Cleveland Guardians manager Terry Francona will return for the 2023 season, the team announced on Friday, just days after being eliminated in the American League Division Series by the New York Yankees.
Francona, 63, will be in his 11th season with the Guardians. He'd led the club to a winning record in all but one of those years. Francona has dealt with various health ailments in recent seasons, and recently admitted that the job was getting more difficult to perform.
"I want to enjoy what I'm doing. It's getting harder to do that, just because physically it's harder. I just want to be careful. And at the same time, I want to be fair to the team," Francona told Ken Rosenthal in September.
At the time, Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said Francona will have the job for as long as he wants it and indicated the Guardians would not pressure Francona into returning if he felt that he was unable to continue.
During the Pandemic Era alone, Francona has dealt with gastrointestinal and blood-clotting issues, a staph infection, a hip replacement, and surgeries on his toe and his back.
Francona has been one of the most successful managers of his generation. He's won more than 54 percent of his regular-season contests across three stops -- he served as the manager for the Boston Red Sox and Philadelphia Phillies prior to joining Cleveland -- and he's won three AL pennants and two World Series titles (2004 and 2007).
Francona is a two-time Manager of the Year Award winner, having claimed it in both 2013 and 2016. He would seem to be a strong candidate to again win it this year, given the success he had with a Guardians roster that appeared unlikely to win the AL Central back in the spring.
