Chad Tracy had one urgent question. It was April 25, early in the evening, and Tracy had gotten a call from Craig Breslow, chief baseball officer of the Boston Red Sox. Breslow told Tracy that he would be interim manager of the Red Sox, effective immediately. And so, the question.
“Is Flo on staff with me?”
José David Flores had been Tracy’s trusted confidante. He served as his bench coach for the first three years Tracy managed Triple-A Worcester, before Flores was promoted to the Red Sox coaching staff as the first-base coach under Alex Cora in 2024.
When Tracy got the call — in the middle of a Saturday night game at Worcester’s Polar Park — his head was spinning. He’d just learned Cora was fired while the Red Sox were in Baltimore to face the Orioles, and that he was the chosen replacement. But he didn’t yet know that six coaches had also been dismissed.
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“My first question was, ‘Is Flo going to be there?’ That was my very first question,” Tracy said recently, sitting in the Red Sox dugout, nearly four months into his wild interim tenure. “In the sense like, I’m not really sure I want to do that without Flo there, without somebody I know I’ve worked with for an extensive period.”
The answer was an immediate yes. Flores had survived the coaching purge, alongside pitching coach Andrew Bailey, another longtime acquaintance of Tracy’s from their time in the Los Angeles Angels system. Everyone else was gone.
When Tracy finally arrived in Baltimore after a mad dash from Worcester that night, Flores and Bailey met him in his hotel room at 1 a.m.
“I think for him to see Flo and me with familiar faces having been in this organization for so long, trying to calm the waters in such an uncertain time, I hope gave him some calmness,” Bailey said.
In the midst of what’s been one of the most chaotic seasons in Red Sox history, Tracy has provided a stabilizing force, overseeing the team’s rapid turnaround from worst in the American League in late June to one of the best in baseball two months later.
Tracy credits his relationships with Flores and Bailey as a big part of the team’s collective success.
“When we’re pitching, Bails is standing next to me, when we’re on offense, Flo is next to me,” Tracy said. “I just feel so at ease, like if I’m not thinking of something they are, and that’s a very comforting feeling.”
When Tracy, 46, was thrust into the interim manager role after a brutal 10-17 start that cost Cora his job, it was his first big-league gig. But he had managed four-plus seasons at Worcester and another three in the lower levels for the Angels. Plus, he’d grown up around MLB clubhouses, watching his father, Jim Tracy, manage in the majors for 11 seasons.
Along with Chad Tracy, interim third-base coach Chad Epperson (right) was promoted to the Red Sox’s coaching staff in April. (Jamie Sabau / Getty Images)
Managing in the minors and watching his father steer big-league teams was one thing. Trying to get one of the game’s most storied franchises back on track amid great turmoil was another. Tracy meshed well with the rest of his staff, including interim third-base coach Chad Epperson and interim hitting coach John Soteropulos, but Epperson had just been promoted from managing at Double A and Soteropulos was in his first season on a big-league coaching staff, starting the year as an assistant. Like Tracy, they’d been thrown into a glaring spotlight. Tracy leaned heavily on the veteran coaching wisdom of Flores and Bailey to get up to speed.
From their time together in Worcester, Flores, 55, knew how Tracy liked his meetings set up, the information he needed to prepare for opponents, what kind of field work he liked his players to do.
Though Flores had more baseball experience, especially in the majors, his humility in guiding Tracy while not being overbearing was empowering for the young interim manager.
“There are different elements of this job that pull me in different directions and I have to trust that what’s being scheduled for the players and what we’ve talked through that I want this, this and this, that we have guys out there executing it and Flo does that well,” Tracy said.
Flores knew the immense pressure Tracy was facing and took on an added responsibility to make the transition as smooth as possible. He’d offer Tracy feedback before, during and after games, but made sure Tracy had the final say.
“Our dynamic has been outstanding,” Flores said. “He knows that I’m confident enough to tell him things that if you are not confident, you’re not going to say anything. He may take the advice. He may not take it. We’re going to agree. We’re going to disagree. But in the end, it’s going to be his decision. And whichever decision he makes, he knows I 100 percent have his back.”
