Tony

No it wouldn't. This is incredibly wrong.

So just answer this simple question, I know you have the time. You said LAST NIGHT: You've spent the last 24 hours defending LaRussa, telling us to let it go, we're being too hard on him, that he's doing his job. At the same time, you're glowing about how insane this roster is. So the question is......what are you expectations of a manager? It seems like your bar is set incredibly low, seeing as you think LaRussa is a "moron tactically" but argue the roster he took over is incredible. And again, you mentioned how Tony's job is to "get guys ready to play" and we've had multiple reports from the most respected reporters in the game that multiple players feel like Tony isn't as prepared as he needs to be. So aside from this roster actually performing like it should.......what has Tony done that others managers, or basically any other human, wouldn't do that has helped this team win more games? If they had no manager at all, or YOU were the manager...what do you think their record would be right now? You're talking out of your ass and you know it.

That's the thing. If you put Billy Hamilton in LF and Leury Garcia in CF right now (as is happening fairly often) and had them bat 1-2 every day.......there is no chance in hell that doesn't cost the Sox multiple wins over a season.

Weird, you responded to this post, and not the one that was in direct response to you telling me to "Let it go"

It's because you don't watch the games. No. It's almost the exact opposite No, he should not be hitting ninth

This is Cody Parkey all over again. Dude missed 4 FG's in a 34-22 win over Detroit. "Ah he might suck, but the Bears still won! It's all good!" You knew you couldn't really count on him, but the talent on the rest of the team was overcoming his mistakes. When crunch time came in the playoffs......guess who cost the team?

No. You can’t have it both ways. 5 posts up, you’re jerking off the roster for being like an “OTTP roster that has been building for 3-4 years after you keeping winning lopsided trades.” But then you’re going to come over the top and say “Well Tony might not be the sharpest tool in the shed but these guys are playing for him!” Which is it? Is the roster amazing or is Tony getting the most out of these guys? Sorry, but I believe the reports from Passan, Rosenthal and Jesse that multiple players don’t feel like Tony is on top of his game over....you. This isn’t a complicated roster to handle. Furthermore, I have a lot faith in this roster. What I don’t have faith in is the soon to be 77 year old in the dugout who may make a costly mistake when it matters the most. That’s not who I want to go into battle with. Sorry, my expectations are a little higher than that.

Because in this case, it’s absolute bullshit. @VAfan, seemingly trying to school all of us, posted this.. Managers make decisions for reasons they feel like make sense at the time. They don't always work out. To say another strategy would have been better doesn't mean the other strategy would have worked, and therefore, it may not have been better.  That’s a bunch of words that mean absolutely nothing to the specific debate at hand. As we have discussed ad nauseam, LaRussa admitted he didn’t know a rule, and wouldn’t have made the same call if he was aware of the rule. This isn’t second guessing bullpen decision or lineup placement. These are errors that should not be happening, and have happened multiple times. But someone like Vafan won’t get specific about that, because it destroys his entire “position.” Instead he’ll just use cliches and general ideas that aren’t speaking to actual issues at hand. Positivity is a good thing. And as many know, I get after the negative posters more than most here. But positive or negative, come at an argument with actual substance. That had none of it.

It’s always been that way. But I really don’t think it’s that weird. Think of the Sox like any other product. Usually on a brand social media page, the complaints outweigh the compliments 10/1. When you have a great restaurant experience, most people don’t rush to Yelp to glow about the service. But they are much more likely to post about a terrible wait staff, cold food, etc. Just sort of the nature of the beast. Plus...debate drives conversation. Not much to debate in a nice weekend sweep. Anyway...long season and this team still has some obvious concerns...but they just need to keep stashing away the victories. At some point, Abreu and Grandal will heat up, hopefully the rest the lineup keeps hitting....and hopefully Gio remembers he’s an Ace.

Who is suggesting that?

That aboy Andrew!

It’s bizarre the only pitcher that has really regressed under Katz is Gio (and I guess Crochet)

And it’s fine that it happened thus far. Happens all the time where stars under perform, it’s up to the other guys to pick up the slack. But at some point the stars needs to act like stars. Everyone struggles, but this is getting concerning.

I don’t care how good the rest of the starters are going, if Gio isn’t the Gio we know, the Sox aren’t going anywhere. They need to figure this out, ASAP.

So what did I miss?

Manny-Griffey-Alomar-Thome-Canseco-Rollins-Andruw Jones-Youkilis-Morneau Why not Pujols? It's a White Sox tradition.

So your argument now boils down to "Drunk driving isn't a big deal if no one got hurt. No harm, no foul." Ironic...

It's insane. I know there are always a few contrarians, but again.....it's SO cut and dry in this case.

We're not even arguing opinion anymore....LaRussa ADMITTED HE DOESN'T KNOW THE RULES. What are we even debating here?

Then you simply don't understand the topic we are discussing. Not only are the rules clear, not only did Tony LaRussa admit to not knowing them, but David Bell, the manager in the other dugout, made it clear he understood them and the efforts MLB made to make sure all managers knew the new rules. Your opinion of the changes are absolutely irrelevant. I have a baseline expectation that the manager in charge of the team I root for understands the rules of the game he is in charge of managing. I really don't think that's asking a lot. But good try.

Weird, you didn't answer my question from hours ago. I'll ask again. What is your reaction to finding out the White Sox’ 76 year old manager didn’t know the rules of Major League Baseball? Making decisions based on incorrect information? Learning the rules from media members post game? Has nothing to do with what the players did on the field today. Answer those questions.

Correct. The steal was out of this world stupid. It's just a disaster man. And it sucks. Because there are SO many likable guys on this squad.

It's embarrassing this is the defense some of the more "positive" minded fans are coming up with tonight. STOP COMPARING YOURSELF WITH A MAJOR LEAGUE MANAGER. In the same post, you say "I know for certain that LaRussa has forgotten more than I ever knew about the game." So by that account, fans and managers shouldn't be compared. Yet in your attempt to somehow defend LaRussa, you're blaming baseball for changing the rules? Even though the manager across the dugout knew what the rule was? Have you seen any other manager make that mistake this year? So I don't really think you do understand why fans are frustrated. LaRussa is sitting in the dugout making MILLIONS a year, and you're blaming MLB for Tony not being up on the rule changes? Really?

That's sort of the point of all this. They really shouldn't matter too much. When Spring Training began, LaRussa could have had one of the easiest jobs in baseball. The lineup was set, the rotation was set, the bullpen was basically set. Now, things have gotten a lot more complicated because of injuries, there is no doubting that. People are always going to criticize a manager when he makes the wrong bullpen decision, or pitching to a guy instead of working around him, etc. That's part of the game, always will be. People will be on both sides of the argument. What's not acceptable is what we saw today, and what we've already seen from LaRussa is a very short time. This is now the third tine where LaRussa has had to "apologize" to the fan base/media for a bad call. The Foster debacle and Giolito being out of gas were bad, but those were "gut" calls he got wrong. Today is a WHOLE new level. He didn't know a rule. The other manager did. Knowing the rules of the game you are managing seems like pretty basic stuff. And if it's "too confusing" for someone to keep with up with all the changes, maybe being an ML manager isn't for you. So I don't want to hear about people just picking on LaRussa because of his age, or his DUI's or whatever else. He's shown us, multiple times, that he is overmatched in 2021.