Following the Suspension for Sign Theft…
Alex Cora, the Boston Red Sox’s former manager, has returned. The Houston Astros released him less than a month ago due to his involvement in the 2017 and 2018 sign-stealing and cheating incident.
According to a Red Sox news release, Cora will become the team’s manager for a two-year deal that will expire after the 2022 campaign, with an additional two-year club option for the 2023 and 2024 campaigns.
Major League Baseball suspended Cora for the entirety of the 2020 season. Cora led the Red Sox to a World Series championship in 2018 as a first-year manager.
Since Cora’s suspension was removed, it was widely expected that he would be a possibility for the position, according to MLB Network, which broke the hiring news first.
the “strong relationships he has with ownership, the front office, the coaching staff and key players on the roster — was too compelling for [Red Sox] chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom to pass up,” according to the MLB Network.
After a thorough investigation by the league revealed that Cora assisted in creating a complex sign-stealing scheme while working as the Astros’ bench coach, the team and Cora “mutually agreed to part ways” in January.
According to the league, the plan involved Astros players pounding garbage cans to warn their batting colleagues of the impending pitch. The Astros were keeping an eye on the catcher’s signals to the pitcher, figuring out what pitch the other team was going to throw and letting their batter know.
The strategy wasn’t very well concealed, as NPR revealed.
Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred stated, “Witnesses made clear that everyone proximate to the Astros’ dugout presumptively heard or saw the banging.”
In 2017, the Los Angeles Dodgers were defeated by the Astros to win the World Series.
