White Sox: Three offseason moves that make them a contender

Rick Renteria is well known around town for being a very nice man. He helped this team get over the hump into the playoffs and develop some very young and very talented players. However, he proved at the end of the 2020 season that he didn’t have what it takes to manage in the playoffs. He will always deserve credit for the development of this team in its early stages of the rebuild but it was time to move on.

Now, his replacement is Tony La Russa who is not a popular man around these parts right now. He had a DUI case earlier in 2020 that didn’t come to light until after he was hired. It was a tough situation but Jerry Reinsdorf clearly wants to make something that he feels he did wrong a long time ago right. It was a bad decision but it is clearly an upgrade over Renteria, from a baseball perspective. You can’t argue that La Russa is a better human being but he can manage a bullpen better.

La Russa has been away from the game for a long time. He last managed in 2011 where he and the Cardinals won the World Series. Since then, he has been elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame and hasn’t managed a single game. The hope is that he can bring some of his three-time World Series experience to the table and help this team win baseball games. If he is able to manage this team the way this roster needs to be managed, it could be the spark they need to win the World Series.

The White Sox are an organization loaded with talent. They are also mostly young and mostly signed up for a long time so sustained success could be on the horizon. The hope is that these three moves, along with maybe one or two more between now and Spring Training, can get them the experience and depth that they need to win the World Series for the first time since 2005.