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The White Sox will have a new manager for at least a few days.
On Wednesday, the team announced that bench coach Miguel Cairo would take over as interim manager while Tony La Russa is being tested for an unspecified medical condition.
La Russa, 77, missed Tuesday’s game against the Royals on the recommendation of his doctors, with Cairo taking his place in the dugout. He will be tested by his personal doctors in Arizona “in the coming days,” the team said.
Cairo has a long history in Major League Baseball. What do you need to know about it? Watch sports news.
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How long was Miguel Cairo’s MLB playing career?
The name Miguel Cairo may sound familiar to fans of several MLB teams.
Cairo had a 17-year MLB career from 1996 to 2012. He played for nine different teams: Blue Jays, Cubs, Devil Rays, Cardinals, Yankees, Mets, Mariners, Phillies and Reds.
Cairo began his professional baseball career in 1990 when he was signed by the Venezuelan Dodgers as an undrafted free agent. He spent time with them in junior high until he was traded to the Blue Jays in 1995.
He made his debut in 1996 with Toronto and played in nine games before being traded to the Cubs during the off-season. He then spent most of the rest of his career getting rejected, signing one-year contracts (MLB and minor leagues) while maintaining his role as a utility player. The only multi-year free agent contract he signed in his career was his last contract, a two-year deal with Cincinnati signed in 2011.
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The best season of his career, according to the Baseball Reference WAR, came in 1998, his first year with the Devil Rays after they selected him in the expansion draft. He hit 3.2 bWAR in 150 games, hitting .268/.307/.367 with five home runs and 19 stolen bases.
Cairo was a versatile player. He played 754 games at second base, 231 at third, 170 at first, 69 at outfield, and 55 at shortstop. He is one of only 47 players in MLB history to have played at least 55 games in every position in the field, according to statistics.
Cairo played his final season in major tournaments in 2012 at the age of 38. He finished his career playing 1,490 games, with a .264/.314/.361 margin, 41 home runs and 139 steals.
When did Miguel Cairo start his coaching career?
Cairo retired after spending time with the Reds and was immediately brought on to work with the team. He was hired as a special assistant to the general manager in 2013 and then briefly took on a coaching position on the team’s bench.
He joined the Yankees in 2018 as a minor league infield coordinator, a position he has held until 2020.
When La Russa was hired as manager of the White Sox after the end of the 2020 season, Cairo was named as his bench coach. Cairo played for La Russa from 2001 to 2003, and in 2007 for the Cardinals. His four years with St. Louis were the longest with any major league team in his entire playing career.
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Tuesday’s game was not the first Cairo control by the White Sox. Cairo replaced La Russa for the first Field of Dreams game in August 2021 against the Yankees. La Russa was absent from the funeral. The White Sox won 9–8 on a Tim Anderson home run.
Who is the son of Miguel Cairo?
Baseball is run by the Cairo family. Cairo’s son is working to make a name for himself in the minor leagues.
Christian Cairo, an infielder from Calvary Christian High in Clearwater, Florida, was selected in the fourth round of the 2019 MLB Draft by Cleveland. He spent the rest of the 2019 campaign with the Arizona League affiliate team, recording a .178/.324/.212 slash in 46 games.
Like all minor league players, Christian Cairo lost the 2020 MiLB season due to the COVID pandemic. He returned in 2021 and has played at both the low and high levels of Single-A. He cut .226/.371/.357 with six home runs and 19 stolen bases between the two tiers.
He spent the 2022 season at a high Single-A level, apart from five games in the Rookie League. The 21-year-old hit .648 per second with two home runs and eight interceptions in 48 Single-A games.