Mastrodonato: Timing was right for Red Sox to pick up remaining two years of Alex Cora’s contract

It’s not the decision that was important, but rather the timing of it.

Rather than waiting until later in the offseason or after the 2022 season to decide on Alex Cora’s club options for ’23 and ’24, the Red Sox acted swiftly on Monday and locked in their manager for the next three years.

While most skippers have club options built into their contracts, and some teams take it down to the wire before their fate is decided, letting Cora enter 2022 as a lame-duck manager would’ve been unjust.

And there’s no reason to cause an unnecessary distraction like that unless, one, the Red Sox were suspicious he had lost the ability to effectively manage in the modern game, which he has clearly not; or, two, that they have a clear heir to the bench and Cora is simply keeping the seat warm, which again, he is not (although it’ll be interesting if Dustin Pedroia ever decides he wants to manage).

There’s no doubt that Cora is the leader of the Red Sox now and in the future, and the Sox easily put the pen to paper on Monday to make it official.

“I think one of the unique things about Alex is that he combines a lot of different qualities that help bring the best out of players,” chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said during a Zoom meeting with reporters. “His feel for the game of baseball, his intellect, just the way that he notices things on the field and is able to combine them with the preparation that he does to maximize what goes on on the field and what happens in every game is as good as anybody’s.”

Cora has the highest winning percentage (.584) of anybody to manage at least 400 games with the club. He led the team to a franchise-record 108 wins in 2018. And until the American League Championship Series loss against the Astros this year, his teams had been 5-0 in playoff series.

There was some question if “Cora’s Magic” will ever run out, or if it started to evaporate during the ALCS, when Cora’s decision to give Chris Sale the ball over Nathan Eovaldi in Game 1 appeared to backfire and some in-game pitching decisions left a bad taste in the mouths of many Red Sox fans.

But in retrospect, that might’ve been assigning Cora too much credit.

He can’t play the game, he simply manages it. And he was handcuffed with only a few pitching options throughout the season. The playoffs were no exception.

Ask anyone around the team what the Sox must prioritize this winter and the answer is simple: pitching. More specifically, starting pitching, although the lines continue to be blurred between starters and relievers.

Cora’s Game 1 starter, Sale was mediocre, at best. And while Cora got the most out of his bullpen, his All-Star closer Matt Barnes was so bad at the end of the year he didn’t even make it on the ALCS roster.

Cora was short on lefties and had to ask guys like Martin Perez to pitch far more often than he should’ve in a playoff series.

The responsibility falls much more on Bloom, not Cora, for the way the season ended.

Bloom made it clear Monday that the team is aware of its pitching needs.

“I think by the time the offseason is over, we will have added pitching of various sorts, including starting pitching,” Bloom said. “I think that’s something that’s a clear goal of ours. Who that’s going to be or when, I don’t know yet.

“We do think we have some guys here that can provide that. Obviously (recently departed lefty Eduardo Rodriguez) set a very high bar. Very accomplished, especially the last couple full seasons he had here. That’s a tough bar to reach. We do think we have guys that are capable of it. But we also want to supplement that with guys from outside the organization as well.”

The Sox didn’t seem terribly upset about Rodriguez walking away from an $18.4 million qualifying offer to sign a $77 million deal with the Tigers.

“It’s an open market and we have decisions to make and it’s ultimately something that we can control at some level, but we were fighting our emotions on this one of what we thought was the right use of our resources and how far to extend,” Bloom said. “He means a lot to people here… There are deep roots here, and that made it harder to see him go. But ultimately it’s something where we are happy for him and we have to be comfortable with how far we were willing to extend.”

The Red Sox have at least one more year with Xander Bogaerts, two more years with Rafael Devers and now three more years with Cora.

If not Rodriguez, then someone better, perhaps, will need to join this pitching staff before Opening Day.