Hall of Fame Manager, Tony La Russa of the Chicago White Sox is stepping down after two seasons at the helm.

Tony La Russa has ended a two-year second stint as the Manager of the Chicago White Sox, Monday, on the eve of his 78th birthday.

After winning the American League Central with a 93-69 record last year, La Russa lasted only through August 29 this year. 

Doctors had told him the job was too stressful for a heart patient. Then he had his pacemaker repaired and missed the remainder of the season.

“It has become obvious that the length of the treatment and recovery process for this second health issue makes it impossible for me to be the White Sox manager in 2023,” he said in a statement. “The timing of this announcement now enables the front office to include filling the manager position with their other offseason priorities.”

The White Sox began the season with World Series aspirations but was plagued by injuries and inconsistent play. It was 79-80 heading into Monday night’s game against Minnesota.

“Our team’s record this season is the final reality. It is an unacceptable disappointment. There were some pluses, but too many minuses,” La Russa said. “I was hired to provide positive, difference-making leadership and support. Our record is proof. I did not do my job.”

With a 2,900-2,514 record over 35 years with Chicago, Oakland and St. Louis, La Russa guided his teams to three World Series titles, six league championships, and 13 division titles. His 2,897 wins is 2nd most for a major league manager, trailing only the total of Connie Mack.

The septuagenarian, who also has a law degree, is expected to stay with the team as a special advisor.

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Ex-Bears QB Mitch Trubisky is now QB2 in Pittsburgh

Mitch Trubisky has had an up and down career and that continued here in 2022 after Week 4. Selected second overall by the Bears and facing tons of criticism and pressure, Mitch never found his footing in Chicago. It was partly because of the system under Matt Nagy that never fit his play style. Moreover, it was on Mitch as well. The Bears QB is better now but Justin Fields lackluster O-Line and weapons are costing the Bears. 

Trubisky had a strong 2018 season followed by average campaigns. He spent last season in Buffalo as the backup to Josh Allen. This season, he signed with Pittsburgh and won the starting QB competition against rookie Kenny Pickett and veteran Mason Rudolph. After three and half games as the starter, Trubisky was benched for Pickett in a Week 4 loss to the Jets. It now appears that move will be permanent moving forward.

Losing the starting job will also cost Trubisky money. He is now one of the better backups in the league and will give Pittsburgh a decent option in case Pickett struggles.

Mitch Trubisky did not do a great job in a Steelers uniform. His completion percentage was under 60% and he threw only two touchdowns. However, that was offset with his two interceptions thrown. There was a similar theme of mediocre play from the Bears to the Steelers. A good defense would be able to keep the team in the game until Trubisky made that one big play. Moreover, the Steelers offense lacked explosiveness and efficiency.

Mitch Trubisky was benched for Nick Foles in Week 3 of 2020. Fast forward two years, he was benched in Week 4. Is Mitchell Trubisky meant to spend the rest of his career as a backup?

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So now who?

With general manager Rick Hahn saying he’s leading the search but with others in the front office and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf involved, the White Sox are already looking for Tony La Russa’s replacement, Hahn said

Hahn said the right candidate to be the Sox manager will have “recent experience in the dugout with an organization that has contended for championships, ideally someone who is an excellent communicator, who understands the way the game has grown and evolved in the last decade or so, but at the same time respect old-school sensibilities.”

While saying acting manager Miguel Cairo will be interviewed, Hahn suggested the Sox will break from their record of hiring from within the organizational family.

“It will be a different process,” he said.

Big names like Bruce Bochy, Joe Maddon, Joe Girardi and Don Mattingly are out there. So are Carlos Beltran and Joe Espada, recent sought-after candidates on the manager market.

“As a unit we need an authoritarian, someone who is a little harsher on some things, not let things slide,” closer Liam Hendriks said Monday.

A new voice, roster tweaks to improve team defense and a re-evaluation of offensive approach are in store.

The Sox have the second highest rate of chasing bad pitches in baseball, and, while built for power, rank 22nd in homers.

“We lost our offensive approach,” Hahn said.

