Whicker: Healthy Francona ready for managerial comeback with Reds

After a one-year hiatus from managing, Terry Francona will be back in a big-league dugout in 2025 — as manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Photo: Jeff Dean/AP

December 31, 2024

By Mark Whicker

Canadian Baseball Network

Terry Francona measures his years by waking moments. No anesthesia? No problem.

He just got through a year without surgery. The fact that he wasn’t around baseball for that year doesn’t seem to have gotten through. At his first opportunity, Francona jumped back into the manager’s chair. He is the new boss of the Cincinnati Reds, an organization that needs to wake up.

Francona’s Hall of Fame plaque will note that he won two World Series with the Red Sox, in 2004 and 2007, when no other manager since 1918 could win one. His work with Cleveland was not as historic but almost as impressive. In six of 11 seasons, his team won 90 or more games, won 100 games once, and went to the postseason six times. In fact, they had only two losing seasons despite their comparatively low payroll. In 2023 they were 76-86, lowering Francona’s career winning percentage to .538.

Then he left, first to the operating table, where he had his shoulder and a double hernia taken care of.

“I just couldn’t give the job the effort it required,” Francona said,

Francona’s body has been invaded more often than Poland. In 2017 he had a cardiac ablation to take care of an irregular heartbeat. In 2021 he had a hip replacement. Also, in 2021, he had perhaps the most serious problem, a staph infection that almost cost him his left foot. He missed part of the Covid-19 season of 2020 with blood clots and gastrointestinal problems, and in 2002 he had a pulmonary embolism. He took time off to get his lightheadedness cleared up in 2023. He apparently has concluded that the media, the umpires, blown leads in the ninth inning and interference with the analytics guys are actually better for his health than kicking back in Tucson, where he spent much of 2024.

This is no country for traditionalists, and Francona is a guy who still likes listening to the games on the radio. He said at the winter meetings that he’d like to see some legislation against bullpen games, particularly in the postseason, but if there’s anything that can put you back on the gurney, it’s sitting in a meeting that includes Rob Manfred’s endorsement of the Golden At-Bat.

“I’m not saying they’re wrong to do it,’ Francona said of the bullpen games. “I’m just saying that’s not the way our game is built. But I hate to complain if I don’t have a good answer.”

But he cares enough to have opinions, which might have told him that it was time to come back. He is 65, and when he left after 2023 he said he “didn’t foresee” managing again.

“I had a really good year,” Francona said. “My girls were in Europe for two days and I watched the grand-kids. That was the one day I thought I would go back to baseball.”

He laughed.

“Toward the end of the year I started thinking, okay, what do I want to do next year? Maybe I just needed that. But when these guys called, it just felt right.”

These guys are the Reds, who might have the most talented team in the N.L. Central and began to show it in the second half of 2023. Then they finished 77-85 last year, just a game ahead of the last-place Pirates. They were ninth in run-scoring, with injuries playing a big part, and eighth in ERA. That should improve with the arrival of Brady Singer, from Kansas City. They already have 24-year-old Hunter Greene, just beginning to mine his bottomless gifts, as he had a 2.75 ERA and gave up 96 hits in 150 innings. Nick Martinez also came on strong at the end of the season, and the Reds are still waiting for Nick Lodolo to confirm everyone else’s opinions.

The most significant project centers on 22-year-old shortstop Elly De La Cruz, the league’s leading base stealer (68) and strikeout victim (218). De La Cruz was often a crash-test dummy on the basepaths as well. But he might have more raw material than anyone in the game, and certainly he would sell the most tickets if the Reds lurch toward respectability.

Second baseman Matt McLain missed the entire season, and power hitter Christian Encarnacion-Strand played only 29 games.

Francona went to Santo Domingo and met with four of his players, including De La Cruz. He was happy they all converged on the Dominican capital instead of making Francona run around the country. They also heard his message.

“I hate to talk about guys,” Francona said. “The idea is not for me to show everybody in the whole world that I am a taskmaster. The idea is to try to cause havoc on the bases but also being intelligent. When you play that aggressively, you’re going to make outs. I don’t want our guys looking over their shoulders like, oh, man, I don’t want to mess up. That’s not a very good way to play. The idea is that if we make a mistake, not to do it again. However we correct it, that’s the idea.”

Generally Francona has hit the sweet spot wherever he has managed, at least after a bumpy maiden tenure in Philadelphia. After that he joined Andy Reid and Craig Berube as coaches/managers who found historic championships after they were fired in Philly. Francona is insistent and hands-on, but doesn’t knock his players in the public square, and loves to keep the clubhouse light. Like the old guys in the business, he’s a big believer in the clubhouse card games, because they bring players together and keep their competitive minds sharp.

Milwaukee has done its usual subtractions that somehow add up to additions. The Cubs have rearranged the furniture a bit. St. Louis is entering a pressurized year for manager and general manager alike. It’s not like the Reds have to take down any evil empires or deferred-money conglomerates to win this division.

It just takes health, especially the manager’s.

“It’s been 11 months since my last surgery,” Francona said. “I think that’s a personal best. So I’m living on borrowed time.

“There are always the same challenges. When we lose, it will kill me. When we win, I’ll be fine. I’ve never found a way to gain perspective. I think it’s too late for that. That’s okay. Being healthy is such an important part, because when I wasn’t healthy, I couldn’t enjoy it as much as I wanted to. I thought I was putting too much stuff on the coaches. Everything was hard. The game’s hard enough. I just want to enjoy the challenges.”

He has already ruled out one of those challenges.

“It was Hallowe’en and I was throwing a football with my grandson. The next day I could barely move my arm. So I think throwing BP is out. I don’t want to have a heart attack.”

He’s had everything else.