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OZZIE GUILLEN QUIT ON THE TEAM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SEASON!

This fanbase blows my mind sometimes. How could anyone want Ozzie Guillen as our next manger? Outside the dugout, the dude has proven to be a selfish, ego-maniac who will put him and his family above all else. Inside the dugout, he’s an anti-analytics, small ball loving clown who likes to insert himself into games. The only area where he actually is a big upgrade over Tony is he has an actual pulse and will do a much better job of bringing a consistent effort from his guys. And guess what? We can get that from most other candidates along with a modern approach to managing. I know it’s only a few people, but please stop with the Ozzie is the answer nonsense.

The fact is they don’t need a second interview with Ozzie. They employed him for 8 years in the position they are filling. They have been around him several years recently.They know him a lot better than they know any other candidate Obviously JR paved the way for an Ozzie interview, and he got one. I don’t think they would hire him, but you can’t put it past them. It’s scary until it’s not.

I’d rather hire a cheater for manager than a quitter. f*** Ozzie Guillen.

Ozzie's not getting the job but for some reason they're allowing this thing to spin out of control. It's amazing how out of touch the entire organization is.

Sounds like most of the 2022 White Sox....if they made it that long that is.

Both TLR and Ozzie insist that there’s a right way to play the game and it’s how the game was played in the 1980s. That still even comes through in Ozzie’s commentary. Buntin. Stolen bases. Lead off hitter must always be short. Grindiness. Expect to see Leury leading off at least a few times. In Ozzie’s pair of good seasons, he had rosters that worked around that. Guys who hit home runs filled key spots and the rest of the league hadn’t figured out ways to neutralize them if the lineup was screwy. In the bad seasons, Ozzie’s tendencies kept hurting. In his good seasons, the thing Ozzie did bring was confidence to some guys. They were energetic and together. However, in his worst seasons, that same effect became distracting and grating - like the time Nick Swisher had them praying around a blow up sex doll. And on top of that, his last few seasons he began demanding more respect from the organization and refusing to work with the front office - you want to call up Viciedo? I make the f***ing lineups Juan Pierre is my starter and the HR hitter is benched. These personality conflicts started dragging down the same guys who he was supposed to be handling well, because he was more important than any of his players and they had to sit on the bench to demonstrate that. Maybe unlike LaRussa you get a team that isn’t asleep? But you still get a team that is terrible strategically and constantly outsmarted. This will almost certainly be worse today than in 2011 because the rest of the league has gotten smarter. But, we were constantly out coached the last 2 years, so maybe dumb but motivated is better than dumb and asleep.

Ozzie is fun on pre and post. But if you listen, he still has no use for analytics. You want the Sox offense fixed? They don’t hit enough homers? Bring in the guy who says almost daily exit velo is overrated, and is also the guy responsible for Kotsay over Thome in 2010. It would be a similar mistake to the LaRussa mistake. Slightly better, because the inmates won’t be as heavily involved running the asylum. Tony couldn’t roll the clock back to 1983, and Ozzie can’t roll it back to 2005. Just like with Tony, if they hired Ozzie, and I still can’t believe they will, there will be a fraction of the fan base delighted. Ozzie is the White Sox Ditka. But when they don’t score, hit fewer homers, get take signs every 3-0 count, have a 2 hole hitter lead the league in sac attempts, the delight will be slapped by reality. Ozzie knows a lot about baseball. I enjoy listening to his insight. He just prefers a game that has left the building. He hasn’t embraced the modernness. He doesn’t even have to embrace it fully. Analytics have made baseball a little more boring. Everyone has the same opinion. Just keep in mind, the White Sox need to hit home runs to win. Is Ozzie the guy to accomplish that? I actually think when he managed the Sox, he ran a bullpen really well. That is important, and would be an improvement over Tony. But they still need to score. Also, they hire Ozzie and everyone blames JR is fine as long as Kenny and Rick resign. If they don’t, they are complicit. They are on board with the hire.

I’m confused. Is there another Greg?

That must explain Kelenic's 2022.

I can’t believe Jerry Reinsdorf is cool with an accountant sharing private info all over twitter. It’s nuts to me

Levine doesn’t know what year it is let alone who the Sox are picking for manager.

