The Boston Red Sox fired manager Alex Cora and multiple coaches on Saturday night in an epic housecleaning move that shocked many people across Major League Baseball. But not everyone was surprised.
ESPN's Buster Olney might've seen this coming. Or, he at least sensed that Cora's time in Boston was close to finished. We know this because Olney proposed an outside-the-box idea in recent days, suggesting the Philadelphia Phillies should trade for Cora.
That's right, Olney speculated that Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski could pull off the rare trade involving a manager, especially given Dombrowski's history of success with Cora in Boston (they won a World Series in 2018 as a PBO-manager duo).
"A manager who Dave Dombrowski and the Phillies (could be) interested in is Alex Cora," Olney said, "knowing that Alex had that great working relationship with (Dombrowski)."
Buster Olney linked Alex Cora to Phillies a few days before Cora was fired
On the podcast the other day: An idea -- pure speculation -- for an in-season manager trade. https://t.co/MatOy70Lju pic.twitter.com/fcvfgGOBXO
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) April 25, 2026
Now that Cora is without work, Olney's Cora-Phillies link becomes even more striking — the Phillies wouldn't have to trade for Cora at all. They could just hire him! Then again, that's assuming that Dombrowski is on board with ousting Rob Thomson as the Phillies' manager, an idea that Dombrowski has pushed back on publicly in recent days despite Philly's horrendous losing streak.
But how much more losing can Dombrowski take before changing his stance on Thomson? The Phillies were losers of 10 in a row entering Saturday, and owners of the worst record in Major League Baseball (8-18). They can't afford to continue on this trajectory, especially in a division that features an Atlanta Braves team looking like contenders again (after a weird outlier year), a surprising Miami Marlins team, and even the New York Mets, who are bound to return to the mean after their own awful losing streak.
Alex Cora might be the fresh voice that the Phillies need
Olney, like most of us, sensed that Cora wasn't a good fit in Boston, but the timing of Olney's trade idea was still pretty special. Looking back on Boston's season so far, it's clear that most fans didn't realize how profoundly upset the front office was with the Red Sox's poor performance and Cora's growing discontent with the Red Sox's young, inexperienced roster, a group of players he scapegoated one day before getting canned.
But Cora should keep his head up and stay ready. The Phillies clearly need a shake-up themselves, and Dombrowski certainly has Cora's number in his phone.
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