Things certainly haven’t gotten any better for the White Sox this morning.
Last evening, Jesse Rogers of ESPN dropped a report from Keynan Middleton that discussed a “no rules” culture going on within the White Sox organization, from a lack of accountability for individual players all the way down to players napping in the bullpen during games. This morning, Rogers appeared on ESPN’s Kap & J. Hood Show to not only talk about this report but name more names who are part of the White Sox’ problem.
During his appearance, Rogers named three White Sox players in particular as part of the team’s ongoing issues: Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, and Yasmani Grandal. Here’s what Rogers said when asked what it would take to change the White Sox:
“… It’s the ones you know. Grandal is no friend to the pitchers. Moncada is no hard worker who is there for his team or teammates… Eloy is happy-go-lucky but isn’t a hard worker, at least according to the people I’m talking to…”
– Jesse Rogers (via Kap & J. Hood on ESPN)
While any problems the White Sox have with Yasmani Grandal will come to an end, at the latest, by the end of the year, that can’t be said for both Jimenez and Moncada, who are both under contract for at least one more season. This report does call into question the team’s decision to trade Jake Burger – while he did bring back a solid return, it doesn’t appear as if he was part of the problem. 670 The Score also did report during the Trade Deadline that the Marlins were interested in Jimenez, however, the White Sox did not want to move him at the time and the teams presumably shifted to Burger.
Rogers went on to say that moving on from all three players would be a great start on the position-player side in terms of turning things around. Coupling this with Middleton’s report last night reveals that the problems really are on both sides of the baseball – no one side is completely to blame.
With the White Sox returning home today for another homestand, typically, we would expect Rick Hahn to talk to the media. If that does happen, you can expect that these questions – and likely more – are going to be upcoming as the club deals with a true nightmare in terms of the public reception of an already tainted product.
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