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Hey, maybe the answers are all right here on a shelf in my man cave! (See picture at right.)
OK, so maybe Harold Baines isn't coming back to play right field, and Greg Luzinski probably can't handle the DH role anymore. The question is whether Tony La Russa can still manage at a championship level.
We're going to find out, because the Sox hired him Thursday in a controversial move, to say the least. I'm not sure I know one single Sox fan who is happy with this decision, and I am no different.
You can't knock La Russa's credentials. He's in the Hall of Fame as a manager. He's won three World Series and six pennants. He ranks third all-time with 2,728 wins -- and he only needs 36 wins to move into second place.
Thing is, La Russa is 76 years old, and he hasn't managed since he led the St. Louis Cardinals to a World Series championship in 2011. Sox general manager Rick Hahn is on the record as having said the ideal managerial candidate would be someone who has "experience with a championship organization in recent years."
La Russa checks the box on experience with a championship organization. The recent years part, not so much. I do not consider 2011 to be recent. Maybe others do, but I don't. The game has changed a lot in the past 10 years.
The worst part of this hire, for me, is that the Sox didn't seem to conduct anything resembling a thorough search. They fixated on one guy and, of course, it's La Russa, a longtime favorite of owner Jerry Reinsdorf.
La Russa managed the Sox from 1979-86. That's a long time ago, folks. We're going back to my childhood, and I'm a 44-year-old man now. La Russa was the Sox manager when I attended my first game at old Comiskey Park ... 39 years ago.
Reinsdorf is on the record as saying his biggest mistake was firing La Russa ... in 1986. So apparently, the big priority here is righting a wrong that happened in 1986. That's a shame, because I thought the big priority here was for the Sox to win a World Series in 2021.
Maybe La Russa can do that, but color me skeptical that a 76-year-old man who has been out of the game for nine years is going to relate well to players who are 50 years younger than he is.
I actually have no doubt that La Russa is a smart enough man to combine new-school and old-school thoughts on the game. I think he'll pay attention to analytics, but he won't be a slave to it. Both the old school and the new school have their place in my view. The in-game management itself, I think La Russa can do that part.
The problem here is, will guys want to play for him? I'm not sure.
But I think the thing that pisses fans off most is that this is another "insular" hire. Jeff Passan's tweet from earlier today summed it up. Here's the tweet:
"The hiring of Tony La Russa has ruffled feathers in the White Sox organization. A number of employees have concerns about his ability to connect with younger players and how he will adapt to the field after being away 9 years. .... This was a Jerry Reinsdorf decision. Simple as that."
Yes, this was not a decision by baseball operations, as it should have been. It was a decision by a weird, octogenarian billionaire owner whose main interest has always been to surround himself with friends and loyal soldiers.
Sure, Reinsdorf wants to win, but he wants to win his way. And I don't think his way is going to work.
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