Tony LaRussa under fire
doubledragon
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I don't know if you've been following the Tony LaRussa saga, but it's getting heated.
White Sox players nearing revolt against Tony La Russa
The White Sox have more problems than most teams with the best record in their league.
In the days after manager Tony La Russa ripped Yermin Mercedes for hitting a home run on a 3-0 pitch he was told to take while up 15-4 – then said he “didn’t have a problem” with the Twins throwing at him in retaliation – the 76-year-old doubled down on his stance against breaking baseball’s “unwritten rules.”
“Do you think you need more [runs] to win, you keep pushing,” he said, via Bob Nightengale. “If you think you have enough, respect the game and opposition. Sportsmanship.”
La Russa added, “If you’re going to tell me that sportsmanship and respect for the game of baseball and respect for your opponent is not an important priority, then I can’t disagree with you more.”
It became very clear that his players disagreed. Pitcher Lance Lynn made it clear after Tuesday’s game, telling 670 The Score that “there are no rules” when a position player is pitching and “the more I play this game, the more those (unwritten) rules have gone away.”
Tony La Russa appears not to be on the same page as his players, including Tim Anderson.
Tony La Russa appears not to be on the same page as his players, including Tim Anderson.
La Russa’s response?
“Lance has a locker. I have an office. … I don’t agree.”
If La Russa was hoping his other players would back him, he would be wrong. White Sox star Tim Anderson has taken to multiple social media to express his support for Mercedes, posting on an Instagram (captured via screengrab on Twitter): “The game wasn’t over! Keep doing you big daddy.”
Mercedes responded with, “Yes sir, let’s do it baby!”
Anderson also appeared to back up the 28-year-old catcher by tweeting, “don’t see and don’t hear… keep pushing.”
Mercedes came back with, “Yeah, yeah brotha.”
Aaron Boone sides with Yermin Mercedes in Tony La Russa’s ‘unwritten rule’ rant
La Russa was a surprising choice to manage the young White Sox in the offseason, as he had not managed professionally since 2011 with the Cardinals. His old-school mentality was always viewed as an odd fit with the Sox’s young roster, and he was also arrested for DUI around the exact time he was hired, generating more controversy.
It appears those concerns are playing out before our eyes, as La Russa appears to be on the verge of losing the clubhouse.
The White Sox still sit atop the American League at 25-16 despite the whirlwind of drama surrounding their manager.
Comments
Larussa is old school but that doesn’t mean he is right, personally I understand where he is coming from but I would not have made a big deal out of it. These guys get paid according to their stats so that’s a legitimate position for the players. Plus in baseball anything can happen so you in my opinion it’s ok to swing.
Oh my goodness, CC Sabathia ripped into Tony LaRussa like a hungry dog ripping into a well done steak, with a side order of onion rings!
CC Sabathia rips White Sox manager Tony La Russa over unwritten rules: 'Out of touch'
The moment the Chicago White Sox announced that they had hired 76-year-old Tony La Russa to be their manager, eyes rolled and heads shook wondering what they were thinking.
La Russa basically justified the critics by not knowing the extra-inning rules earlier this season and in the past week going old school on his thoughts concerning swinging at 3-0 pitches.
During Monday's 15-4 rout, the Minnesota Twins put position player Willians Astudillo on the bump and White Sox catcher Yermin Mercedes promptly took Astudillo's speeding-in-a-school-zone pitch and deposited into the center field seats.
Former pitcher CC Sabathia weighed in on the increasing nonsense during his R2C2 podcast with Ryan Ruocco.
"Tony La Russa is out of touch with the game, cuz," Sabathia said. "He should not be managing one of the best teams in the American League period. The fact that Tim Anderson, basically the captain of their team, had to go on Instagram and step up for his teammate like, 'Yeah, the game wasn't over.'"
Sabathia was just getting started.
"If you're going to put a (expletive) position player in there to pitch, guess what? If he's going to lob (expletive) over the plate, we going to (expletive) tee off. Put a 10-run rule up there, cuz," he continued. "If y'all don't want to see people get embarrassed and you don't want to see position players pitch and people swing on 3-0 counts and all that (expletive), then make it a 10-run rule so the (expletive) game will be over and you don't have these stupid ass unwritten rules."
La Russa went all in before Wednesday's game saying "you think you need more (runs) to win, you keep pushing. If you think you have enough, respect the game and opposition. Sportsmanship."
The last word here goes to Sabathia.
"That's just (expletive) stupid. It's stupid. Period. I'm sorry. This (expletive) is terrible. He shouldn't be (expletive) managing that team. If you not going to step up and have your players backs, what's the point of being the (expletive) manager of the White Sox?"
