Joey Cora could be making a return to the New York Mets organization this year.
As new manager Buck Showalter begins getting his coaching staff together, Raul Ramos reported that the Mets and Cora have been in discussions about the 56-year-old joining the organization. However, the specific role he would fulfill is unknown at this time.
Cora has been a third-base coach with the Pittsburgh Pirates since the 2017 season — the latest stop on a post-playing-career path that began as a manager within the Mets’ minor-league system.
In 2003, he was poached by his friend and then-Chicago White Sox manager, Ozzie Guillen, to join his coaching staff. Cora was the third base coach for the 2005 World Series champions before being promoted to bench coach.
He was dismissed alongside Guillen in 2011, but the two reunited with the Miami Marlins in the same roles later that year. However, the duo’s stay in Miami lasted only for the 2012 season.
Cora got back to the bench in 2016 when he took over as the manager of the Pirates’ double-A minor-league affiliate before getting the call to join the MLB team a year later as a third-base coach.
Throughout the previous decade, he also interviewed for the manager positions with both the Milwaukee Brewers (2010) and Pirates (2019).
The Mets have been connected with Cora as recently as two offseasons ago when he was reportedly a candidate for then-manager Carlos Beltran, who never managed a game in Queens after his name emerged as a notable offender in the Houston Astros’ sign-stealing scandal.
