White Sox opening creates new uncertainty, potential leverage for Mike Rizzo
The problem with MLB coaching or executive searches is that every team resides in a major market with a major airport, so you don’t get any of the flight-tracking fun that accompanies the college coaching carousel. You’re left to rely on standard news sources, the occasional tweet of questionable veracity, and your own intuition.
I mention this because it’d really be nice to know if Mike Rizzo were making any special trips to Chicago.
Rizzo, the longtime GM of the Washington Nationals, has been expected to reach a contract extension after the Nats engineered an ahead-of-schedule turnaround following their stunning downfall in 2021. They lost 97 games that year, and 107 in 2022. Had 2023 followed a similar script, he’d probably be out of a job. Instead, the Nats are 59-69, and playing better in each passing month. The Stephen Strasburg contract will have to be paid in full even though he’s planning on retiring, but aside from one more year of Patrick Corbin, there isn’t an onerous contract on the books.
The Nationals agreed to an extension with Davey Martinez, and while Rizzo’s talks were described as “close,” there hasn’t been any development since Monday.
A day later, the White Sox fired Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn.
These developments could be connected, because Rizzo has legitimate ties to the White Sox. He grew up in Chicago because his father scouted for the Sox, and Rizzo himself began his post-playing career as a White Sox scout. In fact, he’s the guy who signed Frank Thomas.
Rizzo has gone on to bigger and better things, but his lasting relationship with Jerry Reinsdorf is well-documented. Washington Post columnist Barry Svrluga made the connection immediately:
And as it lingers there, other reporters are starting to wonder. Bruce Levine reiterated on Wednesday that “Rizzo and his family have always had a good relationship with White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf, going back 40 years,” adding that Rizzo’s contract expires Oct. 31. Then on Thursday, Jon Morosi threw this out there:
Supporting the speculation, the Nationals are up for sale and Ken Rosenthal and Britt Ghiroli said Rizzo’s deal would be expected to mirror the Martinez commitment: two years, with an option for a third. It’s possible that Rizzo might want a little more security if he doesn’t know who his next boss is going to be. With the White Sox, that question, while more open than it used to be, isn’t that pressing.
If this delay in Rizzo’s negotiations and the White Sox’s firing of Williams and Hahn isn’t mere coincidence, then I’m inclined to regard it as a leverage ploy. It’s a credible-enough option to let it dangle out there, but when you consider that a lot of Rizzo’s success is attributable to giving Scott Boras clients what they want, he’d have to operate under restrictions to which he isn’t accustomed.
Yet it’s also a pleasant diversion from dreading the reported Chris Getz-Dayton Moore pairing, because unlike Theo Epstein or David Stearns, it’s actually plausible. Some of Rizzo’s other hallmarks — particularly his fearlessness for making tough decisions — would fit the current White Sox situation well, and Reinsdorf wouldn’t have to add a new phone number to his contact list.
It would just require Bob Nightengale to be wrong about something he usually gets right — ideas that only sound like a good idea to Reinsdorf and Tony La Russa — so I’m not banking on it. But if he happened to whiff on this story, it’d be fun to speculate about why Getz became the hot name out of the chute. There’s still palace intrigue about that question regardless, with A.J. Pierzynski openly wondering if Getz participated in a coup staged by La Russa…
… but it’d be infinitely more enjoyable to dig into it after Reinsdorf made a different, better decision. When tantalizing, embarrassing items emerge about a situation that won’t change regardless of how bad it makes the franchise look, it feels like discovering a detail in your prison cell. Congratulations for seeing something new. It’ll get old quickly.
If Getz, then the “Incest Theory” comes into play!
if incest, the results will be very goofy!
Seems to fit a Mickey Mouse organization.
I totally believe the Getz/Moore rumor. Only because it’s so obviously stupid that it must be true for this franchise.
Just like the Larussa rumor…I knew it was true.
Palace intrigue:
Most of this points to not Click, Sterns, etc
The thing that throws me with the Dayton Moore thing is that he’d reportedly be under Getz? I just don’t know why he’d leave a very successful Texas team just so he could end up in the same position in a worse situation. I also feel like the Dallas/Ft. Worth area is a better fit for his beliefs and personal values which seems incredibly important to him.
Moore may be tired of melting in Texas!
I thought he was to be named Sox president or VP and Getz the GM. I don’t think, if they both are hired, that Moore would be under Getz. That the hirings haven’t been announced yet is kind of reassuring and until the rug is pulled out from under me I have to have hope that JR will get it right. And no, I’m not drinking or doing drugs.