Overloaded with first base and designated hitter types, the Sox roster needs adjustments. Hahn was noncommittal about first baseman Jose Abreu’s free-agent status, and he said he is open to the possibility of a trade that would break up the Sox’ young core, saying the trade market could be more “fruitful” than free agency.

“We’re not going to be able to just throw money at the problem,” he said.

Another problem was health, and Hahn said pre-injury prevention was an issue with the combination of the lockout during the offseason, a shortened spring training and a new strength and conditioning staff led by Goldy Simmons.

“We did not respond as well as others did and that’s part of the reason we’re here,” Hahn said.

“I suspect we’re going to have changes in the coming months, or additions in the coming months,” he said.

Hahn is not on the hot seat, despite the team being in jeopardy of fielding its eighth losing team in the last 10 seasons.

“If it ever got to the point where I felt like I wasn’t the right person in my role, I’d step aside,” Hahn said “And I’m lucky enough, again, to have the support [from Reinsdorf].”

But Hahn noted the baseball operations department getting executive of the year award consideration in 2020 and winning the AL Central by 13 games in 2021 “being picked for World Series” in 2022, “and now we’re being asked if we should be in our jobs.”

“That’s just the fun of being in pro sports. A fair question given pro sports and given the accountability we all want to have. But know that we ask those questions of ourselves more than anybody.”

The failure of 2022 will serve as motivation.

“This is going to have an effect,” Hahn said “This is going to impact people. This is not a feeling that any of us want to experience again.

“We, like the fans, felt the level of disappointment with the performance this year. It’s been described to me at times as depressing, disgust, frustration, shock. I think any of those adjectives are appropriate.”

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CINCINNATI – Hayden Wesneski thought he’d be finishing this season in Scranton, Pennsylvania as a Triple-A pitcher in the Yankees’ farm system.

Instead, he ended it on the Great American Ball Park mound as a big-league starter for the Cubs.

“If you had told meI’d be right here in this spot,” he said, standing in front of his locker in the visiting clubhouse after holding the Reds to one earned run in the Cubs’ 3-1 loss Monday, “I’d tell you, you were lying. … It’s just been a crazy year.”

Wesneski has gone through plenty of transition over the past couple months. First, he went from the Yankees organization to the Cubs, traded for Scott Effross before the trade deadline. Then, he made the move from Triple-A Iowa to the big-leagues. He quickly transitioned from a multi-inning relief role to starting.

Wesneski finished the year with a 2.18 ERA in six major-league outings.

He threw at least five innings and allowed two or fewer runs in each of his four starts. And he ended the season on a strong note Monday, in the first game of the last series of the year.

“I thought he threw great,” manager David Ross said, reflecting on Wesneski’s season. “Every outing gave us a chance to win, threw strikes, command of the zone with multiple pitches.”

His strong finish has been a big part of the Cubs rotation’s late success. Between his emergence, Marcus Stroman’s return from the injured list and Adrian Sampson’s steadying presence in September, Cubs starters have posted the best ERA in the National League (2.88) since the beginning of last month, according to FanGraphs. And that was without Justin Steele and Keegan Thompson, due to late-season back injuries.

On the back of that rotational success, the Cubs also posted a 15-11 record in September, making it their first winning month since May of last season.

Asked last week if he thought he belonged in the 2023 rotation, Wesneski didn’t jump to conclusions.

“I’ve got to make the team first,” he said. “I know how this is going to kind of go: I’m going to go into the offseason, the Cubs are going to try to win next year. And I would like to be part of a winning team. We’re winning games now, and it’s really fun, right? So, to be a part of the rotation, I’d love that. I’d love that more than anything, but that’s a little far away.”

Trying to win also means adding in the offseason. And adding a front-of-the-rotation starter would push back the Cubs’ more established arms and make those back-end roles more competitive.

No matter his role to begin next season, Wesneski made an impression quickly. Even in his start Monday, which wasn’t among his best, he limited damage.

The two runs that scored agaisnt him came in the third inning, when he walked Jose Barrero to lead off the inning and made a throwing error on a swinging bunt up the first baseline. The only other hit he gave up in the inning was a blooper into no man’s land in shallow right field for an RBI double.

