The White Sox made yet another effort to boost their lethargic international efforts, hiring Marco Paddy to serve as special assistant to the general manager to oversee Latin American scouting.
The Sox have made a couple of these hires in the past. Rafael Santana was supposed to help turn around the Dominican department in 2007, but he ended up having to bring down Dave Wilder. In 2010, Jerry Krause joined the Sox to evaluate Latin American players. Less than one year later, he left the White Sox. In between? Pffffft.
The good news? Unlike Santana and Krause, Paddy is an outsider. He comes from the Toronto Blue Jays, where he headed the Jays' Latin operations and signed an interesting group of international players, headlined by 21-year-old fast-trackee Henderson Alvarez. He hasn't been at the job long enough to know if there's anybody else besides Alvarez, but whatever the case, it's better than what the Sox have done.
Not that we needed additional evidence after Doug Laumann's interview with Chris Rongey, but it looks like the new CBA accommodates the Sox's passive Latin operations so wonderfully that they're inspired to hire an experienced director. And it's made scouting Latin American players so much easier that an experienced director apparently thinks he can accomplish something while working for the White Sox.
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Paddy is already part of this organizational flowchart/slideshow, which isn't nearly as amusing as this one, in my opinion.
ESPN The Magazine takes a break from putting a standing shirtless guy on the cover of its magazine and uses a picture of Ozzie Guillen making out with his dog. Otherwise, it's just Ozzie saying what he's been saying ever since he became obsessed with getting more respect/money than Kenny Williams.
Mark Gonzales slips this line into a mailbag answer: "But the coaches had plenty of say, and some front office people even thought that Joey [Cora] was running the team too much." Plus, he reaffirms the notion that Ozzie Guillen didn't care for the statistical folks, and lets a stage uncle run loose on the second page. Fun stuff.
About halfway through the article, Thornton reflects on his ill-fated stint as designated closer. Ever the professional, he only blames his early season performance (he has never let anybody put the focus on the defense), and says the ninth inning didn't phase him -- he just found a terrible time to be bad.
This is old news, but it's interesting to see that Bruney says he was working through an injury before he pulled a minor Paniagua.
On Nov. 30, 1961, the White Sox dealt Billy Pierce and Don Larsen to the San Francisco Giants for Eddie Fisher, Dom Zanni, Bob Farley, and the player with a helluva name to be named later Vern Tiefenthaler. Chris Jaffe takes a look at what that trade -- and the one that brought Minnie Minoso back -- ultimately did and didn't do for the 1960s White Sox.
And speaking of Jaffe and Minoso, he takes a look at the past support Minoso has received and makes the determination that Minoso doesn't have a chance of getting into the Hall of Fame.
Our friend Rob Neyer takes a look at the new candidates on the 2012 Hall of Fame ballot: Jeromy Burnitz, Vinny Castilla, Brian Jordan, Javy Lopez, Bill Mueller, Terry Mulholland, Phil Nevin, Brad Radke, Tim Salmon, Ruben Sierra, Bernie Williams, Tony Womack, Eric Young.
In other words, it's a big year for Tim Raines.
He's baaaaaaaaaaaack. With a minor-league contract and an invitation to spring training.