I think it’s much more complex than simply having Cora back in my opinion. For 1 having Bloom round out the 26 man active roster and 40 man roster very effectively has put us in a very good position. 2 health, we didn’t have Erod all of last season, Eovaldi parts of it, and Pivetta didn’t start pitching for us until the end of the season. In a shortened season it created a lot of variance to having a bad season. Nothing is more important than starting pitching, and of our normal 5 starting pitchers this season only Erod has missed 1 start with the others not missing any. Cora plays a huge part in that though as he manages the pitching staff very well.
On offense it’s nice to have the old JD back. Is that because of Cora, or because he was out of sync last season not being able to watch video of his at bats during a game? They are allowing players to do that again and with how technical JD is I believe it’s really helped his resurgence. Our offense was actually good last season, but JD has helped bring it to another level along with the performance of others.
Bloom’s offseason additions feels 2013ish with Ottovino, Whitlock, K Hernandez, Renfroe and more.