Though the Red Sox are the best team in baseball over the past six weeks, the first six weeks of Tracy’s tenure were rough. The club was 32-46 in late June and Boston was spiraling. The firings hadn’t seemed to work. But those behind the scenes saw the seeds of change slowly being implemented. Tracy’s steady voice as the losses piled up in May and early June kept a rough situation from turning toxic.
“There are 26 different minds (in the clubhouse), not everybody’s going to be happy at once,” Flores said. “That’s almost impossible to do, but you just have to learn how to deal with that.
“(We’re all) trying to keep everybody focused and positive. It’s not going to be roses and pink and red every time, we’re going to have our black days.”
Even as Boston went on its historic 15-game winning streak, which turned its season around, there were still blips the first-time manager had to navigate.
One of those days came in California at the end of July, when the team was surging ahead of the trade deadline. During a game against the Athletics, a frustrated Jarren Duran lashed out at Epperson and Willson Contreras after Contreras didn’t attempt to score from third on a flyout. Duran’s outburst was caught on NESN cameras and questions swirled about clubhouse tension derailing the goodwill the Red Sox had built. Tracy stifled any drama before it surfaced.
“What happened with J.D. in Sacramento, the media blew it out of proportion, but Trace handled it extremely well,” Flores said. “He talked to the players, trying to find out what exactly had happened. It was really nothing that we needed to worry about. And we put a stamp on it, closed the envelope.”
Amid one of the most chaotic seasons in Red Sox history, Chad Tracy has provided a stabilizing force. (Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)
Flores has served as an important lieutenant for Tracy on the club’s day-to-day workings, and Bailey has been just as integral on the pitching side.
In the majors, there are mid-inning pitching changes, matchups to consider, leverage counts and wins on the line. Managing a pitching staff in Triple A is much more about getting rehabbing players their work and letting pitching prospects develop. That adjustment was an area where Tracy needed guidance, and Bailey gave it with ease.
“I’m a quick study, I can figure things out fairly quickly,” Tracy said. “I’ve been around the game a long time, but being prepared for these different moments in-game, it’s different than it was (in Triple A).
“As far as figuring out looking at a lineup, navigating pockets, and looking at using guys for three- or four-hitters, I had a good idea of that, but until you do something in practice and actually execute it, it’s still new to you.”
Tracy and Bailey, both drafted in 2006, played against each other in the low minors before their careers diverged. Bailey won the American League Rookie of the Year award in 2009 with the Athletics and had an eight-year major-league career. Tracy never got a chance to play in the big leagues.
But they reconnected again in 2016 when their playing days came to an end. Tracy was working as a field coordinator in the Angels’ minor-league system. Bailey had just retired and was figuring out his next steps, first working as a coaching assistant for longtime Angels manager Mike Scioscia.
“That little familiarity went such a long way,” Bailey said. “Him being kind of an acquaintance on a professional level and then obviously playing against him and working in the same organization, having that little familiarity, just kind of helped that process along.”
Twenty years after their playing days and 10 years after their first coaching jobs, Tracy and Bailey are now steering one of the best pitching staffs in baseball.
“Our relationship has just blossomed in a very, very good way,” Tracy said. “Bails is one of the hardest-working people I’ve been around in baseball, one of the most prepared people I’ve ever been around.”
As the Red Sox continue their push for the postseason, Tracy’s guidance has been imperative to their success. The way he’s handled the clubhouse, the in-game decisions, the playing time of Triple-A call-ups, the injuries, the wins, the losses, the air travel debacles, all under intense spotlight in one of the biggest media markets in the game, has been a remarkable feat.
Tracy is gaining more traction as an AL Manager of the Year candidate, but he remains mindful of his closest allies, who’ve helped him have so much success so far.
“When you get into something like this with everything going on,” Tracy said, “you want to have people you trust.”