The road to Rios: Maybe the White Sox outfoxed the world on Alex Rios. Maybe he's going to wake up and earn every nickel of the $61.6 million they now have to pay him through 2014. But the tales we've heard from ex-teammates, and people who watched him coast through life in Toronto, make you wonder.Rios is guaranteed $12 million to $12.5 million every year from 2011 to 2014. And that's star money. But is he magically going to turn back into a star just because he's playing for Ozzie Guillen, in a hitters' paradise? Not if these reviews from ex-teammates are accurate:
• "He's not a winning-type player. He's a guy who just doesn't have that burning desire to win, or be great."
• "He was a guy who just didn't go after it. He'd be sleeping in his locker 10 minutes before he had to go out on the field. And not just once."
• "He wasn't the same player after he got that [seven-year] contract. It sure seemed like he was a lot more motivated when he was looking for a contract than he was since he got the contract."
Meanwhile, scouts we surveyed seemed dubious, too.
"This guy should be a perennial 30-30 [hr-SB] guy," said one. "But to me, he's a classic underachiever. If Ozzie takes the wrong approach, he's going to lose him. He's a guy you've got to go real slow with. But whether Ozzie has that kind of patience, boy, I don't know."
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stor...rumblings090813