Chris Getz might need a year to assess White Sox after all
Various White Sox personnel are less than a week away from having to pretend they can speak about a team that has left them utterly nothing to say.
Pedro Grifol has spent the last four months oscillating between two settings: Claiming the White Sox are building a culture, and undermining those claims by castigating his team’s lack of effort. After Tuesday’s 15-4 loss to the Diamondbacks, he was back to pretending he had any ability to instill any accountability in a team that’s listing toward 100 losses:
Eloy Jiménez launched a three-run homer in the first Tuesday, and the White Sox (60-97) held a 4-1 lead in the second. Arizona (83-74) scored 14 unanswered runs against a less-than-intense looking South Side squad, which is never acceptable for Grifol.
“Early on it wasn’t at all. But once you get behind and the game kind of gets out of hand, that happens,” Grifol said. “You still have to respect the game and go out there and do your job. … That’s what’s expected.”
Remember, it was only a month ago that Grifol said:
“When you give up five runs in the first inning and four in the fourth or fifth, and you’re down 9-1, that’s kind of what happens,” Grifol said. “And is it acceptable? No. But that’s what happens. … It’s unacceptable, because our job is to start the game and finish it with energy. And I will address that.”
Of course he didn’t, because after 100-plus games of a sham season, he provided no evidence that he could. And if you’re to take him at his word that next year’s judgment will “all going to be based on wins and losses” rather than an assumed level of talent that maybe never actually existed, then he’s painted himself into another rhetorical corner, because Chris Getz sounds like he’s pumping the brakes on any sort of quick turnaround.
Getz met with reporters before Tuesday’s game and ran into a similar problem with how little he can say. There’s no incentive for him to speak in specifics about the impending contract decisions for Liam Hendriks and Tim Anderson before he makes those moves, but he also couldn’t deliver generalities about a potential direction for next season:
“I think that there are a lot of players on this team and a lot of pieces that can help a team win a division and have some success at the major league level,” he said. “However, what’s best for us in the short term and long term, that’s going to take kind of a deeper dive.
“For me, it’s coming in here and (figuring out) foundationally where are we with different departments so we can avoid these extreme swings. That’s been the focus and will remain (the focus). As we move through October and November, we’ll start focusing more on what we need to do to put the best team forward for next year and years further.”
This is all reasonable, except it undermines Jerry Reinsdorf’s reasoning for hiring Getz without interviewing any other external candidates. Reinsdorf allegedly hired Getz because any outsider would need a year to evaluate what the White Sox have and what they need to do to address those issues, whereas Getz could hit the ground running.
“The conclusion I came to is what we owe our fans and ourselves is not to waste any time,” Reinsdorf said. “We want to get better as fast as we possibly can. If I went outside, it would have taken anybody at least a year to evaluate the organization. I could have brought Branch Rickey back. It would have taken him a year to evaluate the organization.”
Getz echoed Reinsdorf’s sentiments by trumpeting his knowledge of the White Sox’s “gaps.” A month into the job, Getz says he still needs to take a deeper dive into all the areas the White Sox are deficient.
In insolation, I suppose that’s preferable. I’d rather have Getz being noncommittal about 2024 than blaring intentions to complete a half-finished roster in one offseason, because the former is a far healthier assessment of an unwell franchise. There’s just the small matter that Getz’s stance eliminates the whole point of Getz’s unchallenged rise to this role, especially when the only commitment Getz has made is to a nullity of a manager.
In a world where Grifol could be gone after Sunday, it’d be a lot easier for Getz to take his gap year. Instead, he’s running the risk of overhauling a roster, just to hand it to a guy who failed to meet every challenge. The only thing we can see is Getz prioritizing stability over ability, which is exactly how Reinsdorf steered this franchise into the deadest of ends.
Maybe Grifol buttered up Reinsdorf sufficiently to the point where Getz couldn’t remove Grifol if he wanted to, but that’s not any better. Therein lies the challenge for Getz, Grifol, and everybody downstream of Reinsdorf’s malignant neglect: It’s damn near impossible to establish a culture when nobody can believe a word anybody says.