Dayton Moore seems like he would fall for everything your psychotic great uncle posts on Facebook about Chicago, and believes that Obama personally leads roving gangs of teens down Michigan Ave to play the knockout game.
I’m hoping that’s enough to keep him far, far away.
I remember back when Grifol was hired that everyone said it was strictly a Hahn hire and his press conferences led me to believe it was true. No input from JR or KW. Now listening to Pierzynski, he said that Getz was a big influence on bringing Grifol on board. I no longer know who to believe. Not that it’s a big deal.
I would not mind to see Click or Rizzo hired as GM and maybe the longer it takes for JR to make his decision it’s not set in stone for Getz or Moore to be hired full time. Maybe, just maybe, there’s some hope there for us!
Grifol’s initial interview was with Hahn, Getz and Haber. That may be where it’s coming from.
Hahn has now been proven to be a liar mouthpiece, so why would we ever believe anything he said?
Unfortunately I feel AJ is probably close with how it went down. It certainly sounds how I imagine them operating
I’m surprised by the KW firing to the point that I believe JR came in with no intention of firing KW but that something got to him to change his mind. Was that Getz et al? I can’t say but it’s something that will eventually get out like it always does.
If TLR is still talking to people in the front office then he would probably know about any arguments beyond the usual disagreements. If so, it would make sense that he’d tell Jerry that he’d better go there and get to the bottom of it. Where’s there’s smoke there’s fire and the Lynn, Middleton, and Ng stuff sure seemed like smoke. And it might have been a very different picture than what Kenny was relaying to him. Hahn may have been let go just to soften the blow of the ax falling on Kenny.
Nightengale was on with Spiegel and his take on Getz was decidedly less certain than his tweet made it sound. I could see JR telling him that Getz had the inside track but there might be a current GM out there he would be interested in but that it would have to wait until the end of season. Thus the delay in announcing.
I could also see JR doing Rizzo a favor and letting the situation be leverage for him in his negotiations.
It seems like the consensus among Sox fans is that JR is Nightengale’s source and I don’t necessarily think that’s true.
I just don’t see Jerry giving the media anything considering how much he hates leaks. I could see it being Kenny or even TLR, but Jerry hasn’t ever come off as the type to talk to the media at all.
That’s why I’m a bit skeptical that Getz/Moore is a done deal. I can certainly see Getz ultimately getting the job, but I question whether it’s already decided.
Nightengale is definitely tight with TLR. It’d nice if this were TLR feeling healthy and thinking he’s back to being a decision-maker for the Sox, and he’s way out over his skis.
My brother sent me a screen shot of LaRussa from the Cardinals broadcast a few nights ago, and it looks like he’s aged 10 years since last season. I really can’t imagine that he’ll be up to any long-term role with the team.
He just stopped dying his hair. Only for that you look a lot older.
I’m sure his treatments have had an affect too but yes, the photo caught me off guard. Course, it wasn’t a good look for him with the hair color he had before.
He doesn’t need to officially be fulltime in the front office to do damage. As long as he can call Jerry and put bad ideas in his head, he’s a threat
So firing Kenny and Rick is now a bad thing? Obviously you and I have a different opinion what is bad.
Whispering “Promote Getz” is a bad thing
If the news that he’s had cancer treatments (chemotherapy? radiation?) in the past year is true, that would certainly have an effect on his appearance.
The hair actually looks so much better without the dye or hairspray.
It’s just really hard to believe he reports this without some indication from JR. Like, I can’t imagine he just takes Kenny or TLR’s word for it, especially after Jerry just made a move—seemingly on his own—that shocked us all. Maybe NIghtengale is just being a little reckless? But it sure feels like terrible journalistic practice to report something like this without at least checking with the only guy who knows.
I will add I don’t think Getz/Moore is a “done deal,” necessarily. Nightengale’s report is just ambiguous enough and may have some slight exaggeration. My read on the report is that Getz/Moore is a runaway frontrunner and JR would need to be bowled over to change his mind.
While Jerry may have acted on his own in the TLR hiring, I doubt the FO was oblivious to his intentions and could’ve leaked that info, especially if they hoped public backlash would sway Jerry.
Nightingale has been right a lot, but he has had his misses with the Sox including that trade deadline misstep where he said that Eduardo Escobar was heading to the Sox with enough conviction that it was actually surprising that it never happened.
Bob definitely has a lot of confidence in his source (and rightfully so), but I wonder if his source gave him one last tidbit on his way out of the organization and it’s not as final as Nightingale believes.
The surprising move I was referring to was firing Kenny & Rick. It seems like a JR taking the reigns kind of move.
