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Ozzie Extension


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Starting pitcher Mark Buehrle and right fielder Jermaine Dye also agreed to contract extensions earlier in the season. Both took less money to remain with the White Sox, and Guillen's presence was a huge factor.

 

"He makes it easier for you to go out there and play,'' Dye said. "He knows the game and he knows what players go through. With him being the manager and the amount of talent we have in this clubhouse, that's one of the reasons why I stayed.''

 

"I think it's a step in the right direction. Lock up the manager and go out and build a team under him and see what happens.''

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QUOTE(redandwhite @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 03:18 PM)
Oh, and Tony. I'd love to hear your expertise chime in here...

 

Why is it a good idea to extend the manager of the most underachieving team in baseball history's contract?

This team has numerous players on it that would not be on a lot of teams rosters so I can't call them the most underachieving based on that. Plus, Ozzie really had little to do with the massive failure in the pen.

 

I actually have no problem with this move because I like most of what Ozzie asks for out of his players. My main griefs are that I don't consider him the strongest in game manager (this is where a top notch bench coach would fit in perfectly) and that at times I question his evaluation skills (sometimes he writes off players solely because they make one bad impression of them and the reality is, to me, that young players deserve a couple chances).

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QUOTE(AddisonStSox @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 05:10 PM)
Couple of things...

 

1) Those not understanding the timing of this extension...surely, you jest. This is called buying low. This is economics 101 and it is certainly a White Sox hallmark. If believed that Ozzie was not the problem this year and that the White Sox can once again compete for the pennant under his guidance, the board was smart to lock up their man when he asking price was presumably at its lowest.

 

2) The short-sightedness is staggering. Anyone with at least a half-refined baseball acumen knows Ozzie Guillen was not the problem for the 2007 White Sox. Was he at his best? No. I'll admit it appeared at times that Guillen had his head a bit too far out in front of his skis...paling in comparison to Williams' performance. I don't think this season was due to a lack of trying OR a lack of proper managing--it was due to lack of talent and lack of execution.

 

This is a fine move and a positive one for the organization.

Solid post Addy.

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QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 09:32 AM)
Madden is a real good baseball guy too. Really wish he could get a managing position for a better franchise.

With the talent level the D-Rays have built up in the draft...they really do have a shot at making noise here in the next couple years.

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QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 09:34 AM)
With the talent level the D-Rays have built up in the draft...they really do have a shot at making noise here in the next couple years.

They've had great talent buildups for a while, problem is they have trouble keeping the young guys together and they have never went after some vets to put around the young players when they are ready as the final step towards the competing puzzle (well with the exception of when they spent some money on Greg Vaughn and a couple other busts.

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QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 11:44 AM)
LOL! Sorry to steal your thunder Rock

 

What did I say!?

 

QUOTE(kyyle23 @ Sep 11, 2007 -> 06:59 PM)
This is a good way to take a little heat off of Ozzie in the respect that they(the media) wont be coming down on him about being on the hot seat and losing his job.

 

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Its already out there. And its especially brutal. He has gone over the top on this one

 

Serious? If so, I can't wait to see it (for laughs mostly. I am NOT enthusiastic over Ozzie being here for 5 more years, but Mariotti will likely go apes*** as always).

Edited by TheBigHurt
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QUOTE(RockRaines @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 01:18 PM)
Its already out there. And its especially brutal. He has gone over the top on this one

 

 

what makes you say that?

 

As I’ve written and said often, Guillen and Williams—and, of course, Reinsdorf—are too concerned with what is written and said. But the Blizzard lost me Tuesday when he acknowledged he altered his managing style and became softer this year because of criticism directed at him last year. In what generally is a town of benign sports media, Guillen has only one regular critic: me. Nationally, where sports media are less boosterish, he has more critics. How stunning to see a man with opinions on everything—a loudmouth willing to take on the world—tone down his act behind closed doors because he couldn’t take the heat.
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QUOTE(southsider2k5 @ Sep 12, 2007 -> 03:14 PM)
As opposed to a loudmouth who is afraid to show up and face the people he backstabs? What a two face.

Here is the article. Cover your eyes if you are sensitive.

 

Second-class citizens

Amid the rubble of a spectacular collapse off the '05 championship, the Sox reward Ozzie with a five-year deal that seals their fate as irrelevant also-rans

 

September 12, 2007

BY JAY MARIOTTI

Well, it was nice knowing the Chicago White Sox, who officially have become an irrelevant laughingstock after turning a one-hit wonder into a long-term blunder. They've handed a five-year contract to their clown act of a manager, Ozzie Guillen, even though he presides over what is dollar-for-dollar and loss-for-loss the most underachieving, unwatchable team in Major League Baseball history.

