Cherington is making his list

Cherington did not get specific about how many candidates he planned to bring in, describing the pool as “a handful’’ of people.

To this point, more is known about who the next manager won’t be. The Red Sox have not shown any interest in Bobby Valentine, the ESPN analyst and former manager. There will be no luring Joe Torre away from his well-paid job with Major League Baseball or Lou Piniella out of retirement.

Bench coach DeMarlo Hale remains under contract and is well-respected within the organization. But there are no indications the Sox will consider any internal candidates to replace Francona.

Also, do not expect the Red Sox to overreact to the clubhouse problems that were revealed after the season by hiring a disciplinarian-type manager. Larry Bowa, Wally Backman, Don Baylor and their like are old-schoolers who would not fit in an organization that considers itself cutting-edge.

What matters to Cherington is winning, not the ability to post a set of rules.

Major league managerial experience does not seem to be a quality Cherington has high on his list. That’s bad news for retreads like Jerry Manuel and Willie Randolph.

“The list of guys with big league managing experience on their résumé who are clearly available is pretty short, so I don’t think we can put ourselves in a box to limit ourselves to that pool,’’ Cherington said. “I just think we need to get the right guy.

“It could be someone who hasn’t managed in the big leagues. There’s been plenty of examples of those guys. Joe Maddon hadn’t, at least not in anything other than an interim basis, and went on and did really well. Tito had and went on and did really well.

“There’s been more than one way to skin the cat. I don’t want to go into the interview process with any bias one way or another.’’