He bounced back with three quick scoreless innings.

“I thought he threw the ball extremely well,” Ross said. “Just little things cost him the game.”

Add Wesneski’s third career quality start to his resume, behind his debut – when he allowed just two hits in five shutout innings against the Reds earlier this month – and an immaculate inning against the Pirates.

“To be honest with you, those things are really cool,” he said, “but I’d rather be pitching in October.”

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As Tony La Russa said Monday, he was hired to make a difference for the White Sox.

Ultimately, he did not.

“Our record is proof,” La Russa said. “I did not do my job.”

Guiding the Sox to what general manager Rick Hahn said was one of the most painfully disappointing seasons for himself, vice president Ken Williams and chairman Jerry Reinsdorf – the close friend who stunned everyone and upset many by bringing him out of retirement to manage two years ago – La Russa officially stepped down with three games left in the season.

La Russa will have missed the last 35 games due to heart problems and on the day before he turns 78 said his health will not allow him to return for the final year of his contract in 2023. In some organizations, the Sox’ flop would cost a manager his job, but La Russa’s health freed this one from having to make a tough decision.

“It has become obvious that the length of the treatment and recovery process for this second health issue makes it impossible for me to be the White Sox manager in 2023,” La Russa said in a statement. “The timing of this announcement now enables the front office to include filling the manager position with their other offseason priorities.”

Hahn is leading that search, and internal talks about candidates were already in motion as the Sox (79-80 through Sunday) opened their final series of the season with three meaningless October baseball games against the Twins.

“Our team’s record this season is the final reality,” La Russa said. “It is an unacceptable disappointment.”

With players and coaches quietly showing respect and support from the back rows of the Guaranteed Rate Field conference room, La Russa read parts of his statement, explaining his heart issue, praising his players’ character and the fans’ passion and expressing his disappointment about the team’s performance.

For much of the season, “Fire Tony!” chants became a thing at Guaranteed Rate Field.

“At no time have I been disappointed or upset with White Sox fans, including those who at times chanted ‘Fire Tony,’ ” La Russa said. “They come to games with passion for our team and a strong desire to win. Loud and excited when we win, they rightly are upset when we play poorly.”

La Russa shared that he had a pacemaker installed and was cleared by personal doctors to begin spring training as scheduled, but a periodic check of the device later identified a problem. He was abruptly told to leave the park before a game on Aug. 30, the last time he was in uniform.

A second issue was diagnosed while La Russa was away from the team, forcing him to take an indefinite leave.

“At no time this season did either issue negatively affect my responsibilities as White Sox manager,” La Russa said.

La Russa met with players 15 minutes before his news conference. That they followed him to it “speaks to the admiration that his guys had for him,” Hahn said. “That’s probably the ultimate compliment players can show their manager.”

Players overwhelmingly voiced concerns for La Russa’s health as it became apparent recently he wouldn’t be back next season.

“It’s not good … to put a guy in a stressful situation that can be adverse to his health,” closer Liam Hendriks said Monday. “Now we’re glad he’s getting taken care of.”

La Russa, the second winningest manager all-time behind Connie Mack, didn’t rule out managing again, although that is highly unlikely. As for a role with the organization next season, “there’s been no discussion, there’s been no thoughts about it,” he said.

“The last thing I said to the players in the meeting was that I love them,” La Russa said. “I can’t be more thankful.

“That’s why I’m upset and disappointed. This is going to work next year. I worked hard to earn their respect and trust, but I’m also upset that I let them down this year.”

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And so we say goodbye to Tony La Russa again, this time for certain.

The veteran manager, already in the Baseball Hall of Fame for eight years, announced Monday — the day before his 78th birthday — that health issues will force him to give up his job as the White Sox’ skipper with a year to go on his three-year contract.

A lot of Sox fans will be happy to see him leave. They can cite a number of reasons, prime among them the surprising meltdown of the team this season, one that was expected to go deep into the playoffs. It didn’t. Or, rather, it won’t because the playoffs haven’t started yet.

