The White Sox unveiled the coaching staff for new manager Pedro Grifol. Most of the names are new, and only one holdover is truly regrettable.
Here’s the roster:
- Bench Coach: Charlie Montoyo
- Pitching Coach: Ethan Katz
- Bullpen Coach: Curt Hasler
- Hitting Coach: José Castro
- Assistant Hitting Coach: Chris Johnson
- First Base Coach: Daryl Boston
- Third Base Coach: Eddie Rodríguez
- Major League Field Coordinator: Mike Tosar
- Senior Director of Sports Performance: Geoff Head
A few of these moves had already emerged in one way or another. Katz and Hasler were mentioned as holdovers and Montoyo was revealed as the bench coach shortly after the White Sox introduced Grifol as the manager. Daryl Van Schouwen relayed Johnson’s promotion. Tosar was rumored to be following Grifol to Chicago from Kansas City, and his LinkedIn profile told us his role.
With Tosar, Royals fans poked fun of the White Sox for selling past the close in the media release:
As for the new names:
Castro: He’s a native of Cuba who’d been the assistant hitting coach with the Atlanta Braves for the last eight years, which isn’t a bad thing to have on the resume given the homegrown nature of their lineup.
Rodríguez: He joins Tosar in accompanying Grifol in the move from Kansas City, as he’d spent the last three years as the Royals’ minor-league field coordinator. The 63-year-old is embarking on his 40th year of coaching. I imagine he’s one of the few active coaches in baseball who can say he’s worked for the Montreal Expos and California Angels.
Head: Here’s the way the White Sox wrote up his history:
Head, 37, joins the White Sox as senior director of sports performance after serving as the senior director of health and performance with the Cincinnati Reds for three seasons from 2020-22. Prior to his tenure with the Reds, he spent 12 seasons in the San Francisco organization as strength and conditioning coordinator (2008-2015), major-league sports scientist (2015-2017) and assistant director of player development/director of sports medicine (2017-2019).
What the White Sox didn’t say is that the Reds lost the most games to the injured list of any team in 2022, maxing out at 18 players on the IL at two points during the season. That said, the résumé before 2022 is compelling. Head joined the Reds at the same time they hired Driveline Baseball’s Kyle Boddy as a pitching coordinator. Boddy only lasted two seasons before they chose to go in a different direction, which came as a surprise since the system had made some major strides in 2021. Before then, Head racked up three World Series rings with the Giants.
The presence of Boston is the only thing that keeps me from taking this enterprise seriously. He’s now on his fourth manager despite no detectable track record of success in any of his departments, and a history that probably makes him unemployable for most MLB teams, at least in such a visible role. I’d like to think that the White Sox waited until the last sentence to mention him because they know they should be better.
I was kind of surprised how un-upset I was that Abreu is leaving town. The Boston news more than makes up for that. An organization full of arrogant jerks.
Seriously, I have no idea why Boston continues to be employed by this team. I’ve read some people say he’s Kenny’s spy, but couldn’t Kenny/Hahn find another spy?!
Apparently his running buddy as well.
We need to start worrying about what kind of world we are going to leave for Keith Richards and Daryl Boston.
I can usually find the logic in the moves the Sox make even when I expect it to fail spectacularly.
There’s no logical reasoning for Boston to be retained. None. The rest are all acceptable hires, so it’s on brand for the Sox to toss a grenade in there and obliterate any positive vibes.
But look at the strides Gavin Sheets made in the outfield!
(No, don’t look at Luis Robert’s or Andrew Vaughn’s defensive stats.)
Besides Boston, I’m pretty happy with the staff. I will say that for visible coaching results, McEwing needed replacing more than Boston. Someone up there likes Boston a lot; given the length of tenure, it seems likely to be either Jerry or Kenny.
A lot of analytical-friendly guys, and three Cubanos to boot. Castro as hitting coach at least superficially checks all the boxes we want: comes from an analytically-strong org in ATL, he’s Cubano, and crucially his hitters have demonstrated a strong tendency to drive the ball out of the yard. Atlanta was 2nd in HR last year with 243, and since 2019 is 3rd overall after NYY and LAD. This squad needs to hit the ball outta the yard to succeed; Castro is a good man for the job at least on paper.
If Castro was so good, why has he been an assistant hitting coach for 8 years? Obviously he’s a bum. (Am I doing this right?)
Apparently not, you didn’t solicit any venomous responses.
What does a first base coach even do?
Keep players from running into triple plays. Hold oven mitts. Blow whistles. Things like that.
In Boston’s case, he’s also the outfield coach.
In this case, I think it is “outfield” “coach”. Neither word can be used in a straightforward way here.
He makes the call on when to steal first.
According to Grifol, Boston will work primarily with the OF w/ Montoyo taking over baserunning.
With Boston, he is an equipment holder and a fist bumper. That is all.
Hopefully some of the new hires from teams with robust analytics depts. can shame the Sox into developing one.
DB still being there is embarrassing.
Gonna give the new faces benefit of doubt until they prove otherwise, but overall this franchise just seems to have a bunch of Rick guys and Kenny guys splitting the same duties and usually ends in disappointment. Change the Game has become ironically funny, and sad due to lack of organizational self awareness.
