3 midseason ownership decisions that killed the 2023 White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are not a good baseball team. This applies to their play on the field and the way that they act off the field.
This will be the second straight year with no post-season and it is absolutely disgusting to watch. They are so far away from being a good team.
Part of the reason that they are so bad is because of the fact that Jerry Reinsdorf is such a terrible owner. He doesn't do anything to help this team get better.
Once he is not the owner anymore, there is a chance that things could change but not a second earlier.
These are the three biggest mistakes he made that led to the downfall of the 2023 team specifically:
1. Hiring Tony La Russa a few years ago
The Chicago White Sox were not good with Tony La Russa in his 2nd stint.
How is a hiring that Jerry Reinsdorf made multiple years ago hurting the team in 2023? Well, for one, he went above his people in charge to make baseball decisions and put this out-of-touch manager in charge.
The team hasn't been the same since. They also had to wait two years with La Russa, let it run it's course, and wait for him to be gone.
Then, Rick Hahn was already a mess by the time that he got to chose his own manager and he made a terrible decision. He chose to bring in Pedro Grifol who might be an even worse manager than TLR was for them.
This is not the hire that Rick Hahn would have made in 2020 after that season ended. Someone better would be in charge and things might very well be different today.
Again, this one really wasn't mid-season but none of the bad mid-season decisions happen without this bad one.
2. Waiting to Fire Hahn and Williams in 2023
The White Sox should have fired Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams last year.
Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams have both been bad at their jobs for ten years. Yes, they are handcuffed by a bad owner.
However, there are a lot of front-office people in Major League Baseball handcuffed by bad owners and they win a lot more than the White Sox do.
These two exemplified very little creativity and effort toward building a better product. The rebuild failed and they couldn't do anything to avoid that.
Jerry Reinsdorf, being the bad owner that he is, kept them for far too long. He is way too loyal to people who don't help this team take steps forward (sound familiar, TLR?).
These two should have been gone along with La Russa after the 2022 season came to an end. Instead, we wasted a whole off-season and regular season with them running the show.
He even let them run the trade deadline which was a disaster knowing they fired them two weeks later. What was he thinking?
3. Hiring Chris Getz
Chris Getz should not have a front-office job with the Chicago White Sox.
It was a breath of fresh air, however, when they were fired. It was way too late but they were fired nonetheless.
Nothing could take that away from White Sox fans. Actually, yes, something can. Instead of going on a smart, intense search, they just promoted Chris Getz without interviewing anybody else.
Reinsdorf's mind was made up before he even fired Hahn and Williams. Getz didn't deserve his player development (assistant GM) job and he deserves this job even less.
This made the firing of the last two guys feel wasted. Their replacement is basically just another version of them which makes this whole thing infuriating.
This isn't getting better as long as Getz is in charge which is just because of the bad owner that the White Sox currently have.
Next. The 15 worst contracts in Chicago White Sox history. dark