Yankees: Chaim Bloom’s latest comments create wiggle room he needs to bring Alex Cora back

The Yankees have to get ready to see Alex Cora return to Boston in 2021, no matter what their GM “says”.

Yankees fans have prepared for this day ever since the Red Sox made the most hilariously obvious lame-duck hiring in MLB history by appointing nice guy Ron Roenicke to the throne of a trainwreck team as penance for nothing.

Sure, they fired Alex Cora “due to” his scandalous tenure in Houston, which bled over into a record-setting season in Boston in 2018; fans will assure you that campaign unlike any other was entirely clean. But even when Cora was dismissed, it felt like it was out of obligation rather than an example of Boston’s belief system, and we all assumed he’d find his way back — and be clapped on the back by the baseball media, inexplicably — next year.

Well, guess what?

Roenicke was officially let go on Sunday morning, just before the final Red Sox final game of 2020 and minutes before his scheduled media session (nicely done!). And when Chaim Bloom was pressed on whether or not Alex Cora would be a part of the managerial search, he simply said he wasn’t ready to discuss it yet, while reiterating that he “wasn’t on his radar” right now.

Of course, perhaps on a day that’s not today, Bloom will suddenly open the vault and be completely willing to discuss Cora’s candidacy. Perhaps he’ll hire him, and Boston will bank on the entire baseball world forgetting what necessitated his dismissal in the first place.

But, until the postseason ends, it seems Bloom might continue hemming and hawing, using the perfect words to describe his indecision, while kicking this unpopular decision (in certain circles) further down the line,

After all, former Astros manager AJ Hinch has been a widely-speculated candidate for a few jobs this offseason. Perhaps Detroit, where Ron Gardenhire recently walked away? And if Hinch works his way back into the MLB world, then it’d only be logical that Cora would, too.

And why would Bloom want himself on the record denying the possibility then?

We get it. We’re sure this precious radar is unshakeable.

But with an infuriating decision ahead of him that the city of Boston, which has allowed Bill Belichick’s fudging of the rules to go on for decades, will certainly embrace, Bloom let the right amount of Alex Cora’s foot in the door on Sunday.

He only has a slight fib to back away from now, instead of an outright declaration. Seems likely he’ll do it.

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