The White Sox’s managerial search is the last one going

The White Sox own the winter’s last managerial vacancy after the Royals hired the guy I was particularly intrigued by, Rays bench coach Matt Quatraro.

Quatraro has neither MLB managing experience nor playing experience, but he has minor-league managing experience, and rode shotgun next to Kevin Cash for baseball’s biggest overachievers with Tampa Bay. He’s also a native of New York’s Capital Region who checks off so many local baseball ties — Bethlehem Central High School! University at Albany! Amsterdam Mohawks! — and any White Sox story that warrants coverage from my former colleagues at the Times Union gets extra points in my book.

There’s also a chance that Quatraro’s specific strengths are diminished by a retrograde front office and convoluted chain of command, or that his lack of big-league bona fides makes him an easier target for mutiny if an under-the-gun clubhouse can’t deliver the goods (see: Tingler, Jayce). The Royals, with a very young clubhouse, new GM and no immediate expectations, have the time to establish a long-term fit, or the time to look elsewhere in a couple years if Quatraro isn’t deemed the guy who can get a team over the top. The White Sox don’t have that kind of forgiveness built into their decision, so you can’t blame them for taking their time.

The hard part is figuring out if there’s anything you can blame the White Sox for, because it really feels like there’s something to rage against. The White Sox’s search is unlike anything any other team did, and generally speaking, the Sox’s idiosyncrasies tend to be the subject of derision and scorn, not emulation.

The Blue Jays and Rangers took straightforward paths, with Toronto removing John Schneider’s “interim” tag and Texas homing in on Bruce Bochy. The Royals and Marlins were rather transparent, or at least translucent, about the candidates under consideration, and Quatraro and Skip Schumaker indeed came out of the pool of known interviewees.

The White Sox’s process is opaque at best. Jon Heyman just reported a new name in Yankees bench coach Carlos Mendoza, but he obscured whether the news was old by referring to the request in past tense …

… and sure enough, that report was countered by a Venezuelan journalist who said Mendoza interviewed 10 days ago.

If the White Sox are just waiting for the conclusion of the World Series in order for their preferred candidate to officially become available, and drips, drabs and Ozzie Guillen’s intense interest can’t help but escape the container, then I suppose that’s the cost of having to wait. Bob Nightengale deleted a tweet that said the Quatraro hiring filled baseball’s last vacancy, and it’s hard to know how many ways it was wrong, because maybe he’s already been apprised of the team’s decision.

But the White Sox’s previously established inability to conduct a professional search for a manager makes it hard to give them benefit of the doubt. For all we know, they could be entering Week 4 of a front office standoff, with Jerry Reinsdorf, Rick Hahn, Kenny Williams, Jeremy Haber, Chris Getz and Gene Honda all trying to build coalitions for their individually preferred candidates.

Basically, any interpretation of the events can be interpreted in accordance with the openness of one’s heart. If you’re an optimist, the White Sox are in stealth mode. If you’re a pessimist, you can say that “stealth mode” looks just like “gridlock” or “hibernation” when nobody can see you sleeping. If you’re a pragmatist, Waffle Houses have open kitchens, so transparency doesn’t automatically inspire confidence in the thoroughness and stringency of the process.

“We’ll have to see” is such a boring conclusion for a post, but sometimes that’s all there is. Monday’s rainout of Game 3 means this World Series will be the first one to have more games in November than October, so if nothing else, we can safely say that the White Sox picked the most annoying year to wait until the post-postseason.

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