Craig Breslow appreciates Alex Cora raising the 'level of competition, candor and accountability' with the team
Red Sox skipper Alex Cora is in the final year of his contract with the club and has been on record for not being in a rush to discuss his future with the organization.
“I think the future is the Red Sox and getting these guys better,” Cora said at the Red Sox Winter Weekend in January. “‘I’d be very selfish if I start talking about Alex Cora and what the future holds. The best way to do it is to be a good teammate, like I’ve always been. Let’s take care of 2024.”
Through the first seven games this season, Boston is 5-2, and Cora’s pitching staff has been the story of the team’s success out of the gate.
Chief baseball officer Craig Breslow appeared on WEEI’s “The Greg Hill Show” on Wednesday and talked about the team’s success to open the year and where extension talks stand with Cora.
“Conversations about Alex’s future will take place between Alex and me,” Breslow said. “I don’t think that it makes sense to speak to a specific timeline outside of saying that neither Alex nor I want this to be a distraction. I think we’re both very, very capable of preventing it from becoming a distraction.
“There are certain realities that we can only face by living through a season that are really, really important in establishing the trust, accountability, and transparency required for a really strong and lasting relationship. I’m very excited about the start that we’ve gotten off to.”
If Cora enters the offseason as a free agent manager, he will likely get a contract that’ll exceed the one the Cubs gave to Craig Counsell this winter. The Cubs gave Counsell a five-year, $40 million deal, luring him away from the Brewers. With Cora having a World Series ring on his resume and he’s better at managing win now teams, he could be in for a bigger payday.
Until then, Cora is focused on changing the Red Sox culture in the locker room, and he’s adapting to the youth movement the organization is focused on.
“I’ve gotten an appreciation for kind of what the culture had been,” Breslow explained. “(…) In talking to Alex, it became clear that he wanted to raise the level of competition, candor, and accountability. And those were all things that I believe in very, very strongly. So, we set out to do that from very early on in my days here.”
Not only has Breslow appreciated Cora’s efforts to change the culture, but so have his players.
“There was competition surrounding everything we did,” Breslow said. “(…) That ideally carries into the season, where we’re competing for every pitch, every ground ball, and every fly ball, and holding each other to the standard that we’ve come to expect in Boston.”