But the Sox blew themselves up in so many little ways that nobody ever had a chance to say, ”Here we go, baby!” There was never the sense that anybody in the organization really had a plan. Like, how do we beat those little-kid Guardians? Or what has general manager Rick Hahn added lately?

And, of course, there were the injuries to top players such as Tim Anderson, Luis Robert, Yoan Moncada and Yasmani Grandal. Injuries always happen in baseball — unless you’re lucky, like the 2016 Cubs — and managers are hired to soothe the wounds.

La Russa, the manager with the second-most victories in baseball history (2,900) to go with six pennants and three World Series titles, couldn’t find the first-aid kit.

In the end, it was he himself who needed the care, both for a faulty pacemaker and for another unspecified ailment. Those are the things that forced him from the dugout at the end of August, and they’re the things that have sent him off to his home in Arizona to tend to himself above all.

”I do not like this ending,” he said at a news conference Monday. ”But health is more important.”

It was Grandal who summed up the 2022 season properly when he said, ”It just kept going wrong.”

There was the sense from the beginning that Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, himself now 86, was getting nutty and making nice to a famous retired manager whom he had allowed to be fired by then-GM Ken ”Hawk” Harrelson in 1986. Hiring a fellow who was 76 at the time was like hiring a spring chicken.

But when your team fails, critics look at everything that sets you apart. And age is one of those things. Old-school? Odd batting orders and intentional walks? That’s stuff that might not have been even a tiny factor in the Sox’ major failings but which can’t be ignored when your team seemed loaded and ready to roll.

Imagine the storyline and the snapshots of baseball history if La Russa had led his charges, some more than a half-century younger than himself, to the World Series crown. Reinsdorf likely was dreaming of just such a golden moment, shades of Jack McKeon winning the 2003 Series with the Marlins at 72. Or even the granddaddy of them all, Connie Mack, still leading the Athletics at 87.

Not even close.

Age gets you in the end. Father Time is undefeated. And what happens to those who are obsessed with a profession or discipline is that things evolve and you do not. Your genius fades.

Think here of all the champions who had to find out they couldn’t do it anymore, sometimes in embarrassment. Count Willie Mays, Joe Namath, Muhammad Ali, even Michael Jordan in that mix. Perhaps Tom Brady is en route to the same discovery at 45.

”Our record this year proved I didn’t do my job,” La Russa said.

This is true. And it kept the Sox in their unfortunate decline since the sudden and joyful World Series championship in 2005.

Do the Sox have a plan? If they do, it’s not apparent to this observer. Nobody lasts forever, and it would be something if Reinsdorf and his charges did something just right before much longer. Word is you can’t take your fortune with you when you check out.

As for La Russa, he says he has plans besides getting heathy.

”At some point, I’m going to have a bookstore I’m going to open,” he said decisively.

You wonder whether Cormac McCarthy’s ”No Country for Old Men” might be banned in Tony’s Book Stall.

Or front and center.

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CINCINNATI – So much of next season will be determined by this offseason.

How will the rotation line up? Who will claim everyday infield spots (along with Nico Hoerner)? Who will add a power boost to this year’s lineup?

When manager David Ross forecasts ahead to next year, however, one thing is quite clear.

“Talking to a lot of these outfielders, left and right are taken,” Ross said before the Cubs opened their final series of the season in Cincinnati. “Pretty simple. There’s an open spot, and it’s in center field. So, that’s where I would put in my work, that’s where I would try to get better.”

It was clear from the spring, when the Cubs signed Seiya Suzuki to a five-year $85 million deal, that he would be claiming right field for the foreseeable future.

Left field wasn’t as much of a lock. Ian Happ had played plenty of both left and center in 2021. Then, he played himself into his first All-Star Game in the first half of the season, consistently in left field. But his trade deadline fate was up in the air – partly because he was playing so well.

Now, Ross is talking about Happ as part of the Cubs’ present and future and the stability his breakout season has brought to the club.

“We put him in left, and he’s owned that,” Ross said. “He’s one of the best left fielders in the game. His base running’s improved, his stolen bases and how he’s taken more risk and just getting a complete game. He laid down a drag bunt the other day – I almost had a heart attack. It was so cool to see that. He’s just getting such a well-rounded game.”