Interviewing Ozzie makes me think of another local hire that was thought to be impossible until it actually happened; Dave Laitao 2.0 at DePaul. The parallels are a little scary. DePaul engaged a search firm to come up with candidates. They did their due diligence and went back to the AD (Jeanne Lenti Ponseto) and told her "you've got a problem. Nobody wants to take this job and work under this administration". You better find sometime who will take it under your terms or you'll look like an idiot. She grabbed Leitao and set the program back another decade. Now look at the Sox. We want people like Espada, Long, Grifol, etc. They get interviewed and find out this organization is even more dysfunctional than they could imagine. JR making the real decisions, a bunch of sycophants bowing to JR, not getting to hire your own coaches, known "moles" in your clubhouse. You look it that and say "no thanks". Now the Sox are down to their #5 or 6 choice and someone says "we better find someone that won't incite a riot by the fans. What would be worse, hiring Joe Madden or bringing back Ozzie. Ozzie desperately wants back in the game and will say whatever will get him the job...... knowing full well he'll do it his way once he gets the job or go to the press and b****. A stretch? Maybe, but I put NOTHING past this organization.

The Sox aren’t hiring Ozzie. So he had a sit down with Jerry and was granted an interview with Hanh, Getz and Haber. So what? Several other candidates have had actual 2nd interviews. Just relax; most Sox fans just revel in this negative narrative.

Sort of. But OTOH, to hell with them if they need a latino manager to perform. And Im done worrying about catering to players that don’t perform

Reinsdorf really does not like anyone from the Astros organization apparently.

Lots of Sox hatred. Wonderful fans. People here will hate any Sox manager as soon as the season starts. Proving how much smarter they are.

Just let the new manager select his own staff. It should be obvious by now that the FO has no special talent in this area.

You must not remember Dwayne Wise leading of, Ozzie demanding a fast lead off hitter in Juan Pierre, or Ozzie forcing us to get rid of Thome so we could have a rotating DH led by Mark Kotsay. Ozzie loved his grinders and would play a lineup full of them on Sundays.

A few years ago, I could have bought in to this. But this franchise just handed a job to quite literally the worst possible candidate in Tony LaRussa, knowing all of his baggage. The benefit of the doubt is gone for me.

This is a flawed, unproven team. How can you not go into this offseason without such a realization? The rebuild was never completed. Hell, it never really began. It's a rebuild built on three trades and a couple of international signings. The farm system is disaster. Player development is non-existent and while Tony had his problems, none of this was his fault. Been this way throughout this FO regime. Add in some timely injuries, and voila, you have a team relying on Sheets, Harrison, and Garcia. I just don't get this board sometimes. Seems everyone is looking for the messiah to manage this team. Every thing is a diversion. The way they have handled the manager search has been a diversion, to distract you from a decade-long performance of futility. Hahn and Kenny would not have their jobs on a different team and to that fact, they owe Jerry. Perhaps Jerry is the problem, not going to argue that but he owns the team and I do think he knows the Sox are in a constant battle for relevancy both nationally and in the Chicago market. He just wants to win his way and it's his money. However, expecting Hahn or Kenny to be the savior from the evil Oz is a little short-sighted because a lot of Ozzie backers and even detractors really feel the bigger problem has always been the FO.

Until the Sox prove that they've removed their heads from their own asses, they don't get the benefit of the doubt. We've seen it too many times in the past to just keep in ignoring the red flags continuously slapping us in the face.

I can’t conceive of an Ozzie that is anything but a substantially worse version of the one that quit on his team a decade ago. He hasn’t changed along with the game at all. TLR again but even worse.

Same.

If Ozzie only had soup, does it still count as dinner with Jerry?

We're all hyper-fans here. We wouldn't post, or lurk, or both, otherwise. As fans of that ilk, one sees and feels the history, one sees, feels, and senses patterns. When you watch a game and you know a pitcher is about to fall of a cliff, or a particular pinch hitter is going to send one into orbit, it isn't that you're Nostradamus, it's feel and patterns borne from seeing and feeling such things thousands and thousands of times before. It's going to be Guillen. In his mind, Jerry wasn't wrong with his LaRussa hire; instead, the circumstances were wrong. For similar reasons, he believes that bringing back Oswaldo, the manager of his only World Series winner, has the most chance of getting another one in, hmm, from an actuarial standpoint, his limited remaining time as chairman. Personally, I'm steeling myself for the day that news breaks. I'm already at the point where I don't think it's terrible. You know what you get from Ozzie. He's got some small-ball and Sunday lineup tendencies I despise, but he's also the kind of personality this bunch likely needs. There might be better choices (some of whom would have zero interest in working with this circus), but there are positives for OG, redux. My hope is that they get creative with the overall succession plan. Give Guillen a 2 year gig, maybe with an option for a third, but make it clear to him that this could be a really good short-term fix while we groom a more long-term manager as his bench coach. And make that bench coach either system wunderkind Justin Jirschele or give Kevin Long a better path to his goals of manager by making him bench coach and hitting coach (simultaneously getting rid of Frankie "Hit 'em where you can't smoke 'em) M.

