A little over a year ago, Rick Renteria walked into SoxFest a conquering hero. It was a surprising sight for a 67-win team, but those White Sox played with an energy that the Robin Ventura Era stopped being known for in 2013, and fans heaped praise upon him when given the chance.
Smash-cut to the present day, it's fair to say his favorability rating has slipped.
In the second of my late, great columns for The Athletic, I mentioned that Renteria's popularity was effectively built on a limestone foundation in a swamp. Three things he had going for him -- a lame-duck Ventura as a predecessor, a really deep bullpen and the serial-position effect -- wouldn't follow him into future seasons, so what did he have then?
Renteria answered that question with a managerial style that alternated between taskmaster (so many benchings!) and coddler (so many pitching changes!). It's not necessarily a personal failing with Renteria, but rather the quicksand that drags down most managers in a rebuild. The more you show you're trying to escape, the less it'll help. The second and third seasons don't spell doom for all managers, but it usually requires an "innovator" label, and Renteria isn't that.
Given this history, I recommended that the White Sox hold off on extending him until deeper into the third season, since it could serve as a tie-breaker for Renteria's managerial methods. The White Sox, being perpetually weird about managers, extended him in secret for an unknown amount of time, and apparently well before I wrote that post. So.
Ironically, an awful start affirms the virtue in extending him at this point, at least somewhat. If Renteria's future were up in the air, the cries for his ousting would be deafening. As it stands, some fans are still making noise, but either they:
- Are unaware that the White Sox haven't fired anybody of note since Mark Parent after the 2015 season, and that was only a vain attempt to prop up a foundering Ventura
- Are unaware the Sox extended Renteria well before the season in a bunker deep underneath Guaranteed Rate Field at 2:23 a.m. in the middle of winter, or
- Don't care.
The rest of the fan base is either:
- Unwilling to blame Renteria for a flawed roster and think another manager wouldn't make a difference
- Aware that asking for any non-playing White Sox personnel to be dismissed before the end of the contract is a fool's errand, or
- Done caring.
I fall into the first group more than the other two, mainly because I figured saddling Renteria with a half-in roster born from a half-in offseason put him in a position to fail, and so I'd rather shove the blame upward.
After another slow start characterized by embarrassing defense and large early deficits, Renteria is already testing the range of responses. He tried to soft-pedal all the miscues early on, saying:
But after the last turn through the rotation saw White Sox starters give up 29 runs over 20 innings, Renteria tried putting his foot down:
'It’s not just Jace,’ Renteria said. ‘We’re having a little bit of trouble commanding the strike zone. . . . When we fall behind a lot, especially in relief, you put yourself in a vulnerable position. These guys are young, but that to me doesn’t matter.
‘It’s not acceptable, and we don’t want it to be something that’s acceptable. We want to make sure they understand that change has to occur. We have to make the adjustments sooner rather than later, so we can put ourselves in a position where we get ourselves [ahead]. Because [it] is tough for an offense every day to be in position where, gosh, we’re trying to battle back.’
Alas, if Paul Sullivan's characterization of another Renteria postgame comment is any indication, it seems like he understands the roster he's been dealt:
Renteria called Santana “rusty,” but when asked why the Sox didn’t give him a start or two at Triple-A Charlotte before calling him up, the manager said it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
Even if Sullivan's cynicism fails to fairly represent the exchange, it still serves the purpose of nutshelling the predicament. When Daniel Palka starts the season 0-for-23 and Jace Fry allows more than half the lefties he faces to reach base, it rounds down Renteria's real choices to random guesses (Dylan Covey or Ryan Burr in high leverage?) and prayers for blind luck (pinch-hitting Adam Engel for righty-swinging Yolmer Sanchez).
The hope is that all these elements -- the dearth of quality starts, Palka's hitlessness, Fry's lack of control -- are all slumps that would've happened at some point during the season, and this time they're occurring concurrently over the first 10 games to poison the only sample size we have.
Then again, looking at that Athletic column, I offered the suggestion that one could watch Dylan Cease pitch if the MLB product failed to entertain, which took on renewed meaning Tuesday. Between the lack of year-over-year change and the deep-seated ennui it generates, I'm starting to understand why writing about the White Sox falls well short of a boom industry. Support us on Patreon!
