The White Sox will miss the playoffs in the AL Central, which is baseball’s equivalent of failed driver’s ed. This is disappointing but not particularly surprising; since winning the World Series in 2005, the Sox have made the postseason just three times and won a total of three games in all of those trips.
Surprisingly, the White Sox have enjoyed remarkable continuity in the front office during that time. For much of the 21st century, the duo of Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn, in some combination of titles, ran the show. I say “is” because, as you know, Williams and Hahn were fired Tuesday.
There is no structural reason the White Sox can’t be successful. They have a history and branding that half the league would kill for. They play in the third largest media market in the US, and even though they share it with a richer and more famous neighbor, if Houston and Philadelphia and Toronto can spend enough to field a winning team, so can the White Sox. Most importantly, they play in the fastest division in baseball, where the last place club in the AL East has a decent shot at winning the division.
They are also lucky to have an owner, Jerry Reinsdorf, who cares if the team wins. Not every team can say the same. Unfortunately, Reinsdorf seems to care how the White Sox win.
There is no figure in modern society like a feudal lord as an MLB owner. They answer to no one, except the commissioner, who serves their collective whim and can be dismissed if he tries to disobey their orders. The government is less concerned with regulating these groups; instead, they use their position as civic institutions to get taxpayer money for real estate improvements. Sometimes generosity is rewarded with a championship, sometimes not. What are you going to do about it?
Many owners are content to sit back and let their functionaries work. They understand that if the team wins, the owner is popular even though the GM or team president actually makes all the decisions. Some of them, I dare to hope, even understand the limits of their own skills.
Not Reinsdorf, who owned the White Sox for 42 years and the NBA’s Bulls for 38 years. But those gains have faded over the past decade and a half, as recorded by Steven Goldman in Baseball Prospectus on Thursday. I won’t rehash much of that history here, because Steven knows it right: It doesn’t matter who the White Sox put in charge as long as that person has to answer to Reinsdorf.
Here’s the challenge for whoever runs the White Sox next – likely incumbent assistant GM Chris Getz, who is the heavy favorite to sit in the big seat. The White Sox are a mid-payroll team. Their player acquisitions are sometimes very good but often inconsistent. Their player development is about the same for pitchers, but very lacking for hitters. They have a franchise center fielder Luis Robert Jr.a recent Cy Young finalist in the Dylan Stop itwho had a down year, and some decent complementary players.
It’s not the easiest GM job in baseball, but it can be done. There are perfect executive candidates who can step into this job, change the scouting and development structures of the team, and build a winning team around Robert on a budget over the next few years. year. Many of these people are also charismatic and savvy enough to manage a difficult and interventionist owner. I would argue that Williams, who was just 36 years old when Reinsdorf put him in charge in 2000, fit that bill at the time.
Unfortunately, Reinsdorf’s tastes have ossified; the current crop will never face bringing in the only kind of outsider who can solve its problems. He struggles or refuses to seek outside help. When Williams was moved up to executive vice president in 2012, Reinsdorf promoted Hahn from within. After the singular and combative Ozzie Guillen ran his course as manager, the White Sox wasted five forgettable seasons with the inexperienced and somnambulant Robin Ventura. When Ventura’s replacement, Rick Renteria, led the White Sox to the playoffs in 2020 — the team’s best season in more than a decade — Reinsdorf responded by canning him and bringing back Tony La Russa.
La Russa managed the White Sox briefly in the 1980s before embarking on a Hall of Fame career with the A’s and Cardinals that included six pennants and three World Series. But after he left the dugout in 2011, it was clear the game had passed on him. In the decade between managerial gigs, he was there a miserable run as the Diamondbacks’ chief baseball officer. He repeated Renteria’s success in his first season, then was molded and fired before the end of the following season. A year later, Reinsdorf brought La Russa back as a consultant.
If Reinsdorf leaves the organization, it will be in Kansas City, where he pulled current manager Pedro Grifol. Former Royals GM Dayton Moore is also rumored to be joining the remade White Sox front office. As for Getz, he is a former White Sox and Royals player who worked in Moore’s front office in Kansas City.
It is an inherently self-defeating and insular structure, one that is reportedly tolerated a rotten internal culture that will crush. Hahn eats up his current fame “ask me after the parade” quote from the last two seasons. This is a team that refuses to spend $30 million a year Bryce Harper or Manny Machadobut there is no problem spreading the same amount of money around three relief pitchers.
This is a house on a nice lot in a good neighborhood that shows its age; it needs a new roof and major repairs. But because it’s owned by someone who refuses to budge, it’s getting a new kitchen backsplash instead of the major renovations it needs.
Consider all of this in the context of Reinsdorf’s other involvement in the headlines: This greatness of Chicago sports thinking of switching teams once its lease on the Guaranteed Rate Field extends to six years. This was the last step of the feudal lord, the demand for tribute in exchange for the continued prestige of hosting a major league sports team.
The need could not be at a more surprising time. Maybe Reinsdorf will get his suitcase of money, maybe not. But I have a hard time thinking of anything he did to deserve it. The White Sox have been headed in the wrong direction for years now, and with the front office changing, all Reinsdorf has done is employ a new group of people to hide the maps from. to him.
Local and state governments should not send Reinsdorf a dime. Instead, they should hire someone to whisper in his ear, like an old Habsburg, and tell him the check is in the mail. What works for the team should work for the public.