(670 The Score) At some point during White Sox manager Tony La Russa's recent masterclass in doofy posturing – it might have been the press conference in which he threw rookie designated hitter Yermín Mercedes under the bus, but truthfully, I'm not sure, it could've also been the other press conference in which he threw Mercedes under the bus – I couldn't help of think of the Beatles' song "When I'm Sixty-Four." Co-written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon and released on the infamous Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, "When I'm Sixty-Four" is a bizarre, confusing and kinda sad song about irrelevance, and you see where I'm headed here. The final stanza goes, "Give me your answer, fill in a form/Mine for evermore/Will you still need me, will you still feed me/When I'm sixty-four."
La Russa is 76, and the White Sox don't need him. That much is clear to anyone who has watched the last 36 hours or, really, any of the half-dozen games that he has bungled so far. There isn't much to relitigate when it comes to La Russa at this point – he's a relic with a strong resume and powerful friends. Defending him (or his process) in the year 2021 is a tell, not a take. He's going to sit up there and commend the other team for throwing at his guys, then forget, you know, the rules of baseball. He's going to mismanage his team on the field and then again in the clubhouse and then bristle at reporters who ask why. This is the La Russa experience we're all asked to put up with, simply because the 2011 Texas Rangers couldn't find it in them to throw one more strike. (I know about all the other wins, whatever.)
The White Sox don't need La Russa, but you know who they do need? Yermín Mercedes! Like, they actually, really need him on an everyday basis. It's remarkably easy to take literally anyone's side against La Russa, but this isn't even some generational divide lightly coated in virtue-signaling – the White Sox truly need Mercedes. Going into Wednesday, he's slashing .368/.417/.571 with a .424 wOBA. Through 37 games, he has been 78% better than league average at the plate and is top-50 player in terms of WAR – right below Astros star Alex Bregman and Dodgers star Mookie Betts. Among qualified White Sox hitters, Mercedes ranks second in home runs (6), RBIs (25) and ISO (.203). And it gets better! He's not striking out either. Of all the aforementioned White Sox hitters, only second baseman Nick Madrigal has a lower strikeout rate (5.6%, lmao) than Mercedes (17.4%). By almost every measure, Mercedes has been the best hitter on the team.
Did you know that since May 7 -- the day that the team announced center fielder Luis Robert would miss most of the summer with a torn hip flexor -- that Mercedes is tied with third baseman Yoan Moncada for most RBIs? Or that he's only behind shortstop Tim Anderson in hits? Maybe you did, those aren't hard to research. The point is: Throwing your team's best hitter under the bus twice – twice! – in 36 hours is … extremely not it. What, exactly, is the barrel-aged wisdom that La Russa's trying to convey by applying 1985's by-laws in an 11-run game? La Russa's a lot of things, for sure, but he's not a press conference amateur. Going off his Baseball Reference page, he has sat through roughly 5,100 postgame pressers. It's easy to fall back on the idea that he knows what he's doing, but it's starting to be abundantly clear that, actually, he doesn't.
Mercedes doesn't deserve any of this. Outside of the fact that this year was a literal decade in the making and outside the fact that he plays baseball with a flair that perfectly fits the ethos of that clubhouse and the fan base, he simply doesn't deserve to be collateral damage in La Russa's flailing attempts to remind everyone, in his words, that he's, "A Hall of Famer baseball person." Obviously, his job is safe for reasons that have nothing to do with the last couple days or this year or even this decade. But as we barrel past the quarter mark of the season, with the White Sox in first place because of, in large part, Mercedes, maybe their manager should throw Sgt. Pepper on the record player and ask himself: Do the White Sox still need him?
Cam Ellis is a writer for 670 The Score and Audacy Sports. Follow him on Twitter @KingsleyEllis.
