{"id":563223,"date":"2026-02-10T00:10:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/563223\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T00:10:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T00:10:11","slug":"alex-cora-says-2026-red-sox-are-a-more-complete-team-than-last-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/563223\/","title":{"rendered":"Alex Cora says 2026 Red Sox are \u2018a more complete team than last year\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 One day before pitchers and catchers were due to report for the official start of spring training, an ebullient Alex Cora sat down for his first media availability of his eighth season as Red Sox manager, and made an interesting declaration.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a different roster than last year, it\u2019s a different year,\u201d Cora said, \u201cbut ironic enough, and I can say it, I feel like we have a more complete team than last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The assessment came seconds after he described finding out Alex Bregman had chosen to sign with the Chicago Cubs as, \u201cThat Saturday in Boston, it felt like the world was falling apart, with no direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

To go from directionless to complete in a month minus a day would be a significant transformation, but the roster is certainly different. The Red Sox signed left-hander Ranger Su\u00e1rez to a five-year contract days later, and added several more trades to an already-staggering offseason tally. Hours before Cora fielded his first questions of the preseason, chief baseball officer Craig Breslow swung a three-for-three swap with the Milwaukee Brewers to get \u201825 NL Rookie of the Year third runner-up Caleb Durbin and infielders Andruw Monasterio and Anthony Seidler<\/a>, and a Competitive Balance pick.<\/p>\n

Yet as Cora enumerated throughout the remainder of the near-half-hour session, the Red Sox must improve in several facets of their game if they want to live up to his assessment.<\/p>\n

Deliver on defense<\/p>\n

Boston led the league with 116 errors last year, a source of ongoing frustration for the manager, who has spent most of his tenure preaching the need for lockdown defense on a near-constant basis and in vain.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been sitting here the last seven years, whatever it is, we talk about defense, we have to be better defensively,\u201d Cora said. \u201cAnd yeah, we were better in certain areas, metric-wise. But like (Breslow) talked about in the offseason, we made some errors. And I think our postseason was short because we didn\u2019t play defense in that series and we paid the price.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cora sees establishing everyday infield roles as key to solidifying the overall defense. Particularly at second base, last covered consistently by Dustin Pedroia a decade ago. Not only is Pedroia the last Red Sox to clear 100 games at second in a single season, but since 2019 only shortstop Trevor Story has exceeded 68 games there. David Hamilton, who led last year\u2019s team with 68 games at second, was part of Monday\u2019s Brewers trade.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think consistency is very important,\u201d Cora said. \u201cI know the value of being versatile, but having the second baseman and shortstop play as many games as possible together is very important.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you see it on winning teams. And last year our shortstop did an outstanding job playing a lot, and then at second, obviously with the up-and-downs it was a revolving door, but I think the more they play together, the better. So who is going to be at second, who is going to be at third, we don\u2019t know, but from my end, and I\u2019m not saying 100% of the games, right but we\u2019re going to try to be as consistent as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Durbin, Marcelo Mayer and Romy Gonzalez are among the second and third base options.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been platooning since 2018,\u201d Cora said.<\/p>\n

Seizing the moment<\/p>\n

The \u201825 Red Sox were a top offensive team in several metrics. They excelled at creating chances to score, but squandered too many of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can be better,\u201d Cora said. \u201cI think there were a lot of opportunities that we didn\u2019t cash in. \u2026 It\u2019s not that all of a sudden we\u2019re gonna choke up and put the ball in play, but there\u2019s gonna be a mindset, and it will start here, that situational hitting is very important, especially with the pitching staff that we have, and hopefully, with the defense that we think we\u2019re gonna have. So you don\u2019t have to score seven all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Powered by\u2026?<\/p>\n

But are the Red Sox a more complete team with a lineup that no longer features the slugging Rafael Devers, Bregman the \u2018baseball rat,\u2019 as Cora affectionately calls him, and southpaw slayer Rob Refsnyder?<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully with the talent that we have, we can put it together with the pitching staff, and we can grind some wins just pitching and playing defense,\u201d Cora said.<\/p>\n

So much will have to go right for this Red Sox team. Several key players will have to not only stay healthy, but take tremendous steps forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe expect guys to step up,\u201d Cora said. \u201cHopefully a full season of Roman (Anthony) healthy. The homers are going to up. Jarren (Duran), he can do that. Willy (Abreu) healthy, I think is \u2013\u00a0I hate to say it \u2013\u00a0but it\u2019s kind of like a game-changer, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe lost some guys that had some stripes,\u201d Cora said. \u201cBut at the same time, there\u2019s other guys that are going to step up in that clubhouse, and we\u2019re gonna be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK and \u2018complete\u2019 aren\u2019t quite synonymous, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow it\u2019s just a matter of \u2018go out there and work, see the pieces fit,\u2019\u201d Cora said. \u201cBut overall, a lot of talent, young talent, good athletes, versatile. \u2026 What we want to accomplish with this pitching staff, and this type of position players that we have, hopefully it can mesh and we can become the team that we want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2013 One day before pitchers and catchers were due to report for the official start…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":563224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[72,858,5,48,3615,604,4,793,151],"class_list":{"0":"post-563223","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alex-bregman","9":"tag-alex-cora","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-boston-red-sox","12":"tag-caleb-durbin","13":"tag-jarren-duran","14":"tag-mlb","15":"tag-roman-anthony","16":"tag-spring-training"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116043437140431785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/563224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}