BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox are bring­ing back Alex Cora, rehir­ing the man­ag­er that led them to the 2018 World Series title less than a year after the team let him go because of his role in the Hous­ton Astros’ cheat­ing scandal.

“I am grate­ful for the oppor­tu­ni­ty to man­age once again and return to the game I have loved my entire life,” Cora said in a state­ment Fri­day. “Boston is where I have always want­ed to be and I could not be more excit­ed to help the Red Sox achieve our ulti­mate goal of win­ning in October.”

Boston announced the deci­sion 10 days after Cora fin­ished a one-sea­son sus­pen­sion for his role in the Astros sign-steal­ing scheme dur­ing their 2017 cham­pi­onship run. Cora was Houston’s bench coach when he joined the Red Sox in Novem­ber 2017, and he led Boston to the 2018 title after a fran­chise-record 108 reg­u­lar-sea­son wins.

The Red Sox, who fin­ished third in 2019, let Cora go in Jan­u­ary after Com­mis­sion­er Rob Man­fred iden­ti­fied him as as the ring­leader in the Astros’ scheme.

“This past year, I have had time to reflect and eval­u­ate many things, and I rec­og­nize how for­tu­nate I am to lead this team once again,” Cora said. “Not being a part of the game of base­ball, and the pain of bring­ing neg­a­tive atten­tion to my fam­i­ly and this orga­ni­za­tion was extreme­ly dif­fi­cult. I am sor­ry for the harm my past actions have caused and will work hard to make this orga­ni­za­tion and its fans proud.”

An infield­er on Boston’s 2007 cham­pi­ons, Cora was men­tioned 11 times in Manfred’s deci­sion on the Astros. The fall­out from the Astros inves­ti­ga­tion also cost Hous­ton man­ag­er AJ Hinch and new­ly hired New York Mets man­ag­er Car­los Bel­trán their jobs; Hinch was hired as Detroit Tigers man­ag­er last week after com­plet­ing his one-sea­son suspension.

“Alex knows that what he did was wrong, and he regrets it,” Red Sox Chief Base­ball Offi­cer Chaim Bloom said. “He loves the Red Sox and the game of base­ball, and because of that we believe he will make good on this sec­ond chance.”

Bloom, who joined the Red Sox last off­sea­son, did not hire Cora the first time but was in charge when the team let Cora go last win­ter. Ron Roenicke was pro­mot­ed from bench coach to be Cora’s replace­ment, then was let go after the salary-shed­ding Red Sox stum­bled to a last-place fin­ish in the AL East.

“Alex should be man­ag­ing. He did a real­ly good job here,” Roenicke, who was a bench coach on Cora’s staff, told reporters after he was fired. “I’m hop­ing he does this again. Whether it’s here or its some­where else, he should be managing.”

The Red Sox were was not allowed to speak to Cora until after the World Series, which end­ed. The lack of activ­i­ty was a sign they focused on Cora.

“Dur­ing his Red Sox career as a play­er and man­ag­er, Alex con­tin­u­al­ly made us bet­ter,” team pres­i­dent and CEO Sam Kennedy said. “He owns, and has learned from, his past mis­takes, and with his incred­i­ble tal­ent, he will build on the deep bonds he’s fos­tered over time to make us bet­ter in the years to come.”

The team Cora returns to bears lit­tle resem­blance to the one he last managed.

Bloom is run­ning the base­ball side now. His oth­er big move last off­sea­son was to trade 2018 AL MVP Mook­ie Betts to the Los Ange­les Dodgers along with David Price as part of an effort to get the Red Sox under the thresh­old for baseball’s lux­u­ry tax on high payrolls.

With Betts and Price gone, Chris Sale recov­er­ing from Tom­my John surgery and Eduar­do Rodriguez recov­er­ing from a COVID-19-relat­ed heart prob­lem, the Red Sox went 24–36.

But Cora also has hope for improve­ment in the 2021 sea­son — if there is one.

Sale is expect­ed to return in the first half. J.D. Mar­tinez, an All-Star his first two years in Boston before strug­gling in the pan­dem­ic-short­ened 2020 sea­son, is also under con­tract for at least one more year.

And the Red Sox have plen­ty of salary flex­i­bil­i­ty gained in the deal that jet­tioned Betts and Price.