Just caught this interesting tidbit whilst watching Jose’s introduction press conference:
https://www.nbcsports.com/chicago/white-sox/astros-jose-abreu-white-sox-made-offer-return-2023
By retaining Boston the Sox are telling emphatically that nothing is really changing on the Southside. Mediocrity. Friends in high places. Grifol is already having doubts; he should have demanded complete control of the coaching staff.
Yea, it is a sort of microcosm of the “Let’s do the same thing but hope for different results” approach that the organization seems to take.
Daryl Boston – 26 years of underachievement – and counting!!!
Kenny and Boston are buddies from some really bad White Sox teams, he’s protected. probably has some dirt on Kenny too.
Part of the job description requires he 1B coach to be able to fend off the Ligue’s, so Boston qualifies for now. Wait, that’s the whole job description.
Nice of the White Sox to toss Grifol a bone by hiring his buddy and otherwise steamrolling him on assembling the staff.
I see three potential paths leading to Boston being retained, and none of them are good:
1.) During the managerial search itself, the Sox not only wanted candidates to retain Katz, but told candidates their hiring was contingent on keeping Boston. This is worst case, as it would sabotage getting the best manager.
2.) Keeping Boston wasn’t a necessity discussed during managerial interviews, but they pressured/forced Grifol to keep him as he put together his staff. This is bad, as the front office is deciding things that should be up to the manager, and Grifol accepted it. This is the most likely of the three to be true.
3.) The front office had nothing to do with it, and Grifol wanted Boston on his staff. This is bad, because it would show bad judgment by Grifol.
Coaching staff should definitely not be solely up to manager these days. Should be collaboration between manager and FO. FO lets Grifol bring in a couple guys from KC, they tell him he’s stuck with Katz (good) and Boston (bad), and then Montoyo, Castro, and Head I bet were the FO’s idea that Grifol was good with.
Yeah I agree. I’m not wild about this FO picking a coaching staff because it’s *this* FO. But in principle there’s nothing wrong with the FO being involved, like they seemingly were with Montoyo. It should be a collaborative effort. I’m not sure why people are so insistent that the staff should come entirely from Grifol.
But that’s the issue. THIS front office shouldn’t have the lion’s share of a say in assembling the coaching staff, because that’s how a useless turd like Boston sticks around.
Boston is a good first base coach as long as the players reaching first base are letting him know how many outs there are.
All the negativity about Boston ? What did he do to warrant this? He has one job… Hold onto players elbow pads etc.
Uh, really?
He coaches base runners, and I feel like his players Really Aren’t Putting In Sufficient Time studying the pick-off moves of opposing pitchers.
In the last paragraph of the article, click on “a history”.
That’s why.
I’ve been wondering lately: in MLB history, has there ever been another GM who, with nine or more 162-game seasons under his belt, only fielded one team that could piece together a winning record?
Unless some surprising acquisitions of true impact stars are made this off-season, it sure seems like the Rick Hahn is positioning himself to go 1 for 10.
Cam Bonifay went 0-for-8 in his time with the Pirates, followed by Dave Littlefield, who went 0-for-7. Same with Randy Smith (Tigers).
I originally had Allard Baird on this list, but the 2003 Royals went 83-79.
2020 Sox were over .500 weren’t they?
He specified 162-game seasons.
I would like reporters to ask Grifol if he was aware of the rape allegations before agreeing to retain Boston.
Williams will never go on the record, Reinsdorf will never talk to reporters who aren’t Bob Nightengale, and Hahn will serve up a word salad if asked. But Grifol’s the new guy in town, and he’s going to face the media on a regular basis. I don’t know how a team sweeps something like this under the rug, especially in a city where the hockey team had such a horrible sexual abuse scandal.
Boston’s continued employment combined with Omar Vizquel’s abuse case makes me not envy Jerry Reinsdorf’s HR department. This is not an organization to emulate.
This comments reminds me that Brian Ball’s lawsuit vs. Rick Hahn is still active.
There’s so much extraneous grossness going on with this team that’s been swept under the proverbial rug it makes it that much easier for me to despise everybody in the front office.
Boston is also the outfield coach. To be fair, the White Sox gave him Sheets and Vaughn to work with. However, as a unit, White Sox outfielders consistently missed the cut-off man, ran into one another, and failed to call for fly balls.
His presence is on the team is strange at best.
Luis Robert went from winning a Gold Glove in his rookie season to being a below average defender, and Andrew Vaughn went from bad to somehow worse. I think it’s safe to say that, regardless of the quality of clay he’s given to mold, Boston is a pretty shitty sculptor.
Ok that’s one season, how about the other 20. Who’s the star on his cap? Avi Garcia? Carlos Quentin? Dayan Viciedo?
I was just going to click the + button, but that comment deserves an AMEN!
This isn’t a problem, but I have questions about the process that turned up at least 2 Cuban hires (if not 3 — haven’t looked into Tosar, but he has Miami roots as well).
My concern is that the FO is employing a reactive approach: deliberately targeting Cuban staff in the hope that these coaches are the best chance at recouping losses from the Grandal and Moncada investments. I remain cautiously optimistic of what the new faces will bring to the org, less so of the old ones in the FO.
They had the most respected Cuban player of the generation and it didn’t matter. Sorry, but I don’t think a couple random Cuban coaches will make a difference if Pito couldn’t.