Judgement day on the South Side continues. During the press conference call discussing the decision to remove Rick Renteria, Rick Hahn mentioned the White Sox would also be parting ways with long time pitching coach Don Cooper.
After eighteen years of work with hundreds of White Sox pitchers such as Mark Buehrle, Chris Sale, Lucas Giolito and many others, Coop’s tenure has come to an end. Similar to Renteria, this move comes as a surprise, but also a sign that the Sox mean business and want to win.
Don Cooper’s time had passed. There were a lot of positives in what he did as a member of the Sox. No one will ever forget the 2005 ALCS where White Sox starters pitched four straight complete games. But things began to get strange with the number of injuries Sox pitchers have had in recent years. This is not all on Don Cooper, but whatever the coaching situation is, it has not been good enough to fix these issues. In addition, the pitching in game three of the Wildcard round in Oakland was hard to watch.
The White Sox coaching search will be exciting to follow. Rick Hahn mentioned wanting someone with recent championship experience which screams Alex Cora or AJ Hinch. As far as who will fill the role of pitching coach, it’s anyone’s guess.
Just 11 days after being eliminated from the playoffs, the Sox are cleaning house. As much as fans would love to be watching this team duel with Tampa Bay right now, but the moves the team is making. This is a championship caliber team, that will soon, seemingly, have championship coaching.
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As much as I love Ricky, I think this is the right move. He deserves credit for guiding the team’s crawl up from joke to contender, but the mismanagement of this year’s pennant drive when it mattered most in September and the wild card round was a failure.
I’m alarmed to see Cora and Hinch mentioned here. The stink of scandal is strong on them and that shouldn’t be the storyline for the launch of the next phase of this team’s future.