flavum

Abreu will get at least 24 first place votes. He’ll win and it won’t be close.

I like the White Sox roster page where they have a B&W picture of La Russa where he’s about 18 yrs old. Is that a dig?

Good summary. On Number 2, I think Tony is going to adjust in a big way, because he has to. In the last couple days I've heard Matt Holliday, Paul Konerko, and Jim Leyland say all he cares about is winning that day's game. Konerko thinks that adjusting to that concern is part of the equation in winning that day's game. So if it's just staying out of the clubhouse for the most part and ignoring some of the rah-rah stuff that he's not used to, he'll probably not say a word. What he will do though---which is the right thing to do- is demand to be prepared to play that day, and make guy's work on things they need to work on. The process on how he was hired was terrible. AJ HInch should be the Sox manager now, but it didn't happen because of Reinsdorf….but it's done now. Hopefully everyone involved has an open mind and they actually find out he's a good manager and we see Tony manage a Sox World Series team in the next couple years.

You mean December 2nd at 7pm central, but yeah, Rodon and Mazara are gonzo.

The hell?

Ok, I'll be the one to ask...what's the D in TLDR?

Exactly. It's an odd hire for this club, but I've reached the "acceptance" phase in under 24 hours. It's about players going out and performing to their ability. I'm excited to see what moves they can make this offseason and hopefully there will be a real spring training and a minor and major league season in 2021.

He'll be non-tendered December 2.

Also, Colome, McCann, and Dyson are free agents. And the Sox have some option decisions to make official in the next couple days. Ahhh...roster moves. A refreshing topic.

With 162 games, 4 four-team divisions in each league wouldn't work. How many games would you play against each team in your division to limit the chances of an under .500 team winning a division? 30? Nobody wants to see that, I hope. If they go to 32 teams, the most likely thing to happen is geographic realignment and four divisions of 8 teams. Four division winners and a bunch of wildcards. It's going to be two divisions of 8 in the East time zone, 8 in the Central, 8 in Mtn/Pacific.

Ok, I missed your point there. If La Russa doesn’t try to communicate with players immediately, it’s bad. If players don’t want to talk to him, it’s just as bad. Talk to each other, people!

Wait, which is it? He should have called players last week or he should wait until spring training now? Good lord. I said people should talk to each other and be open minded to start building a relationship, and that’s a bad thing somehow.

Nonsense. It became official and public yesterday. Today is Day 2 for La Russa. The calls can start now.

He just got hired. I’ve been saying he should start making calls this weekend. Easy there, fella.

I’m all for making players tuck in their back pockets, so some good could come out if this. ?

The players can feel uneasy about La Russa, but they also should be open minded and actually talk with the guy. And Tony will need to adapt to what is going on in the game now and adjust too. If people actually sit down and talk with each other, they’ll probably find out that it’s not that bad.

This is why Tony needs to start making phone calls and talking to his players.

White Sox YouTube page. Benetti’s interview with Tony there too.

I’m on the side of giving him a shot and optimistic about good players getting better with any new manager. I wouldn’t have considered La Russa, but it happened, and I’m not turning in my fan card over it. I hope he succeeds and the players have good relationships with him.

I thought the Benetti interview with Tony was pretty good. It’s on the Sox YouTube page. 20 min.

I would think they have nothing to say since they’ve probably never met him and they were in middle school the last time he managed a game. Hopefully Tony starts making phone calls soon and texts with everyone over the winter to start building a relationship before they get to Arizona.

I love the autocorrect of Russa to Russia. Good stuff. The Hall is awesome, but they also need to get the sticks out of their asses. Who cares if a manager already in manages again?

I’m just wishing for the best, so I’ll say three.

Hopefully that rule gets overturned. Heard Verducci talking about it- said it did nothing for shortening games and 30 out of 30 managers hate it.

That’s about it. It’s not the way 99% of fans would go, but it absolutely has a chance to be a success, and the concerns we have about him today may fade fast next year. We shall see. It’s going to be a fun team regardless because we have some good players to watch, and more are on the way.