Author
Figuring out where you are with different departments? You’ve been running one of these dysfunctional departments for almost a decade, and you’ve been an AGM for 3 years, you should have intimate knowledgeable of every department and every person in the organization unless you lack the intellectual curiosity to learn what different people in different roles are doing, which is clearly the case.
geezus cry, the only terrible and tangible talking point reinsdorf could come up with to defend his miserable hiring of getz was some non sense about him hitting the ground running because he knew the team so well…. now getz basically says he is in evaluation mode as if he hasnt been around and this is something new to him
book this sad ass team for another 100 losses next year, I will show up on opening day to keep my personal streak in tact but after that good luck getting a cent out of me
He may need to be in evaluation mode.
Yeah, the contradictions of this franchise are far and wide reaching. Thankfully Getz and Pedro are friends and will work well together(Jerry logic I assume albeit with the caveat of not spending too much of his money)
The whole Grifol thing has to be Jerry not wanting to pay two managers for the next two years.
Even noted team leader Elvis Andrus basically shrugged his shoulders when asked if Grifol is a good manager and tried to say he did a bad job without really saying it.
I mean if they replaced Grifol for 2024, and did as bad of a job again, that may mean paying 3 managers in 2025.
They hope firing Grifol midseason will pass for taking action….
My take is that Getz was saying that he is using October and November to make decisions about the team for 2024. I don’t think he was saying he needs a year to figure it out.
However, JR’s fantasy that this team will compete in 2024 is just that, unless he is willing to pay up. Juan Soto may be available as the Padres dump salary. Is JR willing to pay Boras’ price for Soto?
And if Getz wants to establish his personal credibility with the fans, he should start by firing the manager and the MLB coaching staff.
As for TA, after watching him last night miss the bag on a double play, and then having the inning open up for the D-backs afterwards, it is really difficult for me to exercise his option. On the other hand, who plays SS if he’s gone?
Replacing a sub 600 OPS, -1.5WAR, and bad defense? They have three in house guys that would cost $10 million less, and one might even end up being the long term answer at 2B. Free TA, he doesn’t want to be here.
I say keep Grifol so you have someone to fire May 1st. They are going to need someone to fire the first of every month next year, its going to be bad.
I’ve come around to the notion that for one year Andrus gives us the same as TA and maybe a bit more if TA continues to regress. We save around $8 mil too.
Elvis makes sense. If not him, DeJong, Rosario, or even Jose Inglesias as stop gaps.
Hell, bring in former Royal Adalberto Mondesi as Non-Roster Invitee.
Nicky Lopez is at 0.5 fWAR with the Braves. THAT Nicky Lopez we were moaning about when there were rumours of him coming to the Sox.
He’s not saying right now that he needs a year, but he sounds like a guy who now has to acknowledge the job is way bigger and messier than “filling the gaps.”
I appreciate the fact you are well versed in White Sox FO jargon. Because to me everything Getz says feels like he is talking in circles because he is so uncomfortable with White Sox media. He appears to have no answers outside of “we will look it” similarly to his partner in crime Pedro. In fact, I’m fairly confident that questions the media has asked, are not things Getz has considered but I’d respect him more if he just said “Didn’t think of it, thanks for that perspective”
I’m going to hang tight here a bit longer as there is a more than a zero chance that Grifol doesn’t make it to Oct 6th. I’m not saying he will or that it’s even probable but it’s just 9 more days with little in between to dissuade me.
On that note, I see Colorado, St. Louis, New York(both teams), and possibly Oakland as the teams to be in the Manager market. There’s also the Craig Counsell question in Milwaukee and the Francona retirement but it looks like the Guards already have the heir apparent lined up.
I’m not sure if it’s better to go with a teacher or asskicker type, lord knows we could use both. I guess I’d lean towards Girardi but I think St Louis would too. I guess I wouldn’t mind Kevin Long either as I liked the idea of him last year.
Elvis as player/manager on a one-year contract would be a fan friendly option that might give someone a reason to come to the park. He comes across as fairly bright, so he would probably have the sense to pass on the “opportunity”. I agree with upnorth that there is still a chance that Grifol will be out as soon as this season is over. It’s just so obvious that he’s in over his head and the players have no respect for him. It’s also inexcusable how he beats up on the younger players to the media while failing to address the play of some veterans. That could be enough justification for Getz to change his mind and offer his head to the fans.
