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Dave Dombrowski: Phillies tried to hire Alex Cora within 24 hours of Red Sox firing him
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- Dave Dombrowski: Phillies tried to hire Alex Cora within 24 hours of Red Sox firing him
Within 24 hours of his dramatic firing by the Red Sox on Saturday, Alex Cora received a new job offer from a familiar boss.
Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski confirmed Tuesday that he tried to hire Cora in the immediate aftermath of his firing Saturday night. Despite still having a manager (Rob Thomson) at the time, Dombrowski made an overture to Cora on Sunday. Cora declined, citing a desire to spend the rest of the season with family, and Dombrowski pivoted, firing Thomson and replacing him with interim manager Don Mattingly before Tuesday’s game.
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“I talked to him on Sunday morning,” Dombrowski said at a press conference in Philadelphia . “We talked about potentially taking the job. I had told him I had really come to the conclusion that if he took it, I was going to make a change. I thought he might take it. As time went on over the next day into Monday morning, it was apparent from his perspective that he wanted to take time with his family.”
Cora is going to continue to be paid handsomely by the Red Sox, who signed him to a three-year extension in the $21-22 million range in July 2024 . This season is the second year of that deal, so Cora will be paid for the remainder of 2026 and all of 2027 at an average value of $7-8 million.
“It wasn’t because of pay or because he’s paid through the next year. He just felt that he wanted, at this point, to be a father first and foremost. That’s what he had decided.”
Cora confirmed his decision in a text noting he planned to spend the rest of the year as a “full-time dad.” It appears he’s not going to consider any managerial openings, even with rumors that the Mets might fire Carlos Mendoza and open up another high-profile job.
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Cora, 50, was fired Saturday night — along with a handful of coaches — after the Red Sox got off to a 10-17 start in his eighth season managing them. In his first two seasons (2018 and 2019), Cora grew close to Dombrowski, then Boston ’s president of baseball operations, and the pair won a World Series together in 2018. Cora was stunned by Dombrowski’s firing in 2019 and has stayed in close touch with him throughout the past few years . On Saturday night, after learning of his fate at the team hotel in Baltimore , Cora placed a near-immediate call to Dombrowski.
“He actually called me Saturday night,” Dombrowski said. “He just called me as a friend Saturday night after he had heard about it. I guess he calls me one of his mentors. We talked, and he had never been through that before.”
By Sunday, Dombrowski was trying to hire Cora, who had traveled back to Boston in the hours after being fired. By Monday, it was clear Cora was going to remain unemployed and focus on his twin sons, who will be nine in July, and his daughter, Camila, who is in graduate school at the University of Miami.
It’s quite clear that if he chooses, Cora will be in the mix to land the full-time Phillies job if it becomes available this fall.
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“I think Alex Cora’s one of the finest managers in the game of baseball,” Dombrowski said. “I’ve been fortunate enough to work with Hall of Fame managers like Tony La Russa and Jim Leyland and have been very fortunate in my career. I think if Alex Cora decides to keep managing again, he has a chance to be in that same category. That’s how good he is. ”
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