I’m gonna go the other way here and defend Middleton. First of all, he’s a reliever, he doesn’t run the team. He can only do so much. Secondly, if you believe him, he did speak up when given the chance, in the players meeting in the losing streak.
Third and the big one - I don’t see him having any benefit in saying this, rather the reverse, he felt it needed said so he did it.
He’s a journeyman reliever, he’s now been on 5 teams, including a forever wishing they could compete LAA and a rebuilding Arizona. He’s burned his bridges with the White Sox, there will probably be other teams who would rather protect their clubhouse than have a bad culture be exposed, and frankly I wouldn’t be surprised if the White Sox’s front office is motivated to tell other Gms to stay away from him. He cost himself money here because seemingly he felt something needed to be said.
The protect the locker room attitude is a reason why these guys are able to get away with treating the business like this. It takes some stones to break that to call out bad behavior.