3 reasons why no one would do well this season as the Chicago White Sox general manager
It has been a year since the White Sox fired longtime front-office leaders Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn.
It has been one calendar year since Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf shockingly fired long time front-office heads, Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn.
Things have not gotten better since the necessary firings took place.
rick hahn & kenny williams were fired 365 days ago
— Jay Cuda (@JayCuda) August 21, 2024
the white sox have lost over 120 games since that day
One reason for that is Reinsdorf hastily promoted Chris Getz despite Getz failing as the director of player development. The owner did not even conduct interviews with any other candidate.
His reasoning for the worst GM search ever was Getz knew the franchise so well that he could evaluate the team's needs fast and get things turned around quickly.
Everything has turned out to be opposite from what the misguided owner believed.
The White Sox are on pace to finish 38-124. That would break the 1962 New York Mets record for the worst record ever in the 162-game era.
The franchise tied the American League record for consecutive losses. That 21-game losing streak set a new franchise record for consecutive defeats, a mark that this club had already set this season.
Getz has made some decent moves as general manager. He signed pitcher Erick Fedde from the KBO and he turned into a very good starting pitcher this year. Getz also bumbled the return for Fedde at the trade deadline and that has the clock for getting back to being competitive set to a later time.
Getz deserves credit for hiring Brian Bannister to basically run the development of the team's pitching. It was also smart to agree to move Garrett Crochet to the rotation. He was also brilliant in moving Michael Kopech to the bullpen.
At the same time, Getz put together a terrible roster for this season. He emphasized improving the clubhouse culture. For the most part, that has worked out, but the players he added were all replacement-level guys. That is not exactly the way to turn things around rapidly.
The bullpen is good at blowing leads consistently. He failed terribly in upgrading the team's defense.
This team might be a worse defensive team this year than they were in 2023. That team was terrible in the field.
Failing to upgrade the defense also left the lineup very weak. The White Sox are the worst offense in the league by a country mile. It is a big reason the club is closing in on losing 100 games before August ends.
Now in the long run, hiring someone like former Houston Astros GM James Click to run things or even former Kansas City Royals general manager Dayton Moore to mentor Getz is likely going to be the correct outcome. In the present, Click, Moore, or even waiting for Kim Ng to hit the market, would not have mattered.
The Chicago White Sox were going to be terrible this season regardless of who was named general manager or would fans would have preferred for three seasons...
The toxic clubhouse culture and the franchise dysfunction limited what the Sox could do in free agency.
The White Sox rightfully earned the reputation for being dysfunctional. The clubhouse culture became very toxic in 2023 that it forced Getz to realize he had to improve that area above anything else.
He had to do it because no player worth his salt was going to sign up to play on the Southside.
A players survey conducted earlier this year listed the Sox as one of the worst franchises in baseball. When the team is viewed that poorly, the players needed to turn things around quickly were not going to sign on the dotted line.
That meant Getz was going to have to shop at the scrap heap in the free-agent market. The mistake he made was he signed way too many former Royals players, especially of either the bad variety (Brad Keller) or over-the-hill case (Mike Moustakas). He showed that he was not shrewd enough like say Click would have been to hit on those types of signings.
Ownership was not going to authorize the necessary spending to things around quickly.
One way to make up for the poor reputation is to outbid other teams for players in the free-agent market. That was never going to happen with how much Jerry Reinsdorf disdains over spending. The team still has not signed a player to a contract over $100 million--the going rate for good to elite talent.
The lack of spending to put the team over the top was the reason the franchise decayed so quickly after winning the 2021 AL Central. For example, instead of spending big to get a second baseman and a right fielder after that postseason appearance, the club signed Josh Harrison to a cheap one-year deal. Then followed it up next season by bringing back Elvis Andrus.
Getz was going to need a major spending increase to turn things around quickly. Instead, payroll got slashed.
Theo Epstein was not going to be able to put together a winning club with spending restrictions. Heck, Jerry's hero, Branch Rickey, would have found it hard to put together a good baseball team with the limited financial resources given.
The White Sox were going to be terrible no matter who the GM was. The only thing up for debate would be if a more experienced or more qualified person could construct a roster that would not turn out to be historically awful.
There was too much of a value gap to make up for in trying to catch the Minnesota Twins.
The Twins finished with a 24 fWAR in terms of the value they had with their players last season to win the AL Central last season. The Sox finished with three.
The Sox would have needed to add Shohei Ohtani, Matt Chapman, and the 2001 version of Barry Bonds in the offseason to make up that gap. Considering the owner laughed at the idea of signing Ohtani, adding that much value was not going to happen.
Maybe pulling off a coup and getting David Stearns to come to the Southside instead of New York would have put the Sox in a better position to be led long-term. Not even his brilliant mind to find players would have been able to construct a roster that was going to cover that gulf to win the division.
Making the task even harder was that the Royals spent wisely in the offseason to put themselves in a position to climb out the AL Central cellar.
Add in the Guardians playing better this season and the perfect offseason was going to be needed to put together a roster to keep pace.
What should have happened in hindsight is Reinsdorf realizing he was not going to provide the resources to things around quickly. Instead, he should have taken the long view, gone out, and hired the best possible candidate to be GM.
He claims he does not have the kind of time since he is nearing 90. He should have also been honest with himself and realized he could not control time. What he can control is who he hires to run the team. He hired the worst possible candidate among the worst possible search in the history of baseball.
However, a home run hire would not have had much success this season because that would have meant Jerry agreeing to spend money and expand the front office. Two things he loathes.
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