I get the appeal of Andrus as Player/Manager but it also gives me a Don Kessinger pain. On the brightside though, that was enough to convince Veeck it was time to sell….
I think Veeck sold because he didn’t have enough money to be competitive
This fan has no desire to see Andrus play or manage next season.
Some fans also have no desire to see 14M spent on TA7
I didn’t realize there were only two shortstops and zero managers on planet Earth.
There’s certainly more on planet Earth, but I doubt that’s true on planet Reinsdorf.
I suspect that planet has a low WAR
I hope Jerry told Getz he’ll give him a payroll number for the roster and the major league staff combined. If Getz wants to carry Grifol’s dead money, it comes out of player payroll. That’s a trade I make every day. Also, end-of-season meetings with players may make it clear how much Grifol is loathed or ignored.
Agreed. I’d even be willing to bring Leury back if it was a question of dead payroll space.
It’s both sad and laughable in the “to avoid crying” sense that bringing back Leury would actually be a net positive from the status quo.
It’s been barely a month since he took the job and Getz already is looking like an old man…
White sox baseball is like staring at the arc of the covenant.
Pedro Nullity. Culture maker.
Hearing Getz/Grifol talk makes me hate this team. They doesn’t answer anything with substance and just default to “we will look at it” when historically this team is piss poor at self reflecting earnestly. It’s just deflect or push the question aside and ultimately not answer it but give enough talking points to think its good for the fans/media. We aren’t dumb, we aren’t KC fans. Grifol is a bad manager, Getz is showing to be a bad GM (or at least a horrible communicator so far with media) and Jerry is a bad owner who doesn’t care about winning because he has found loopholes to profit regardless of W/L record. No one is motivated to actually try, despite Jerry mischaracterizing effort with comfort. It goes down to the players and now to the fans, I don’t think next year will be good and 2025 I don’t think will be much better either. However, I’m ready to laugh at what transpires this offseason and beyond. At least the tripping over themselves routine while frustrating is expected and more or less welcomed compared to them figuring out how to be above .500 for the 3rd time since 2010
Over .500 only twice since 2010?
That’s really a much more devastating measure than postseason appearances or even postseason wins since 2005 in my view.
And we can really add 2024 to that shameful metric with high confidence.
The DBacks just released Zach Davies, which is the appropriate response to getting rocked by the 2023 White Sox.
Too bad games are 9 innings instead of 4, or the Sox may have had that one.
Davies will get an invitation to the Sox spring training. Good chance he ends up in the rotation.
It doesn’t take a year to assess this team. It is not complicated. Worst pitching and defense in MLB. Unplayable at 3b, SS, 2b, RF, C. Other than Robert, and arguably Cease, they have almost no good players. There’s your assessment, Getz!
Which is why all the Grifol talk is off point. If they brought in the Tony Robbins of managers, and had this team fired up for 162 games next year, this is still a 105 loss team. 95 percent of why this turd team is below awful is the roster, not Grifol.
The Astros lost at least 105 for 3 years in a row (and 90 the year after that) before they put that team together. That’s the next phase for this team, whether Jerry wants to face that or not. Getz blows, but nobody can fix this in less than probably 5 years. They need to start over and get whatever they can for Cease this winter, first of all. Listening to offers on Robert (and asking for a king’s ransom for him) is probably not a bad idea either. Realistically they probably won’t have a good team before he is gone, even if he is here for 4 more years. They’ll get some good draft picks the next 3 or 4 years, Tim/Yoan/Eloy will be gone in a year. They can’t do much else but be patient, try and get better minor league development and scouting people, and stop wasting money on pointless/garbage free agents until they have several good young players to build something around. And when they do, sign guys like Semien and Harper, not Harrison, Kelly, and bleeping Eaton!
It doesn’t take a year to assess the roster. It might take a year or more to figure out how to best implement changes in player development, and what the current closest-to-the-majors prospects have to offer as is.
True. It could also be several years from now, without Getz figuring out how to improve any of that meaningfully. Unfortunately. With the Sox, positive change is pretty rare.
Getz first interaction with the new hires: “Please help me figure out everything I was doing wrong that got me promoted to my current position.”
Brian Bannister: “Why wasn’t I hired as a GM?”
