Red Sox’s Alex Cora Entering Key Offseason With Upfront Mindset

The Red Sox have a critical upcoming offseason and Boston manager Alex Cora isn’t sugarcoating the task ahead.

Just weeks from reaching the regular season finish line in underwhelming fashion for the second straight year, the Red Sox are due for a busy offseason. Decisions aside from replacing former chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom are essential if Boston intends to get back to its winning ways of when Cora first took the helm in 2018, and he’s well aware of that.

“There’s a lot of things that we have to work (on),” Cora told WEEI’s “Gresh and Fauria” show on Wednesday. “The offseason got more interesting, right? And more important. We gotta make a decision as an organization. Who’s gonna run this club and then after that, we have to improve in a lot of areas, as far as the big league roster.

“There’s a lot of good things that are happening. There’s a lot of good things that are happening in player development. But at the end of the day, as you guys know, up here is where it really counts. And the last few years we haven’t done a good job putting this team to the next level. … We have to improve in a lot of things.”

Last offseason, Boston’s biggest splash came in rookie outfielder Masataka Yoshida, who signed a five-year, $90 million contract. That did right by giving the Red Sox a disciplined bat in the lineup, falling under the category of reasons to remain optimistic heading into 2024.

But there’s still plenty left to do. Especially if the Red Sox intend to get the pendulum to swing in their favor.

Throughout the season, the Red Sox didn’t get much reliability out of their pitching staff, albeit anchored by the weight of the injury list. Therefore, it’s likely the front office — regardless of who runs the show — will explore that market in order to get the rotation and bullpen back on track.

Shuffling the pitching pieces by placing relievers in opening starter roles, while proving to be sustainable short-term in keeping a 2023 playoff run alive, wasn’t enough. Cora couldn’t rely long enough, even with much-anticipated returns — Chris Sale, Garrett Whitlock and Tanner Houck — getting back on the bump in the season’s final stretch, indicating that cementing an established one through five is vital.

From the sounds of Cora’s stance, Boston’s rumor mill could get pretty busy in the coming months before the Red Sox embark on 2024.