Red Sox Make Key Coaching Staff Changes in Wake of Alex Cora Dismissal

The Boston Red Sox still have a season to play, even if the news cycle is surrounding them in chaos.

After firing manager Alex Cora and most prominent members of his coaching staff on Saturday, the Red Sox quickly named former Triple-A manager Chad Tracy as the interim skipper. Tracy wasn't just handling a big-league managerial job for the first time, but he barely had a staff in place around him.

One of the few holdovers from the old staff was first-base coach Jose Flores, who formerly served as Tracy's bench coach with the Triple-A Worcester Red Sox before he was essentially called up to the big leagues. Boston reportedly made some tweaks on Monday that returned those two to their old power dynamic.

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Flores now bench coach; Red Sox have new 1B coach as well

WooSox coach Jose Flores talks to players in the dugout at Polar Park. | Rick Cinclair/Telegram & Gazette / USA TODAY NETWORK

According to Alex Speier of The Boston Globe, the Red Sox named Flores their new bench coach on Monday. To fill his vacant job as the first-base coach, Boston promoted minor league coordinato Pablo Cabrera to the big-league staff under Tracy.

Those weren't the only changes the Red Sox made on a Monday where several pieces fell into place. Per MassLive's Chris Cotillo, Boston named two new hitting coaches: John Soteropoulos, who was previously an assistant hitting coach on Cora's staff, and Collin Hetzler, who was another member of Tracy's staff in Worcester prior to Saturday's shakeup.

Cotillo also reported that Jack Simonetty would join the major league staff. Simonetty was serving as a hitting coach in the Florida Complex League.

The Red Sox needed a new bench coach after firing Cora's de facto right-hand man, fellow Puerto Rico native Ramón Vázquez. The two were once traded for each other as players and shared a working relationship as coaches that went back to Cora's days as the bench coach for the Houston Astros.

Boston also fired almost everyone responsible for coaching the offense, including hitting coach Pete Fatse, assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson, third base/outfield coach Kyle Hudson, catching coach and game-planning coordinator Jason Varitek (who was officially reassigned to a new position within the organization that he decided not to accept), and hitting strategy coach Joe Cronin.

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