with the Florida Marlins and Detroit Tigers. Dombrowski knew Leyland was not interested in returning to managing, even if the procedural hurdles had not been in place.
Obviously, Cora, 50, is in an entirely different place in his life than Leyland was in 2022. It stands to reason that he could manage again, but the path the Phillies would almost certainly take for the remainder of 2026 if they did move on from Thomson would be to name an interim manager already on the MLB staff.
However, if Thomson or an interim manager isn't able to dig the Phillies out of this early hole, there will be real discussions about shaking up the coaching staff next winter. If the Phillies are searching for a new manager next offseason — and Dombrowski, signed through 2027, is leading the search — Cora will likely enter as the favorite. That doesn't necessarily mean Cora would be hired, as there are other guys around the sport, like New York Yankees bench coach Brad Ausmus, with strong ties to Dombrowski. But Cora would definitely be on the short list, as someone who won a World Series with Dombrowski in Boston in 2018 and has a 620-541 career record as a manager.
What will be interesting, though, is to see whether Cora wants to continue managing. The Puerto Rican native has hinted throughout his managerial career that he doesn't envision himself being someone that manages for decades. Even if he would like to manage again in the future, the Red Sox are still on the hook for paying him through the 2027 season. He could choose to sit for the remainder of that contract and then return in the future. Or he might just decide he's altogether done, with his managerial career following a 14 years as a player.
Make no mistake, though, Cora's name is going to be mentioned a lot surrounding the Phillies in the coming days, weeks and months.