 

They've locked him in through 2012 even though three of his four seasons have ended badly. They've proclaimed that one World Series banner buys him a lifetime pass and trumps a sustained pattern of rot-gut baseball, which never would fly in sophisticated places such as Yankee Stadium and Fenway Park. They've entrusted him with the keys to the asylum even though their record since July 2 of last year, in one of the monumental flip-flops we've seen in sports, is a revealing 98-129.

 

They've reanointed him the face of the franchise even though the Sox, failing miserably to capitalize on what now can be termed an aberrational 2005, have resumed their traditional identity as the distant No. 2 team in this Cubs fortress. They've conveniently ignored that a $109 million payroll, without major injuries or calamity, has produced a ghastly 61 wins this season -- way down there with Florida ($30 million) and Tampa Bay ($24 million) among the majors' worst records. They've stood behind him even when he has embarrassed a city, a sport and two nations, including his native Venezuela, with his immature, insensitive and vapid ramblings. ''The Hispanic Jackie Mason,'' says his enabler, Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, who is wrong to think either Guillen or Mason is funny.

 

And in the biggest of blind spots, they've extended Guillen despite the probable offseason availability of Tony La Russa, who never would have allowed the Sox to collapse the last two seasons and surely would point a talented team toward the playoffs next year. If La Russa can keep the St. Louis Cardinals in contention through their constant storm of tragedies and crises, imagine how he might whip the Sox into quick shape. I'm not sure what's floating around Reinsdorf's head as he nears 72, but he needs to re-establish credibility with displeased fans who have supported the Sox strongly amid successive thuds. Ordering up five more years of this theater of the absurd -- ''The Blizzard of Oz'' -- isn't going to work unless the Sox win big. Truth be told, they haven't won at all for a long time, which didn't escape Guillen when he talked about his incredible good fortune Tuesday.

 

Even his kids get it

''My kids say, 'You're the first Venezuelan manager to come to the big leagues and you're the first to win a World Series -- and you were the first manager to sign when you're in last place,' '' said the Blizzard, laughing at the inanity of beating the system when most managers and coaches in his spot would be on hot seats.

 

Guillen and general manager Ken Williams should share equal blame for the free fall. But Williams is under contract for two more seasons, which means talk of his future remains premature despite his colossal bungling of the bullpen and the fact he has reached the postseason only once in seven years. It makes no sense for the owner and GM to grant Guillen an immediate extension for such a lengthy period. After successive bummers, the Blizzard should have been forced to prove his worth in 2008.

 

But Sox management, always self-adoring, believes that its counterintuitive b.s. should be viewed as great wisdom. Though the club has been flat for a season and a half, Williams actually wants us to think Guillen is on his game. ''His passion is still there to bring a championship to Chicago,'' he said. ''I know it's difficult to tell in a season like this, but I'm looking for things that the mass of people aren't looking for. He's actually becoming a better manager. ... We've got plans to make. He needs to know, the players need to know, the fans need to know. We're far from done.''

 

No, you ARE done.

 

As I've written and said often, Guillen and Williams -- and, of course, Reinsdorf -- are too concerned with what is written and said. But the Blizzard lost me Tuesday when he acknowledged he altered his managing style and became softer this year because of criticism directed at him last year. In what generally is a town of benign sports media, Guillen has only one regular critic: me. Nationally, where sports media are less boosterish, he has more critics. How stunning to see a man with opinions on everything -- a loudmouth willing to take on the world -- tone down his act behind closed doors because he couldn't take the heat.

 

And they're rehiring him for five more years?

 

''I didn't want to be on a national TV,'' Guillen said. ''I didn't want people criticizing me. [so] I never talked to the players the way I should. I didn't want people out there talking about stuff they don't know.

 

''That's why I back up a little to have a better summer. And that's why I had the worst summer of my career because I was too soft. I was kind of worried about what people were gonna say about me.''

 

Talking in circles

So, apparently, Guillen will return to life as a cussing, screaming loon. Doesn't he realize, whether it's coincidence or otherwise, that the Sox turned into a bad team not long after his crazy rants of last June? ''Ozzie is going to be Ozzie. I told Kenny, I told Jerry,'' Guillen said. ''I'm gonna be myself, not because I signed this contract but because I was myself before this contract. The most important thing for me is to have success. If I don't win games, then I should be criticized.''

 

Let me see if I have this straight. Guillen says he softened because he didn't want to be criticized, yet says it's OK to criticize him if he doesn't win. He has been a losing manager over his last 227 games, minimizing some of the highest-priced talent in sports. And still, the Sox hand him five more years. Weird, very weird.

 

''When you are winning, you are king,'' the Blizzard said. ''When you're losing, you are nobody.''

 

Rest in peace, nobodies.

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