Nightengale isn’t always right, but his Sox-related misses are typically on the transactional level. Clearly, he has other sources besides JR. Surely wherever he got the Escobar info, it wasn’t JR. But when it comes to large, organizational moves from the top, Nightengale has consistently been right on the money. That’s why it’s long seemed like he’s JR’s preferred media mouthpiece.
I just find it too unlikely that Nightengale reports this without some indication from JR. The more hopeful interpretation, I think, is not that it’s a different source, but that JR is using it as a test balloon. If that’s the case, maybe the overwhelming negative reaction will dissuade him.
It’s certainly not impossible, but my skepticism comes from the idea of Jerry communicating to the media any of his intentions. It just doesn’t seem to track. Nightengale certainly has (or had) a connection with the inner workings of the Sox FO, but I don’t think that it has to be Jerry. Kenny, Hahn, or TLR giving him info has enough weight for him to confidently report Sox happenings without input from Jerry.
JR doesn’t speak publically through the media, but you don’t think he’s working reporters behind the scenes?
We can’t know but there are so many signs that it’s JR. Nightengale carries water for ownership and then gets scoops like these. Then, there are tidbits he’ll drop in other stories, like the reporting from a few days before the firings about internal reviews. He just drops in something like this:
That just feels like a strange thing to say to a reporter if you’re not Jerry. It’s an even stranger thing to report to the whole world if you didn’t hear it from Jerry. That’s just one example.
JR’s motive for the leak may be to keep the carrot in front of Getz so he remains with the organization, even if Getz isn’t guaranteed the role. It was just a month ago we heard his name in consideration for the Northwestern HC job.
Surely that’s not it. Because then if Getz is passed over he’d bolt right after and you’ve burned a bridge. I think JR is sincere the question is how sincere. I think he’s either made up his mind or floating a test balloon.
Still, I see it happen all the time in jobs. Some employees are easily maintained with empty promises. Illogical as it may be from an employee’s perspective, getting passed up for a promised promotion isn’t the employer burning a bridge — it’s additional leverage to demand more in performance reviews.
On the contrary, if you don’t surrender your undying loyalty to Jerry after he had USA Today write such nice things about you, then you’ve burned a bridge with him. If you’re Chris Getz and you’re probably a lukewarm-shot exec in the baseball world, a sliver of hope that you’re a hot-shot in Jerry’s baseball world is probably enough to keep you around.
Who’s Getz gonna bolt to? With his track record nobody would hire him for a position of eminent responsibility in their organization.
Northwestern may need a coach and they don’t do much vetting.
Did Nightengale have anything when Grifol was hired? Jesse Rogers broke that bit of news, and I feel like he was most talking about candidates like Ozzie and AJP.
One of the patterns I’ve seen with Nightengale over the years is at times he seems to post random musings that are not sourced. It comes off like he is watching baseball on his couch at night and just needs to get random thoughts off his chest. He just doesn’t seem as careful as guys like Rosenthal. Let’s hope the Getz stuff was just nonsense running through his head .
My approach to this is…let’s wait, and enjoy that RH and KW are no longer making decisions for the White Sox.
I agree but we had a very short time to enjoy it before the rumors started flying around about Getz and Moore. And Sox fans are already on the ledge. I now feel better since no one has been hired permanently though it’s possible they have. I would just like some clarity from JR. And I know that’s a pipe dream.
Michael Baumann takedown of JR https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-white-sox-are-getting-a-facelift-they-need-a-new-head/
In this he refers to another one by Steven Goldman. I’m sure it’s great, but I don’t currently have a BP subscription. https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/84910/you-could-look-it-up-can-the-white-sox-end-their-skid-into-irrelevance/
Rizzo has signed big FA, made blockbuster trades, Drafted well enough and has connections to the team..it would seem to be an interesting way to go but I doubt it happens. You Happy Jerry? You are being used for leverage because everyone knows you aren’t going to make this hire wisely
Is Sam Mondry-Cohen an advocate for Rizzo or looking to leave if Rizzo comes?
Rizzo would be a great hire. Competent, but not one of those stats geeks who never touches grass. Knows how to handle Boras, has made tough decisions such as trading Soto, and he’s probably learned a lot from his mistakes such as that ridiculous Strasburg contract. His hiring would immediately get people caring about the Sox again.
Rizzo would be much better than Getz, and there’s a good argument he would be an improvement on the Williams-Hahn Hydra. Not only has he had success in the job, he did so cleaning up the chaos of the Jim Bowden regime (and with an ownership group with its own peculiarities, including a love for deferred money). Rizzo also employed Sam Mondry-Cohen, so he’s got a recent in with one of the more modern thinkers in the organization.
