Should the White Sox extend Ozzie Guillen's contract? - MLB

Joe Cowley of the Sun-Times thinks so. If for no other reason than because he thinks the Marlins would be eager to snap up Guillen to manage the club when they move into their new ballpark in 2012 (Guillen’s contract runs through 2011).

You may recall that we talked about this last month when the Miami-based blog “City of Champions” reported that the biggest stumbling block to the Marlins hiring a new manager was that they were “infatuated” with Guillen and wanted to leave the door open to him coming there once his deal is up.

I’ve said it time and again: he’s kind of nuts, but I’d hire Ozzie Guillen as a manager in a heartbeat. If that makes me think like Jeff Loria does, so be it. If I’m the White Sox, I lock up Guillen pretty soon.

Roger Clemens will be an analyst for ESPN when the defending World Series champion Houston Astros host the Chicago White Sox on opening day.

Clemens made four appearances on last year’s KayRod Cast with Michael Kay and Alex Rodriguez. He will be stepping in on March 30 for David Cone, who will be doing the New York Yankees opener against the San Francisco Giants on YES Network.

“Roger has been sort of a friend of ours for the last year, so to speak, he’s in. He’s been engaged, knowledgeable and really present,” said ESPN Vice President of Production Phil Orlins. “You know, whatever past may be, he’s still tremendously engaged and he really brought that every time he was with us.”

Clemens was a seven-time Cy Young winner but his career after baseball has been tainted by allegations of performance-enhancing drug use. He is a Houston native and pitched for the Astros for three seasons.

Orlins said that with the rules changes and pitch clock, it is important to have a pitcher in the booth with Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez.

“We don’t feel like we have to have the dynamic of Eduardo with a pitcher, but we certainly think that works. Throw in the added factor of rule changes and it is better to have a batter-pitcher perspective,” Orlins said.

Orlins did not say if this would open the door for future opportunities for Clemens as an ESPN analyst.