Red Sox Fan-Favorite Analyst Tries to Explain Alex Cora Drama

NESN color analyst Lou Merloni has become one of the most respected voices among Boston Red Sox fans, but his job is tough sometimes.

As an employee of the Red Sox, Merloni can't bash the team with reckless abandon, the way some others in the local media do from time to time. Big organizational shakeups like the firings of manager Alex Cora and many of his top assistant coaches, which were somehow more than a month ago, are delicate topics for people in Merloni's position.

On Tuesday, during his appearance on WEEI's "The Greg Hill Show," Merloni delivered a well-reasoned take on why things came to a head between Cora and the Red Sox organization, one that illustrated what some might consider to be a systemic problem with the team this decade without spelling it out.

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Merloni's take on why Cora, Red Sox parted ways

"I think it just came to a crossroads," Merloni said. "I don't think Cora wants to manage a young team. I think he wants veteran players. I think that's been pretty clear the last three or four years. At the offseason, he wants this player, that player. At the trade deadline, he wants this player, that player, and it's never brought in here."

"It's a young team the last four years, basically. (In) 2021, you're in the ALCS, and it's kind of been a similar approach since. It's like, go young and see if the guys can play in the big leagues."

That 2021 season was probably an overachievement on the Red Sox's part, but Cora had to expect that the team would at least make the playoffs once in the following three years. Under two different front offices, Cora's teams repeatedly didn't go all-in, whether it was in the offseason or at the trade deadline.

Now, there's definitely a case to be made that at times, stacking the deck with veterans would have been the wrong move. But this past offseason, everyone seemed to be aligned with the Red Sox going all-in, which made the brutal start to this season tougher to swallow.

Closing the loop on Merloni's comment, we can fairly clearly see that this is chief baseball officer Craig Breslow's team now with Cora out of the picture. It's not a good sign for Breslow, then, that the Red Sox have scored the fewest runs in the sport since Cora was let go.

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