Did the Chicago White Sox Become Awful Because of Bad Players or a Bad Clubhouse?

There is nothing wrong with Getz wanting to fix the clubhouse culture (and the defense for that matter).

If Getz was going to get limited financial resources, it is not an awful idea to try to upgrade these two areas to see if that can help win on the margins.

The problem is his acquisitions project to have a roster that will finish with a 23.6 fWAR. Also, Reinsdorf told us the reason he just promoted Getz instead of conducting an extensive general manager search after he fired Williams and Hahn was that Chris was going to turn things around quickly. Well, a 23.6 fWAR forecast is not exactly getting things turned around fast.

This team can have all the family dinners that they want, but that is still not forecasting many victories. Turning things around quickly usually means spending money in free agency to cover holes that your system could not fill. The Sox had a lot of them, and Getz chose to plug them with guys like Paul DeJong and Nicky Lopez. Two players who have already had their career season and are now neutral fWAR players at best.

Although to be fair, Chuck correctly points out that a toxic clubhouse culture is not exactly going to attract great players in free agency.

What is probably getting missed in all of this is the fear that Getz is running the team per Jerry Reinsdorf's wishes. This means he is running the Sox like this is still not 1955 and Branch Rickey is still around. The Sox have been slow to embrace the modern run to a team and acquire players. The recent collapse is proof of that. The owner would not spend enough to put the team over the top and the previous regime did a bad job constructing the roster with the limited resources it had.