WOW!!! White Sox, Ricky Renteria Mutually Agree To Part Ways

HOLY SHIT!!!!! I did NOT expect this to happen!!!! I checked the White Sox twitter account's time stamp and checkmark like 100x making sure it wasn't a fake account and nope, Renteria is gone. 

Now - I wasn't Renteria's biggest fan. I'm of the opinion that managers SHOULD NOT matter in baseball, at least not all that much. There are 2-3 A1 managers in baseball and 2-3 really bad ones. The rest are all basically the same. Renteria, for as good as a guy as he was and as well respected by each player on the team as he was, just was not good tactically. He didn't embrace analytics like he should have and wasn't good at handling a bullpen. 

Frank Thomas, the best player in the organization's history, said it himself after the Sox were eliminated - Renteria just doesn't have a great feel for managing in-game situations. Again, he's bilingual, and acts as a sort of clubhouse father figure for the team, and none of that should go unsaid. He'd make a perfect bench coach somewhere, even with the White Sox. 

But being the head honcho just ain't it for him. I was irrationally hard on him personally, but anytime I'd say he needs to be fired, I said it because I felt it in my plumbs. It almost makes me feel bad because he's a genuinely great dude and I hate that I wanted him to lose his job... but my love of the White Sox supersedes my love of the manager or any one player. 

That doesn't mean I thought this firing would happen though - I definitely didn't. Reinsdorf has a long, storied history of being loyal and often times loyal to a fault. The White Sox roster is loaded top to bottom and only needed minor augmentation this winter to be an upper echelon team moving forward, and I was of the opinion that manager was one of the augmentations that needed to be made. 

I am guessing this means Coop is gone too. Could be wrong, but he's old as fuck now and will be looking to hang them up sooner than later. He's been here for like 100 managers, I don't see him wanting to stay for 101. 

The white sox have broken many molds and stereotypes about the team in the last few years. They spent at the top of the market for Robert. Went scorched earth rebuild. Signed Grandal in November instead of playing waiting games. Blah blah blah. This is the latest example. I'd like to see them go out the family - sort of - with their new hire. I am DELIGHTED to say that they're continuing to break old/bad habits to make the future of the organization better. 

Can I interest anyone in Alex Cora? He's got a ton of ties to the organization, but didn't grow up coaching in it. He checks many boxes though - has won a World Series, is bilingual, and can tie in his experiences with other organizations to help bring the White Sox to the top. That's my instinctual reaction to the replacement they'll target. Oh - and I don't give a shit about the cheating scandal. Not one iota. 

They'll have their complete and total pick of the litter though. One glance at the organizational construct of this team is enough for anyone in baseball to want to take a crack at managing it. Cora, Hinch, whoever. Go and get the best possible person for the job. 

I'll end by saying this - thank you to Ricky Renteria. As much as everyone has shit on him, he's a great man and a baseball lifer. He'll find a landing spot if he so chooses to find one. He was a perfectly adequate bridge manager to oversee a rebuild, but now it's time to go get someone who can put them over the top. 

With this move, the whole future is on my good friend Rick (Hahn) himself now. Time to go big or go home!!