Would I vastly prefer Click, Stearns, or [insert Rays or Dodgers exec name here]? Of course. But considering the top of the org chart, Rizzo is about as good as we could hope for until there’s an ownership change.
Would Jerry disqualify Rizzo because he was one of Larry Himes’s hires?
Agreed, I’d be very happy with Rizzo. Maybe JR made a genius move by leaking Getz & Moore. Now we’ll be happy with almost anyone else.
Is Jerry setting up another 2nd place finish to placate the fans a la Machado. “We made a real strong offer to Rizzo but he decided to stay in DC so we had to settle for Getz”
Also Rizzo is 62 years old. The Sox need a complete overhaul that will take years to implement. Would he really want to walk away from a well-oiled machine he built to start from scratch?
Often, the thrill of the challenge is hard to resist. That said, I’d be shocked if Rizzo came to the Sox.
I don’t think the White Sox need years to complete an overhaul. I do not believe they can compete next year, but they could entertain.
Colson Montgomery seems to be a genuine top prospect you can build around. Luis Robert will be here for a while. teams don’t need 6 stars in the roster. They just need a couple of 4 WAR players, and a decent complement. Just look at the Tampa Bay Rays. They have a couple of 4 WAR players (one of which might not even play again, yet they keep winning), and a bunch of 1 to 3 WAR unexpensive players.
Getting the bunch of 1 to 3 WAR unexpensive players is where Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams have failed dramatically. Instead of finding a Luke Raley, they get a Gavin Sheets. Instead of finding a Randy Arozarena, they get Colas or Adam Eaton. Instead of finding a Brandon Lowe, they find Elvis Andrus.
A competent GM can turn this around quickly in this division. They can compete in 2025. The first thing I would do is to trade Eloy and Vaughn next year as soon as he gets something kinda useful for them. I know, many in here will be against this, but I don’t wanna hear it. Eloy and Vaughn stink. They are overrated or too unhealthy. They cannot be part of any winning team. Period.
Release Sheets at the end of this season. Get rid of the stink of 2022 and 2023. Moncada have 1 year left so he will be gone in 2025, and he should not be back. Pick up Anderson’s option and the moment he stars to play well in 2024, start shopping him.
In the meantime, during 2024, start aligning the potential Brandon Lowes, Luke Raleys, etc. Put a decent, flexible, and athletic team in 2025, and we might be back into contention.
And get rid of Grifol.
Nightengale just tweeted that Rizzo will stay in Washington. Is Ron Schueler next?
Alright, Bob Nightengale is basically the White Sox doom speaker, seriously, he never can let us fans have any hope or fun. guess he is saying Rizzo is saying put lol the day after its rumored, way to ruin it Bob
Darn, I really thought the “you’re not allowed to sign any good free agents” think was going to be a great selling point lol.
Wait. Jerry likes “no bull**** guys”?
I am sorry. That’s bull****.
He likes them, he just doesn’t want them working for him.
He prefers his guys to have certain pucker when they’re kissing his…You see, it’s not that he’s loyal, he just chafes easy.
I think he prefers chickenshit.
Jerry should just bring the money truck for Rizzo. There is no one else out there that is both competent and Jerry connected. I agree that Jerry is likely not Nightengale’s source. He hates media.
He hates the media, but he likes NIghtengale.
Yeah I remember Chuck Garfien saying he saw Reinsdorf at the hotel bar with Nightengale at the winter meetings a few years back.
Russo would be great – I followed him when I lived in Washington…but I think there is almost zero chance that he would take a job working for this circus.
Alright this is my final comment on the thread, but I’m so sick of hearing the White Sox PR machine putting out “Jerry cares about winning” when its clear he only cares about being right about his way of winning. Which has proven to not work. If he really cared he would’ve done something about this a long time ago and opened the pocket book, be in in the FO structure, facilities, or players. Stop trying to manipulate “cares about winning” when it is more “cares about being right”, which he hasn’t been outside 1 year that was lightening in a bottle.
He truly pulls out all the stop.
I’m sure John Fisher cares about winning if he doesn’t have to pay to do it.
He cares about being asked to speak at sports team owner panel events.
So he can vent impotently to no one and nothing. $5 billion loser.
Here’s some no bull****: Jerry is an a**. He isn’t worth my losing any love for baseball, which is not possible, but he can’t even be bothered to field that is watchable. He loves money. Poor guy.
This whole thing is a Catch-22. Anyone smart enough to do the job well is too smart to come work for the White Sox.