Chicago White Sox offer insincere congratulations to Rick Renteria
Despite being unceremoniously dumped by the Chicago White Sox, Rick Renteria was nominated for AL Manager of the Year.
The 2020 season was a solid one for the Chicago White Sox and manager Rick Renteria. He guided Chicago to the postseason for the first time since 2008; their .583 winning percentage the best that the franchise has had since their World Series winning season in 2005. Despite that success, Renteria was fired after the White Sox were bounced out of the postseason in the first round.
Well, that success was noticed by the Baseball Writers Association of America, who named Renteria as one of the finalists for the AL Manager of the Year award. That led to a fairly awkward tweet from the White Sox.
Congratulations to Rick Renteria on being named a finalist for A.L. Manager of the Year. https://t.co/dJWrFEg16f
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) November 2, 2020
The tone of that tweet was distinctly different than the other ones from the White Sox yesterday. Both Jose Abreu and Luis Robert were named as finalists for the MVP and Rookie of the Year respectfully, leading to far more enthusiastic tweets from the team.
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It would make sense that the White Sox would take a more muted approach to Renteria being named as a finalist. They had moved on, inserting Tony La Russa into the managerial spot to appease the conscious of owner Jerry Reinsdorf. This was a decision geared towards the idea that the White Sox are ready to win now.
But it is not as though Renteria had fared poorly. The White Sox had a 17 game improvement between 2018 and 2019, and showed a great deal of promise heading into the future. The players respected Renteria. But that was not enough.
Instead, he may end up in a strange situation. Should he win the Manager of the Year award, he would join Joe Girardi in 2006 as the only managers to take home the award in a year they were fired. Such a victory would likely end up with another very awkward tweet from the White Sox social media team.
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Rick Renteria deserved better. He definitely deserved more than an insincere tweet congratulating him for being one of the finalists for AL Manager of the Year.