There’s always free agency, but the Cubs also have several internal candidates for center field. Rookies Nelson Vel?zquez and Christopher Morel have played center field this year. Morel can also play most infield positions. Patrick Wisdom, who has primarily played third base this year, also filled in some for Suzuki this month, when the right fielder was away for the birth of his first child.

Would the Cubs be comfortable filling center field with a rotating cast again next year?

“It just goes into what players you’re able to find and spend money on, what that cost is and how you delegate that,” Ross said.

Contreras not done yet

Catcher Willson Contreras wasn’t in the Cubs starting lineup Monday against the Reds, but Ross said that wasn’t indicative of the team’s plan for the remainder of the series.

“We’ve got three games left, the season’s not over, right?” Ross said before Monday’s game. “He’s a big part of our success this year when we’ve won games. A really good baseball player, he’s an All-Star. I like him in the lineup, so we’ll write him in unless he tells me something different.”

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The Bears traditionally pride themselves on stopping the run, but no more than Matt Eberflus does.

Run defense was the hallmark of Eberflus’ defenses with the Colts. In his four seasons as defensive coordinator from 2018-21, the Colts ranked eighth, seventh, second and 10th in run defense. In 2020, the 3-0 Bears were averaging 138 rushing yards per game until they ran into Eberflus’ stone wall — just 28 yards on 16 carries (1.8 avg.) in a 19-11 loss at Soldier Field.

So it’s to Eberflus’ dismay that while the Bears are 11th in the NFL in scoring defense through the first four weeks of the 2022 season (19.3 points per game), they are 32nd and last in rushing defense (183.3 per game). In fact, the 733 rushing yards allowed are the Bears’ most through four games since 1955 (823, 205.8 per game).

“We’re trying to improve every aspect of our football team,” Eberflus said. “Some areas are better than others. The scoring defense is good. And the rushing offense is good. I’ll buy that. But we still have [areas] to improve on our entire team.”

Even the best defenses will have uncharacteristic lapses. And in the first year of Eberflus’ system, he expects it to find a groove as the season plays out. But he doesn’t dismiss the notion that it’s an indication this defense isn’t grasping the nuances of his scheme as he would have hoped.

“I think it’s both,” Eberflus said. “Some of the experiences are there that they’re seeing for the first time in a game, so I think you’ll get some of that with a crew that you’re just starting to develop. And then some of them, they are repetitive [mistakes]. We’ve got to do a better job of executing.”

The shoddy run defense was exposed in the Bears’ 20-12 loss to the Giants on Sunday at MetLife Stadium. The Bears allowed 262 rushing yards — the most they’ve allowed in one game since 2013. Saquon Barkley gained 146 on 31 carries (4.7 avg.) — that’s a great player getting the best of them. But Giants quarterbacks combined to rush for 98 yards on nine carries– an indication that the Giants out-foxed the Bears in game planning. Daniel Jones rushed for 68 yards on six carries (11.3 avg.), including play-action bootleg touchdown runs of 21 and eight yards. And back-up Tyrod Taylor added 30 yards on three carries.

The Giants had eight plays of 10 yards or more — many of them that betrayed the notion of the H.I.T.S. principle.

“Obviously there were a few plays out there that were certainly that — us not executing, guys not playing the way we do business,” Eberflus said. “And we’ll get that cleaned up. Obviously those boot plays by the quarterback — those are things we have to clean up. And the quarterback keepers — on those situational downs, where they do these zone-read quarterback keepers — we have to do better at that as well.”

The Bears don’t figure to have the same issues against Kirk Cousins on Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium. But Eberflus knows his defense has shown enough holes on film, that the run-game issue won’t get solved until he fixes it.

“It’s technique,” Eberflus said. “It’s tough. The NFL’s tough now. If you show something [that’s vulnerable], they’re going to keep attacking it. So you gotta make sure that you shore those things up.”

Eberflus almost sounded excited about the chore of doing that. With his record of success, it should get better before it gets worse.

“That’s how the NFL is. That’s what makes it so great,” Eberflus said. “So, we’ve got some work to do there.”

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