Mazz: Alex Cora won
On Thursday the Boston Red Sox announced that they have fired Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom. On Thursday’s Felger and Mazz, Mazz gave his thoughts on Alex Cora winning the battle between him and Chaim Bloom.
Audio
Thoughts on Alex Cora winning the battle….
Felger: Are you confident where they’re going next?
Mazz: No. I have no idea where they’re going next. And again, Sam Kennedy said they’re going to have a prolonged search. To me, the one thing that I think we do know from this is Cora wins. Cora v. Bloom…Cora wins, Bloom loses. And someone said to me today on the way in, it’s not as much Cora wins as Bloom loses, so let’s see what happens with Cora. But I think Kennedy said they expect them to be back. And my guess is they have to extend him now. Cora’s going into the final year of his contract, what are you going to do? Go look for an executive and then the manager go into his final year of his deal when you just chose him over the previous GM? So I think they have to extend Cora. Brian O’Halloran was named in this press release and said, he was the general manager, the first lieutenant, so to speak, under Bloom, he was named in this release and the others weren’t. Raquel Ferreira wasn’t mentioned. Eddie Romero wasn’t mentioned. And so I think what this tells you, without question, O’Halloran has been passed over. He will not be the guy. They’ve offered him another position in the organization. So they’re not just going to go with the what do they call it, the Peter Principle? The next guy? Okay. Not going to be him. He’s not it. It does tell me that Eddie Romero is a candidate. He has a good relationship with Cora, his father and Cora lifelong friends. Or his father was more of a mentor to Cora and Cora has known Eddie Romero since he was a kid. So I think if you’re looking for a working relationship, Romero would work with Cora. And it’s clear to me that Cora’s the strongest voice in the baseball operations.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – JANUARY 15: Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom looks on during a press conference addressing the departure of Alex Cora as manager of the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park on January 15, 2020 in Boston, Massachusetts. A MLB investigation concluded that Cora was involved in the Houston Astros sign stealing operation in 2017 while he was the bench coach. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
Felger: So that’s interesting. So what you’re setting up is the scenario you’ve been talking about, which is the baseball department sort of goes through Cora?
Mazz: That’s what I think.
Felger: And it’s like a like one of these NFL arrangements where the coach is really the head of the department, but they have a personnel head that sort of answers to the coach, like here in New England or Seattle with Pete Carroll. And that’s sort of exceptionally rare in baseball, but a possibility here.
Mazz: I think so. And I think that the fact that it’s Romero, it won’t feel that way internally because they’ve known each other for so long and they trust each other so it won’t feel like one of them is in charge over the other.
