Alex Cora opens up about the decision by the Red Sox to part ways with Chaim Bloom
Just before Game 1 of Thursday's doubleheader vs. the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox announced they relieved Chaim Bloom of his duties as chief baseball officer.
Team CEO Sam Kennedy addressed the media while Alex Cora's club earned a 5-0 victory over its archrival. After the game, the Red Sox manager was asked to share his thoughts on Bloom's firing.
“It’s not easy,” Cora said. “We worked together all these years. It’s never easy to hear that.”
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Bloom and Cora have worked together in Boston for the last three seasons. There have been questions about whether their working relationship has been strained due to differing views on the organization's philosophies, but Cora had nothing but positive things to say about it on Thursday.
“It’s a good one,” Cora said of his relationship with Bloom. “He’s a good kid. He was the first one there for me. We actually had a great conversation yesterday about the future of the organization and the mission. There’s a few things he felt that we needed to do better as a coaching staff. We were talking about the future with the kids and what we wanted to accomplish in the last few weeks.”
“Me and him, we grew up a lot the last few years,” he added. "It’s like in business. You don’t agree with everything your partners do. At the end of the day, you work together for the benefit of your business. It’s the same thing here.”
Now, the question is which direction ownership will go to replace Bloom. Interestingly, Cora's name has popped up as a potential candidate to take on a front-office role, similar to Brad Stevens' elevation from Boston Celtics head coach to team president in 2021. However, Kennedy said he envisions Cora managing the club in 2024.
With former Red Sox exec Theo Epstein and Cora seemingly ruled out, our John Tomase put together a list of five potential Bloom replacements. MLB Network's Jon Morosi added two other interesting names to the mix as well.
