Red Sox Bold Prediction: Alex Cora will be your 2022 Manager of the Year

Alex Cora will earn more silverware for the Red Sox in 2022

It’s prediction time, Red Sox Nation! As we continue to navigate our way through the darkness that is the MLB lockout looking toward the future is really all we have right now. Today’s prediction centers around our beloved skipper, Alex Cora. The Red Sox boss was snubbed when it came time for the 2021 AL Manager of the Year to be named but I think that all changes when the calendar says 2022.

So far in my series of ‘Bold Predictions,’ I’ve named who I believe will be your 2022 AL MVP, and who I think could walk away with the AL Cy Young Award, now it’s time for the skippers. Let me first vent that I think it’s absolutely ridiculous that Cora wasn’t even a finalist for the 2021 MotY. I fully support Scott Servais, but as I’ve said before I can’t get behind Dusty Baker and Kevin Cash.

The Astros and Rays would’ve been in the playoffs if they had a broom drawing up the lineup cards, it didn’t matter who was in charge. On the other hand, we saw with the Red Sox what happens when Cora isn’t leading the brigade. And if you want to shout into the void about cheating go right ahead, enjoy the silence that is the black hole that you’re screaming into.

AC won the whole damn thing in his first season as manager of the Red Sox and also led the team to a franchise record of 108 wins. 2019 was a different story as it felt like injuries and playoff fatigue was a constant in the Boston clubhouse. The team underperformed despite a majority of the World Series-winning squad returning, things should’ve gone much differently.

Then Cora gets shown the door due to the Astros cheating scandal and the fallacy that was a cheating scandal in Boston. Bench Coach Ron Roenicke was given the helm for the insanity that was the COVID-riddled 2020 season. Things went poorly and to nobody’s surprise, Roenicke didn’t last long as the skipper. While Chaim Bloom took his time finding his next manager it felt like an inevitability that Alex would return, and boy did he.

The 2021 Red Sox had little to no expectations on their shoulders after being the fourth-worst team in all of baseball the year prior. They then went out and got swept in the first series of the year and things really seemed to be going downhill fast. Then AC got the fellas fired up and the Red Sox became the hottest team in the first half of the season until they weren’t.

The All-Star break was a mixed bag for Red Sox Nation as we saw the squad go on a stressful skid into the break and then they picked up right where they left off. The second half of the season was one that saw the team really fight for every tally in the win column. Adding Kyle Schwarber, bringing back Chris Sale, and the bats finding themselves would change the narrative by October.

Going into the final series of the season fans saw what could be a four-way dance for the Wild Card spots but Cora didn’t flinch. He kept the roster focused on the task at hand and they understood the assignment. Boston gets into the Postseason and we all know where the story goes from there.

They dominate the Yankees in the Wild Card game. Then they dominated the Rays in the ALDS. Our hopes were through the roof as the Sox got a quick 2-1 lead on the Astros in the ALCS. Unfortunately, the train went off the tracks after that point with every facet of the game getting sloppy and Houston would send Boston packing. The worst part of the ALCS was the fact that we had the lead late in both Game 1 and Game 4, a few things fall our way and we’re in the Fall Classic.

Had the Red Sox defeated the Astros in the ALCS I fully believe they would’ve beaten the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. And what a great story that could have been. Two teams with ties to Boston and neither with anyone behind them before the season began. We were so close to seeing Alex Cora raise his second Commissioner’s Trophy in four years, absolutely wild.

How he was denied being a finalist will never make sense to me. Too many will hold what happened in Houston and the “asterisk” from the 2018 season against him for too long. At some point, those that make the decisions have to get over themselves and realize that Cora is a fantastic manager. He deserved it back in 2018 and more than deserves it if he can repeat that accomplishment in 2022.

This brings me back to the reason why we’re here in the first place, your 2022 AL Manager of the Year. I expect Chaim Bloom to add more weapons to the arsenal and for the group, we’re bringing back from 2021 to gel even further to build a World Series favorite next year. The Red Sox will once again make a deep run into the playoffs, this time making the World Series, winning it all, and earning AC his honors as Manager of the Year.