Alex Cora told Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski that he plans to sit out the 2027 season, Bob Nightengale of USA TODAY reported. MassLive’s Chris Cotillo added that Cora does not intend to manage anywhere next year.
That removes the most accomplished name from Philadelphia’s search and leaves interim manager Don Mattingly as a serious candidate for the permanent job.
Cora is still owed about $7.25 million in 2027, the final year of the three-year, $21.75 million extension he signed with Boston in July 2024. The Red Sox fired him in April after a 10-17 start.
Dombrowski has wanted Cora before
Dombrowski hired Cora in Boston before the 2018 season, and that team went 108-54 and won the World Series. When Boston let Cora go this April, Dombrowski called him “one of the finest managers in the game of baseball.”
Philadelphia fired Rob Thomson after a 9-19 start and promoted bench coach Mattingly. Reporting on the sequencing varies, with some accounts placing Dombrowski’s first approach to Cora before the Thomson firing. Either way, Cora declined then, citing a desire to be with family, and he is declining now.
Mattingly’s case is stronger than the finish suggests
Mattingly went 79-55 after taking over, a .590 winning percentage and the fourth-best record in baseball across that stretch. He also went 9-14 to close the season, and the Phillies clinched a fifth straight postseason berth on the final day before losing the Wild Card Series to Atlanta.
He is 65 and already under contract for 2027 as bench coach, which makes the decision cheap and clean if Philadelphia wants it.
Trea Turner’s endorsement was about temperament rather than tactics. He said Mattingly “was easy to talk to” and praised “the honesty.” That is the kind of thing players say about a manager they want back.
Ownership is staying out of it
Asked about the direction of the search, owner John Middleton kept it simple: “That’s Dave’s decision.” That is a vote of confidence in Dombrowski and a signal that the process will not be driven from above.
Reporting from The Athletic suggesting everything remains on the table and that Mattingly could have an edge has not been corroborated elsewhere, so treat the internal pecking order as unsettled.
Why this matters beyond Philadelphia
Cora sitting out a season with a World Series ring and a market this thin is unusual. Every team with a vacancy or a shaky incumbent now has to plan a 2027 without him and a 2028 with him potentially available.
For the Phillies, the practical question is whether a club that has made five consecutive postseasons and keeps losing early wants continuity or a reset. Mattingly is continuity with a 79-55 argument attached. Hiring him would be a bet that the roster, not the dugout, decided the last three Octobers.
Given how the Wild Card Series against Atlanta went, that is a defensible bet. It is also the easy one.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.