Marcus Stroman rules Chicago White Sox out of free agency decision

The Chicago White Sox could use some pitching help in 2021, but they won’t be getting it from Marcus Stroman. And it’s all because of Tony La Ruasa.

Marcus Stroman‘s list of possible free agent destinations has now been narrowed down to just 29 teams. The Chicago White Sox have been eliminated from the competition, in large part due to the hiring of Tony La Russa as their manager.

This came on the heels of Jeff Passan of ESPN reporting that La Russa had been arrested for DUI just one day before the White Sox hired him as their manager.

And according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today, La Russa is in no danger of losing his job over the incident. In fact, the White Sox were already aware of it when they interviewed him, and still chose to hire La Russa anyway.

It’s already a dicey choice for the White Sox. In the past, La Russa has expressed displeasure with batflip culture and, more importantly, with players kneeling for the national anthem. He prefers an old-school approach to an analytics approach, which is basically an indefensible philosophy in the game today.

To put it bluntly, La Russa is just a horrible fit for the Chicago White Sox. He’s essentially the polar opposite of everything that shortstop Tim Anderson stands for. And if I was a member of the White Sox front office, I’d be wary of hiring a manager who is going to butt heads with one of my young stars almost immediately.

I’d also be wary of hiring a manager that’s going to scare off free agent targets like Stroman.

Stroman, like Anderson, is a philosophical polar opposite of La Russa. He likes to dance off the mound after a big strikeout. He’s been very vocal about the Black Lives Matter movement, and fully supports players kneeling for the national anthem to protest racial injustice. And he’s made it abundantly clear that he’s going to rely heavily on analytics to become the best pitcher that he can be.

So La Russa’s hiring pretty much eliminated any possibility of Stroman signing in Chicago from the jump. The DUI incident coming to light only adds icing to an already significant cake. And you have to wonder if other free agents will avoid a rising team like the Chicago White Sox because they don’t want to play for Tony La Russa.