Rather than forcing fans to sit through a tense postseason run with an interim manager, the Boston Red Sox ripped the band-aid off and made one of the most obvious announcements of the season: Chad Tracy has earned the full-time manager job. The team and coach have agreed to a three-year extension that runs through 2029 with an option for the 2030 campaign.
It's a well-earned title, one which should take some pressure off Tracy ahead of his first foray into the postseason. Yet, as great as he's been, it's hard not to shake the feeling that this decision was as much about him as it was the coaching market.
By no means am I suggesting Tracy earned this job by default; this team was 32-46 just three months ago and then clinched a playoff spot with one week left to go in the regular season. Guiding the Red Sox out of that dark place into immediate success (they went 32-5 over their next 37 games) was nothing short of miraculous.
Rather, the point I'm trying to make is that Tracy was the only reasonable option for the Red Sox to go with. Just take a look at the best managerial candidates that are out there — none of them fit what this team needs moving forward.
Red Sox should be thankful Chad Tracy left them with no other choice for manager job
The clear-cut best option is Alex Cora, but considering Craig Breslow was also effectively extended (he had two years worth of options exercised), he was never returning to Boston. The odds are quite strong that he'll head to Philadelphia to take over for Don Mattingly, which means that competition for the other best candidates will be fierce this offseason.
Those include some retread hires like old friends David Ross and Rocco Baldelli, plus old enemy Brandon Hyde. The latter two in that group won Manager of the Year awards at their previous stops, but none of the trio are particularly inspiring. Baldelli is the only one with a record better than .500 as a skipper, and they've all combined for one playoff series win in 18 years.
Then there's the coaches looking for their first manager gig, including the likes of Carlos Beltrán and Albert Pujols. As exciting as it would have been to hire a Hall of Famer, moving on from Tracy just to hire another first-timer would have been a nonstarter. The biggest hole in his résumé is his lack of experience at the MLB level.
He's picked up some valuable experience this year, though, and the Red Sox are clearly better for it. Maybe this conversation would have been different if they never recovered from their first-half slump, but it's become clear over the past few months that Tracy really is the only man for the job.
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