Those Ozzie Sunday lineups were horrible to watch. I am not sure you change an 80 year old owners mind on how he runs a team. This org is the way it is until JR passes. I don’t wish death upon anyone and won’t, for the meantime this is your Whitesox unfortunately.

He's not my favorite for it but I do think he has the highest ceiling. Also the lowest floor. Lot of variance there so I'd slightly prefer to not take the risk, but if anyone could get more out of Moncada and Robert, I do believe it's him and that would trump anything else if he does do that.

70 years as a Sox fan and have seen so many horrible moves especially by JR and company, if they bring back Ozzie it will be the straw that breaks the camels back as far as me personally.

I'd be fine with it. Ozzie's attention span is short. From 04 to 08 he was a great manager and then garbage after that. I think it'd be the same this time. A few years where he's invested then move on. Outside of this board most Sox fans I know would love ozzie coming back. I get the skepticism and I'd like to see a fresh start but he would be a nice kick in the ass for this group.

Defeat evil

I love that the ump called the phony HBP.

The "sit down with Jerry" is all that matters.

I'm gonna be in the minority here...yes them hiring a former manager is just totally white sox...but I don't think Ozzie will be as bad as people might think. If you listened to him on the pre/post this year...he waa clamoring for the same thing all of us were when it came to decision making. I think he actually fits this team well and will give them the fire and the kick in the ass that they need. And he can interact well with both the Latin and non-Latin guys. Just suck Abreu won't be back because I think he would absolutely flourish under Ozzie.

This is the only time I have ever (or will ever) defend Tony, but his most recent stint before coming out of retirement went a hell of a lot better than Ozzie's in Miami.

Frank always seemed very committed to putting up excellent numbers and performing at a high level. Perhaps that gave him an arrogance that rubbed some teammates the wrong way. I, for one, wish any of our current players had that in them. Maybe TA at times. However in the multiple opportunities I've had to meet Frank, seen him interact with fans, and seen how he has tipped and rewarded support staff around him, he's been nothing less than a class act. I'll let this one pass the eye test and leave the gossip alone.

Frank Thomas in a White Sox uniform during the steroids era will forever be a source of pride for me. All the other stuff is moot.

I’m sure dinner/drinks with Jerry is exactly how the TLR conversations started.

I would 100% count dinner with Jerry as the first. Dinner with Jerry is worse than an interview with anyone else in the front office.

That's funny. But again, I don't see the need to be overly negative about this. The game has changed, and I'm reasonably sure he's young enough, and attentivre enough to understand what's going on with it. Like, do I believe he is going to have a modern lineup that bunts all the time based on what happened decades ago, I don't.

2022 was not interesting. 2011 was not interesting.

No it won't. Doing stupid stuff over and over again isn't interesting.

With Ozzie this team will be too interesting to stay away from (good or bad)

If the White Sox really do hire Ozzie again they really are as bad as Balta believes. That's about the worst thing I can think of. At least I will save money on baseball again for the near future.

I would be outraged if Ozzie gets the job...but I am going to stay back from the ledge in case this stuff is just BS. The Ozzie hire would need to take place over Kenny's dead body.

It is the equivalent of say a QB coach becoming a head coach in the NFL. Usually the bench coach (coordinator) is next in line for a job. Not to say he won't make a great coach. Its just an unknown. Hitting coaches don't have to deal with managing bullpens or defensive positioning

I truly hope DJ makes it.

Hopefully the new manager will simply sit Eloy down and have a positive meeting with him to educate him on the big overall team picture/goal to be a full time DH for the following reasons: 1. Playing left field is a huge liability to the team success because Eloy is a slow and poor defensive left fielder. 2. Playing left field versus DH, significantly raises the chance of him getting injured more often and being on the IL...which is a huge loss to the offense of the Sox. 3. Eloy needs drop the ego with his delusional idea that he is a top end competent left fielder. He needs mature and grow up and play where the manager feels he is most useful and needed. Sorry Eloy, but "the inmates don't run the asylum!"

I enjoyed watching them both as well but I personally have a hard time giving Hahn much credit for either move. Both of those signings were kinda no brainers based on the current Sox situation and remember Hahn chose Vince Velasquez initially instead of Cueto.