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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Former Nationals utility infielder Alex Cora played winter ball and was the Captain of the Caguas Criollos of Puerto Rico. After the Criollos final game of the season tonight, he announced his retirement from baseball.
Alex Cora, 36, was drafted by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the third round of the 1996 draft. Cora has played all over the infield for seven MLB teams: Dodgers, Blue Jays, Indians, Red Sox, Mets, Rangers and Nationals Maybe he’ll follow in his big brother Joey’s footsteps and coach.
...(Translated by Bing):
MESSAGE from our captain ALEX CORA announcing his retirement: thank you all for the support they gave me for 16 seasons. We enjoy and we suffer, we won and we lost but heart I can tell you that being Creole is the best there is. Now close a chapter in my career and in the bottom of my heart I say that I do with the high front because I am and always will be pure strain Creole! Thank you all.
(confuded) Maybe the Red Sox still have a shot at him!
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1. Fernigal McGunnigle Posted: January 26, 2012 at 09:08 AM (#4046018)I can't think of any player of the last few years who seems more likely to be a future manager than Cora. People in the game always talked about him in respectful tones that seemed way out of line with his actual abilities as a ballplayer.
Alex Cora got 14 seasons and 3825 PAs out of a 72 OPS+ bat, and effectively replacement level talent; 0.8 WAR total for his career.
That earned him almost $15M, plus a nice pension and health benefits for life.
You've got to think there were dozens of guys with similar talent levels that never got a chance, or got a cup of coffee or 1-3 seasons and disappeared.
I'm sure the positive intangibles people talk about him having contributed a ton to that. Nice to see being a good guy, and diligent student of the game pay off for him like that.
This time was particularly strange. He's retiring? Isn't he like 50 or something? And he couldn't hit when he was in his twenties!
Was that the at-bat with something like nine straight foul balls and then a homerun? Possibly on national TV, since I remember watching it?
Thanks, Eric!
To be fair to Cora, he didn't get playing time because of his bat. From what I remember, he was (supposedly, I don't know if the numbers back this up) a defensive wiz. I remember folks saying the early-2000s Dodger middle infield of Cora & Cesar Izturis was one of the best defensive middle infields ever (again, not sure if this claim has held up).
That's what separates him from a guy like, say, Danny Klassen.
Jerry Manuel used to bat him 1st or 2nd because that's where Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo hit and he was replacing them in the lineup. I really hate Jerry Manuel.
That was Ramon Vazquez, I believe. Another entry on the "Utterly Generic Utility Infielder" list.
In fact, it was 14 straight foul balls, followed by a home run. 18 total pitches, third-longest at-bat on record.
Ah hell. You're right. I'm dumb.
I remember being a kid and watching Alex Cora in the College World Series. Egads, I feel old.
I've heard that from non-Dodgers' broadcasters too. My recollection of Alex Cora is as a great defender who couldn't hit. That's a skill combination that has given a long career to many utility infielders over the years.
Cora hit lefty too, which is another way to get yourself a long career. Though he had a reverse-split for his career (239/307/336 vs RHP, 267/324/347 vs LHP).
The more I think of it, the more it's obvious that Cora was a poor man's Craig Counsell.
First thing I thought of when I saw the name "Alex Cora", too. He was facing Matt Clement.
That AB alone might have begun the shredding of Clement's shoulder that eventually ended his career.
They are brothers, of course.
Is it clear from the translation of Cora's comments that he's retiring from all of baseball, or is it possbile that he's just retiring from his winter league team?
Well, over the last two years he's hit 217/275/277 (good for an OPS+ of 52) and really isn't much as a fielder anymore. I think he might have been "retired" from MLB no matter what he said in his announcement.
Ditto.
Cora's probably the utility guy on my "I hate you" team... I feel bad about that because, yes, by all accounts a fine upstanding gentleman who couldn't hit a lick except when an AB has the potential to worm its way into my nightmares... but there it is -- Alex Cora, utility IF for the IHATEYOU MFs... In fact, I had always envisioned Wally Backman as my starting 2B -- but even though Wally was a switch-hitter, I'll confess to not being up on his platoon splits, so perhaps Cora has even worked his way into a platoon job.
I think the writer also made the same mistake. Alex Cora has never played for the Blue Jays.
Joey Cora signed with the Blue Jays in January 1999, but was cut before the season started.
Rare is the context where the word "big" is associated with a man whose made Ozzie Guillen look physically imposing in their respective primes.
This gets confusing, too, because of the similarity to the Joey/Albert Belle situation.
Agreed. Didn't Gangtsa Jerry's line-up card with the Mets almost always have the second baseman hitting second, no matter who it was?
¡Los Criollos, por su puesto!
He has played for that same winter league team for many years, so I would guess that the fans of that team give a ####.
Cora/Izturis in 2002 was a thing of beauty. I went to dozens of Dodgers games that year and it seemed like every single game one of the two or both made a play on a ball that came off the bat looking like a base hit. They were graceful and creative up the middle, with flashes of tremendous speed and agility. They also played hard and dirty. It was really easy to be an Alex Cora fan.
Aren't they related somehow, too? That must have been confusing, growing up.
Our own Carlos Gomez (the wannabe pitcher, not the wannabe hitter) was one of them. He said Cora was the smartest player he's ever played with.
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