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Red Sox Must Consider Firing Alex Cora if He's Heavily Implicated in Astros' Sign Stealing Scandal

By Parker White

Philadelphia Phillies v Boston Red Sox
Philadelphia Phillies v Boston Red Sox / Maddie Meyer/Getty Images

The big news coming out of baseball this week is the report that the Houston Astros used technology to steal signs throughout the 2017 season, and potentially beyond. That's a huge violation, not only of baseball code, but of the letter of the law, and has led to an investigation by MLB to figure out who was involved prominently in the scandal.

One name that keeps popping up is current Boston Red Sox skipper Alex Cora, who was a bench coach for the Astros in 2017, and has spoken with Major League Baseball as part of the investigation.

When he was hired by Boston, did this practice continue with Cora at the helm?

At this point, there isn't an answer to that question, but MLB is going to investigate this fully, and has expanded the investigation to include multiple current Red Sox employees, a bad sign for the organization writ large. And when asked publicly about his involvement, Cora's statement didn't exactly communicate positivity.

If you're new Red Sox top executive Chaim Bloom, what do you do if Cora is heavily implicated in this? The solution may earnestly involve cutting bait.

Bloom didn't hand pick Cora, so this would be an easy way for him to bring in his own guy. On top of that, do the Red Sox really want to deal with this saga all of next year? They're trying to bounce back from a miserable 2019 season. They don't need all this smoke surrounding their manager.

Cora may have won a World Series in his first year as a manager, but things didn't look great in 2019, and it's not like he has a lot of dirt in his spikes that would lead you to believe he'll end up being one of the greatest managers of all-time.

Keep in mind, Cora's incredible 2018 helped hide the fact that he's far from squeaky clean, even getting into a drunken brawl on the Astros' team bus in 2017.

There would have to be some extremely damning evidence for the Red Sox to even consider getting rid of Cora, but at this moment, they can't rule out the consequence completely.