I agree with Sabathia 🤷♂️
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The Mariners, during a season where they won 116 games lost a game they led 14-2 IN THE SEVENTH.
Never stop trying for more runs. Hurt feelings don't matter in the pros. And, for the love of God, never, ever apologize for hitting a home run.
This is DJ Double D coming to you from 98.7 Sports Forum FM, I'm sending this one out to Tony LaRussa.
The issue is not whether it’s appropriate to swing away with a big lead on a 3-0 count. The issue is whether it’s appropriate to ignore instructions from the manager.
What a miserable man Larussa is. The world has past him by
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Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Help me. Is it past or passed. I honestly don’t know, and for some reason want to learn.
I think this is what is being missed in all of this. It sounds like maybe the players don't like him and aren't respecting him. And I'm sure he is doing things differently than they expect. Over the last whatever years, it has come to be obvious that a lot of MLB manager hires are made with the GM and players in mind. Meaning whoever is hired is a player's coach who is also on board with having management and analytics have the final say. But it looks like Mercedes ignored the 'take' sign and hit the homer anyways.
Edited spelling
Ok, in this video Chris "mad dog" Russo defends Tony LaRussa in an entertaining rant.
any sport I ever played, i played hard until the end. i didn't care if we were up or down by 10 runs.
I always hated if my team was down when the other team let up. it seemed as if they considered us lesser or not as good as them so they would let up so not to embarrass us. kind of like playing a game with an older brother when you knew they were only playing half speed. felt disrespectful.
George Brett, Roger Clemens and Tommy Brady.
And yet it is done in every sport, to differing degrees. In an NBA blowout, the team that’s ahead will often run out the shot clock near the end of the game rather than continuing to pile on. I guess it’s more of a “feel” thing about how much is too much.
I think in MLB it’s different with a batter though, I’d say stealing bases is probably wrong from a sportsmanship point of view but really that might be about it. Football you run the clock out, hockey you pass the puck around? NBA dribble extra? IDK for a baseball player to get mowed down with strikes and not allowed to swing sounds wrong to me. I totally get the listening to your manager thing though.
Passed
Ok, here's exactly how the situation unfolded from start to finish, great article. Inspector Double D is on the story!
(CNN)Imagine you went to work one day, did a terrific job, and your boss then publicly excoriated you, promised that you'd be punished and later applauded the way another person in the industry tried to commit actual physical violence against you.
You might be Mike Pence last January. Or this week you might be Yermín Mercedes, rookie sensation for the Chicago White Sox. They call him "The Yerminator" for the way he's hitting this year -- a .368 batting average (tops in the American League) with six home runs and an electric style that has Chicago fans excited for their first-place team.
On Monday night, the Sox were clobbering division rival Minnesota, 15-4. Late in the game, the Twins did the baseball equivalent of giving up by putting in position player Willians Astudillo to pitch the final inning. (Astudillo is amusingly nicknamed "La Tortuga" -- the turtle -- because he's a little shorter, girthier and slower than the average Major Leaguer.) Baseball teams do this kind of switch to acknowledge they have lost the game and don't wish to tax their actual pitchers with useless work.
Trying to end an unmerciful beating, Astudillo haplessly threw three pitches to Mercedes that were all called balls (and that averaged about 45 mph).
One of baseball's "unwritten rules" is that batters don't usually swing on a 3-0 count, especially when their team is way ahead. It isn't forbidden, rather a custom. But Mercedes, who toiled in the minor leagues for a decade to achieve his Major League dream, ignored that rule and blasted "La Tortuga's" fourth pitch some 429 feet for a solo home run, making the game 16-4.
After the game, Mercedes's White Sox manager, Tony La Russa, (Mercedes' day-to-day boss, who, incidentally, I revere because of his long and successful stint with my beloved St. Louis Cardinals), castigated his star player for making a "big mistake," promising some sort of "consequence he has to endure here within our family."
La Russa may have also invited retribution from the other team by saying: "That's just sportsmanship, respect for the game, respect for the opponent. ... He's not going to do that again."
The next night, maybe you can guess what happened. Twins pitcher Tyler Duffey intentionally threw a 93 mph fastball at Mercedes' knees, which sailed just wide and behind the hitter. Duffey missed, underscoring that Major League pitchers aren't 100% accurate. Duffey and his boss -- Twins manager Rocco Baldelii -- were ejected by the umpires.
After the game, La Russa said of the attempt to kneecap Mercedes: "I don't have a problem with how the Twins handled it."
First, La Russa publicly all but endorses retribution against his own guy, and then essentially applauds it after it happens? In what other line of work (our current politics notwithstanding) would this be tolerated?
The future of baseball lies in players like Mercedes, who scrape and claw for one chance at MLB glory. Nobody comes to the yard to see La Russa skulk around the dugout; they come to see Mercedes hit baseballs so hard that the cows from whence the leather came can almost feel it.
