By Brooke Brottman

On November 6, 2020, the Boston Red Sox brought back one-time manager Alex Cora. Less than 10 months ago, the team parted ways with Cora For his role in the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal during the 2017 and 2018 seasons. Cora will rejoin as the team's manager for a two-year contract that will run through the 2022 season, with a two-year club option for the 2023 and 2024 seasons, according to a Red Sox press release. Cora, who as a first-year manager helped lead the Red Sox to a World Series championship in 2018, had been suspended by Major League Baseball (MLB) for the duration of the shortened 2020 season.

Alex Cora and the Red Sox parted ways in January after a long investigation by the league that concluded Cora helped devise an elaborate sign-stealing system while serving as the Houston Astros' bench coach. The scheme, the league said, included Astros players banging on trash cans to alert teammates at-bat of the upcoming pitch. The Astros were observing the opposing catcher's signs to the pitcher, giving their batter a heads up about what pitch was about to be thrown.

The Astros went on to win the World Series in 2017, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers. League investigators did not find evidence that the Astros continued the banging on trash cans scheme into the 2018 season, but found that the team's replay review room did use cameras at the ballpark to decode signs and relay that information to the dugout. By knowing the upcoming pitch type, batters could adjust their timing and were therefore gaining an unfair advantage. For instance, batters would know to swing early if a fastball was coming, or sit back and judge the location for a breaking ball or changeup. The Astros' replay review room staff continued, at least for part of the 2018 season, to decode signs using the live center field camera feed, and transmitted the signs to the dugout through in-person communications. The scheme, seen as the biggest scandal for Major League Baseball since the steroid doping era, led to a season-long suspension of Astros Manager A.J. Hinch and General Manager Jeff Luhnow. Both of whom were fired by the Astros, and a day later Boston parted ways with Alex Cora.

The Red Sox were caught in similar acts in 2018, but the MLB insisted that Boston's cheating "was far more limited in scope and impact" than the 2017 Houston Astros and Boston was stripped of one draft choice for its 2018 misfortunes. Cora's rehiring comes a week after another key figure in the Astros scandal, manager AJ Hinch. Hinch was not found to be directly involved in the scandal, but since he was the manager of the team and he did not put a stop to it is the reason for being penalized. Hinch, who along with Astros General Manager Jeff Luhnow, was fired when the scandal came to light, was hired as the manager for the Detroit Tigers.

The team that Cora will come back to will look much different than the club he helped lead to a franchise-best 108 wins. This past season, with many top players such as Mookie Betts and David Price no longer with the team, the Red Sox finished in last place with a 24-36 record in the American League East. Cora’s season-long suspension for his role in 2017 sign-stealing with the Astros ended after the Dodgers finished off the Rays in the World Series. The Red Sox hope Cora helps restore the team to bring about another world series and help turn the franchise around after a rough couple of years.

You can follow Brooke on Twitter @Brottman_10.