Doug Padilla has a story over at ESPN Chicago talking up the close relationship between Paul Konerko and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf. The upshot for our purposes: that relationship has made it so that Konerko has agreed to come back to Reinsdorf with whatever offers he gets while out on the market and will give the Sox the chance to match it.
Refreshing, I think, in that as Padilla notes, this isn’t common. And when it does happen, it often involves some gamesmanship (“Oh yeah, the Yankees offered me, um 200 BILLION dollars! Yeah, that’s the ticket . . .”). That doesn’t seem to be the case here.
But even if it was, can we picture Konerko going elsewhere? It’s been 500 years since he was a Dodgers prospect, and if any of you can remember him in a Reds uniform, you have a better memory than I do. And that’s before even getting into the fact that the Sox need his offense and need it badly.
Trust or no trust -- and don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see -- I think Konerko and the Sox need each other and will still be together when the winter turns to spring.