oneofthemikes

Demonstrating to the team you're in charge of that you give a shit about them shouldn't be viewed as a negligible gesture.

Am I missing something here? Marquez is good and cheap but Chris Sale he is not. I know you said "Sale lite" but that still feels crazy steep. Sale had a career ERA of 3, had been an All-Star 5 times, and had received Cy Young votes in each of those seasons and MVP votes twice. He also had 4 years of team control left. These situations aren't all that similar in my eyes.

Depends on how much of the clubhouse dynamic he tries to change. Nobody likes to have large scale change forced upon them, especially 22-25 year olds.

Gotta love it when the organization is so dysfunctional that even the insiders are just like "beats me" *shrug*

Perfect. That'll match up really well with the "young guys, prime guys, and veteran guys" that he mentioned in the introductory presser.

I know that Stone has brought up the idea of multiple pitching coaches before. Would a combo of Fedder (not really familiar with him) and Zaleski be a good thing or not?

How did we get here? I assume it came from Tony's "observational analytics" (which is nonsense and honestly feels like a phrase that he cooked up just so he could put the word "analytics" on his resume). Anyway, who cares? It's semantics.

But as long as they're sincere, Tony won't have a problem with it.

It's reasonable to deduce that Keuchel, who hadn't tweeted in months, excitedly tweeting that big things are ahead for the Sox within a couple of hours of Ricky's firing was under the impression that Hinch was coming.

I don't believe this for a second. Three weeks ago Hahn was eloquent and self-assured and laid out a very specific vision for his managerial search and I believe that he was sincere in how he wanted that search to take place. Hahn even said yesterday that Jerry reached out to TLR and based on how quickly Nightengale had the TLR story after the end of season presser it kinda seems like Jerry called TLR while Hahn was doing that presser. The Hahn we saw yesterday was skittish and stammered through all of his answers. That wasn't a GM that was on board with the hiring that took place. Not to mention there were several reports that TLR wasn't a popular decision in the FO.

I don't really care to do too much digging on this, but I did happen to see that Casey Mize liked the Tigers post about Hinch's hiring.

Didn't Hahn basically admit in the presser yesterday that they've known since last Saturday that this was gonna happen? That's plenty of time to reach out to at least a couple of guys on the team.

How bad do you think things could get with this? Like players-requesting-trades bad or full-blown-mutiny bad?

I just keep coming back to "how?". How could we have possibly ended up here? We have an awesome, fun, young, cost-controlled team in a phenomenal city. This job was the most attractive in the league, they had their pick of the litter. Even if they didn't want to be tied to the scandal by Hinch or Cora they could have walked away with any one of Bochy, Quatraro, Espada. They were in an un-fuckup-able situation and then Jerry grabbed the reigns and said "watch this!". And again, I'm not saying any of this from an in-game managerial perspective. He's just a horrible fit with this team. Jerry hired his long-retired buddy to make amends for something that happened when I was in diapers.

Not typically a big Deadspin fan, but I'm having a hard time arguing most of what they wrote here: https://deadspin.com/reinsdorf-fills-white-sox-manager-slot-by-exhuming-anti-1845522222

I guess I care more about it from a coaching continuity standpoint than a grooming opportunity. What I don't want to see is for TLR to implement his enitre staff and then hang it up in 2 seasons and have to start from scratch.

I won't speak for everyone because it isn't my place to do so, but my concerns with this hire don't have anything to do with TLR's ability to manage a bullpen or fill out a lineup card. He is the antithesis of everything that this team has become over the past few seasons. Tim Anderson has been an outspoken advocate for racial equality and sits on the board of the Players Alliance. Six players knelt on Opening Day and as recently as February of this year, TLR doubled down on comments that he made in 2016 about being opposed to that. I know that TLR said all the right things yesterday at the press conference but I’m going to need more convincing before I believe that he’s completely changed his opinion on something like that in such a short time. In August when Tatis hit the grand slam in a 3-0 count TLR was vocal about his distaste for it. “It’s just not sportsmanlike,” La Russa said. “The way it was described to me was, it’s team against team. That’s what our sport is, with these very talented individuals matching up. What it isn’t, though, is an exhibition of your talents. You swing 3-0 in that game, and you’re up by seven, you’re trying to drive in more runs.” That’s pretty jarring to hear from the new manager of a team that is having a Tim Anderson bat flip bobblehead giveaway in 2021. The slogan for last year's team was "Change the Game" because they wanted to make baseball less about the unwritten rules and more about having fun and that's not the guy that got the job.

Absolutely. Hahn picking the BC is critical. It needs to be viewed as a grooming opportunity for a young manager that will take over when TLR leaves. It can't just be TLR picking one of his pals for his staff.

Also, "observational analytics" is nonsense. It's baseball speak for I'm going to manage with my gut.

This is absolutely terrifying to me. I can see it now. Wainwright as the number 3 starter, Molina as backup C/DH, Harold Baines as Bench Coach. The Bench Coach and Pitching Coach hires are going to be SO important because when Tony loses the clubhouse (I'm expecting sooner than later) we are going to need guys that the team believes in. But we won't go out and get a guy like Espada or Quatraro or even a guy like Zaleski as PC. Tony will call up all his buddies to try to get them out of retirement and get the band back together.

If this is accurate and we miss out on Hinch AND lose Hahn so Jerry can hire his pal because he feels bad about some bullshit from 34 years ago, I'm going to be beyond furious.

You saw the way he responded to being called “my guy” and the proceeded to call him sensitive and address him as “bud” and “champ”? You’re instigating just to instigate. You’ve got some respect issues.

Stroman just confirmed on Twitter that he wouldn’t have any interest in playing for TLR.

I mean that’s kinda the point. The last decade was awful and now that there’s light at the end of the tunnel, JR pulls rank and plops TLR in our lap. I don’t count myself among the ranks of people that would leave the fandom but I certainly won’t be happy with it. Rick described a modern, successful, non-insular manager and now the leading candidate is an octogenarian (hyperbole, but barely) from the “Jerry Reinsdorf friends and family plan” that hasn’t managed in a decade.

The part of this that’s really gonna hurt is when the Tigers go get Hinch immediately after the White Sox shit down their leg.