I could not recall how Getz got that role in the first place as it wouldn’t seem he was especially qualified. I dug out this old chestnut from one Joshua Nelson at SSS.
https://www.southsidesox.com/2016/10/21/13361266/white-sox-officially-appoint-chris-getz-as-director-of-player
The more things change…
Irony: The new GM, who previously was in charge of the player development Jerry always wanted to see(despite Kenny being a son to him), needs help in improving player development because everyone else knows how bad it is. Also Irony: Evaluating the prospects with fresh eyes because said new GM previously in charge of that area, is unable to know what that actually looks like. I get overwhelmed by the idea of how bad this could go, but also think we fans are in good hands with Sox Machine and the content community. Plus the Last Comiskey folks will have material for several documentaries when its all said and done.
Take a closer look at the Astros rebuild and they completely blew it on two straight first overall picks, and were lucky enough that Brady Aiken didn’t sign to get the second overall pick the following year to use on Bregman. They also used the 11th pick the year prior to getting first overall three times on George Springer, so it goes beyond just having top-3 picks. They also signed or traded for players with significant salary commitments, something the White Sox decided not to do after assembling their core talent.
Because of the anti-tanking draft rules, the Sox won’t be getting top 3 picks year after year. So they will need to come up with some of those more creative solutions
Not to mention they can’t buy their way into another Luis Robert or Jose Abreu. They are so decidedly bad at pretty much every aspect of talent acquisition it’s mind-boggling.
Jake Burger, since becoming a Marlin–BA .313 vs .214 with the Sox; OBP is up 90 to .369 and OPS is at .903 just shy of 100 points better than when he was with the Sox for this year. No team walks less or has a lower OBP than the Sox. Sosa is batting less than .200 and has walked 3 times in over 150 at bats. I could go on and on.
Note to Chris Getz—coaching has to be a big part of this–FIX IT!
Also wouldn’t it be a good idea not to have a guy with a sub .300 OBP not lead off? Bennintedi, for all his faults, has an OBP 40 points higher than TA + he hustles and looks like he gives a hoot.
I have been a Sox fan for over 60 years and I have never seen anything like this. My final thought–if Pedro can be just half as good at managing as he is at kissing ass he will surely win Manager of the Year.
Leaving everything else about Grifol aside (and there’s a lot) – giving a guy with a .290 OBP 500 plate appearances in the 1st or 2nd slot in the lineup should be a fireable offense on its own.
Grifol hates the idea of confronting the mighty 2021 core. Instead he’d rather just take out his frustrations on a rookie. Colas deserves criticism but also think Grifol showed how weak of a manager he is by sticking with what doesnt work and abandoning the options that could’ve made him look decent: IE developing a struggling player to be better down the stretch. Its not like his presence or lack there of has made a difference in the quality of play.
I am a 52 year old man, lifelong Sox fan. I have been to many games every year since I was around ten I’d guess. Home games, away games, playoff games (as rare as they are) -I enjoyed them all.
Fun fact: I have attended ZERO games this year and I have to say I’m going to wear it as a badge of honor. Sports are supposed to bring excitement and joy to our lives not add more stress and anger. I refuse to throw good money at such a bad product out of blind loyalty any longer.
Funny, I used to not be able to understand or fathom being a fair weather fan. The utter incompetence at EVERY level of the 2023 White Sox has shown me the way.
The last game I attended was 2014. I have not owned a tv in all that time, or paid for an MLB.com subscrption. Jerry has not gotten a dime from me in almost 10 years.
Had they signed at least one or two of Semien/Harper/Machado, I would have gone to some games to show support. With their turd nonsense since 2020… Tony plus a plethora of garbage tier free agents, not worth anybody’s dime, or time.
Bring dynamite/ And a crane /
Blow it up / Start all over again
— John D. Loudermilk, Tobacco Road
Sometime during the 2022 season I began to feel that I was being lied to more often than not…and it really undermined my enjoyment of the whole enterprise.
In my mind there is an implicit deal: I’ll watch 500 hours of baseball and consume White Sox related content…and they should try to just not lie, be somewhat transparent, and not openly disrespect me. They have not lived up to their end of the bargain. Ergo, I haven’t attended games or purchased White Sox swag and have invested that money in NBA league pass and MLS season pass.
Typical Reinsdorf manger BS. Trying to buy time/distract people when he knows he has no autonomy.