Alex Cora pushed all the right motivational buttons last season, and it looks like he's off to a good start in 2019.
The Boston Red Sox manager addressed the entire organization recently in a meeting at spring training in Fort Myers, Fla. And his message to the defending World Series champions diverged slightly from the usual coach-speak.
Most managers fearing a championship hangover would urge their team to "turn the page" and forget about the previous year's success. Cora's stance: Last year was awesome, so why forget it when you can build on it?
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"Usually when we talk about turning the page, it's because something negative happened last year," Cora said. "In this case, I don't want to turn the page. I mean, we just won (119 total) games. We went 11-3 in October. We broke records during the regular season.
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"I think what we have to do is actually start writing a new chapter in our book. And it starts here."
That's a fitting message for a team that returns much of the core roster that won a franchise-record 108 regular-season games last season before dominating in the postseason en route to a World Series title.
Expectations obviously will be sky-high, but the Red Sox have plenty of competition, and Cora seems confident his group can carry last year's momentum into the new year while avoiding complacency.
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