Moreover, baseball is undergoing an epidemic of pitchers who throw harder and with less control than ever, according to The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal, who noted that average fastball velocities are up and so are scary moments where batters are plunked in the head, hands and beyond. The video of New York Mets player Kevin Pillar suffering numerous nasal fractures after taking a ball square in the face is frightening.
Being a Major League hitter is scary enough without your own manager endorsing the other team throwing at you.
Baseball is a dangerous sport. And it is also one that its stewards believe needs refreshing, as evidenced by rule changes implemented a few years back to encourage faster games and more offense.
But aren't sports best refreshed by colorful, successful personalities with great stories? That's what the White Sox have in Mercedes, who doesn't deserve his manager's flogging. In Tiger Woods' day, nobody would've ever said to him: "You are disrespecting the game by beating the other golfers this badly. You may want to shank a few or make some bogeys to keep it fair."
From a business perspective, it is pure insanity to threaten Mercedes for hitting a home run on a 3-0 count -- home runs, incidentally, are one of the things ball players are paid to do! La Russa crazily claimed that if the count had been three balls and one strike he would not have minded, suggesting an alarming level of stupidity for someone who is allowed to speak publicly on behalf of a $3.66 billion industry.
Further, Mercedes will be paid in the future based on his individual statistics, not on his imagined level of respect for the game as judged by La Russa. If he can't hit home runs when the mood strikes him, his future earning potential is limited.
On Wednesday, La Russa said that he figured his players agreed with his view, "I'm willing to bet there wasn't anyone in that clubhouse that's upset that I mentioned that's not the way we compete" he said, according to James Fegan, White Sox reporter for The Athletic Chicago. But several players -- including stars Tim Anderson and Lance Lynn -- appeared to indicate on social media that they thought La Russa was wrong to come down on Mercedes for the sin of trying to be good at his job.
MLB executives should act against La Russa immediately, suspending and fining him heavily at a minimum. The White Sox have grounds to fire him because he clearly supported violence against one of his subordinates.
As for Mercedes, thank goodness for players like him, who still see Major League Baseball as a dream worth achieving. I hope he swings at every 3-0 pitch for the rest of the year and hits a few of them into the stratosphere. I hope he becomes a huge star and can provide forever for himself and his family (he currently makes the league minimum salary of $570,500).
And I hope Major League Baseball's executives continue their quest to keep the game fresh by standing up for its future -- players like Mercedes -- instead of protecting dumb vestiges of its past.
Or, past could be correct. Depends on the placement of the noun, verb, and subject in the structure of the sentence. People who are now old were taught about such things in the 5th grade. Long, long ago. How now brown cow?
Except that's not what LaRussa criticized him for. Yes, he supposedly missed/ignored a take sign but that isn't what Tony has talked about.
And then had no problem with the other team throwing at his guy. Not acceptable on any level.
Great dissertation and report Double D! Thank you!
I think 'passed' is correct grammar, but 'past' kind of fits too.
I don't understand the idea that professional athletes need the other team to let off if they are doing poorly. They are professionals, if they don't like being whupped they can play better/harder. They are paid very well at this level, if they are being embarrassed, too bad. It is not trying to personally humiliate anybody. For amateurs, yeah take it easy, but the pros can deal with it. In timed sports, teams with big leads run out the clock, but that is using their initiative to seal the deal, it is not really letting off.
LaRussa definitely handled it all wrong, as far as I can tell. But , in my opinion, so did the players who are showing him up in the media. I think things can be handled in less public ways, more professionally.
Agree, I think.
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Fellas, leave the tight pants to the ladies. If I can count the coins in your pockets you better use them to call a tailor. Stay thirsty my friends......
Yea, me too. We agree on not really knowing. I think!
I sort of agree but I also understand the desire to respond publicly when your manager - the guy who is absolutely NOT supposed to trash you publicly - trashes you publicly. LaRussa called Mercedes "clueless". You just can't do that. And, if that leads to guys backing him publicly, so be it. That's 100% on LaRussa.
Fun fact though: Over the last 20 years, there have been 557 pitches thrown on 3-0 count to hitters whose team is up by 10+ runs. Mercedes was the first one to swing.
That is an insane stat. Seriously
There are articles about this all over Internet World. Some in the most unlikely of places. Some people are speculating that La Russa is putting on an act of playing the "Cranky Old Man" as a way to motivate the team. i.e.; Lets all pull together just to show the old geezer what a jerk he is! Who knows?
The other team has a position player lobbing a ball at 40 mph and we're supposed to be talking about respecting the rules of baseball? Give me a break and toughen up buttercup.
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