The past couple of seasons of Chicago White Sox baseball have been tough to watch.
Tough is putting it nicely. It has been more like agonizingly painful to watch.
The Sox were the most underachieving team in 2022. That team had all the talent in the world but was badly mismanaged by Tony La Russa and finished a mediocre 81-81. The next season the supposed title contention window slammed shut in the most disappointing fashion possible. The Sox struggled out of the gate and fell deep under .500 and never recovered.
What was supposed to be a season where the Sox returned to the playoffs, turned out to be a 101-loss year.
It was a season full of dysfunction that eventually saw owner Jerry Reinsdorf fire executive vice president Kenny Williams and general manager Rick Hahn. For about 12 hours it looked like the White Sox were going to make meaningful change in how the organization would be run. Instead, Reinsdorf torpedoed that notion by not even bothering to do a GM search and instead promoted Chris Getz to the head job despite failing in his job as director of player development.
Jerry claimed Getz could turn things around quickly. Well, if how this offseason went is any indication of how Getz will build the team up quickly, Jerry has a different definition of the term "quickly."
This is not going to be a quick turnaround. It is going to be a long, painful rebuild. It is unknown if Getz will be able to acquire the players necessary to compete for a World Series title. He is good at acquiring form Kansas City Royals, the organization he came from.
That is part of three reasons this team is going to be tough to watch this season.