In the off season and spring training, the White Sox need to have a "boot camp" so to speak with their pitchers and catchers. The entire pitching staff doesn't know even the basics of a pick off move. None of them use a slide step. They never pitch out. Very few of them even try to throw to first seriously. I watched that game yesterday when Rodon was pitching and Altuve was on first. I told my son, look at Altuve, he's got way too much of a lead, Rodon should pick him off. Instead Rodon didn't even look at him and Altuve was on second base in a heartbeat. Think that would have happened with say Buerhle pitching?
Why not bring someone like Buerhle in to coach the left handed guys up, not only on the 40 man roster but also all of the guys in their minor league system? I am sure that Crochet never had a pitching coach teach him how to throw to first let alone second. Doubt that Bummer or Rodon got any real teaching either. Why is that? Easy. They never had because there was never any importance put on it because their stuff was so damned good it didn't matter. That to me is FOOL'S GOLD. IT does matter. It cost the White Sox a lot of unnecessary runs in the regular season and in these play-off games. Then do the same kind of thing with coaching the right handed pitchers in their system. Bring in someone like Maddox or Smoltz to work with the pitchers. Its all basic stuff. It just takes a lot of practice and work to do it.
Then that brings me to the crap defensive catchers that we have. Every catcher that caught for this team in 2021 sucked as a receiver.
They need to get a catcher or two in their system that knows how to stop pitches in the dirt and have an excellent time of transfer from his glove hand to his throwing hand. The White So did not have even one of those this year.
As for the so-called "calling of the game", look, if these catchers do not call a good game, then the pitching coach or the manager needs to do it a lot. Other teams do it. Why didn't the White Sox? Another easy answer. Because LaRussa has never done it in his life and doesn't know how. As for Katz, I wouldn't be surprised if he has done it ever also.
Depending on a catcher to call the game is easy for the manager to do because when the catcher
**** it up, you can always blame the catcher. Tony has done that. But his other teams always have had terrific defensive catchers and he also had Dave Duncan at his side for his entire career. Grandal isn't up to the job as far as I am concerned.