Chicago White Sox took too long to fire manager Pedro Grifol, but he will not wear a historically bad record
The Sox have lost 22 of 23 games.
After weeks of speculation, the Chicago White Sox have fired manager Pedro Grifol.
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) August 8, 2024
It took losing 22 of the last 23 games instead of the 3-22 start to the season, or the first time the White Sox set the franchise record for consecutive losses in late May/early June, to finally get rid of the worst manager in the team's history.
Losing 10 straight series was the final bell to be rung for leadership to realize losing like this is not acceptable.
The White Sox have known nothing but bad under Pedro.
How he got the job in the first place when the Kansas City Royals refused to give him a promotion to the job is astounding. He was in over his head from the first day.
This was a guy who preached that the team would kick their opponents' butts at 7:10 pm every night at his introductory press conference. Instead, it was the Sox who got beat up pretty good on a nightly basis under his leadership.
He did nothing well. He was a terrible communicator, terrible at strategy, terrible at leading the clubhouse, and just flat-out terrible. The sad thing was he thought he was good at the job.
Pedro knew the Sox' problems from his vantage point with Kansas City. He could never help implement a solution.
The White Sox have fired Pedro Grifol, but they still need a culture change just as badly as they always have, @BernsyHolmes say.
— 670 The Score (@670TheScore) August 8, 2024
Listen: https://t.co/UKNNRenIBH pic.twitter.com/liw5JoPGJJ
He should have been canned in early May. The problem was the owner reportedly knew how bad Pedro was at the job as early as last July. However, he wanted to keep him around at least through the end of this season to avoid having to pay Grifol to do nothing.
The embarrassment of losing 21 straight games and nearly setting a new MLB mark for most defeats in the modern era is what probably led to owner Jerry Reinsdorf finally authorizing Getz to fire him.
It sounded like Getz did want to fire Pedro a couple of weeks ago because of the lack of strong endorsements. Finances and faulty logic in letting Grifol ride out the season was the only reason he was still employed.
If it was not the 21-game skid, hopefully, it was when it became clear that the Sox could not establish a winning streak after blowing a 2-0 lead in Oakland yesterday, for Jerry to sign off.
The scary part is we know that the owner has a high threshold for embarrassment.
To be fair to Pedro, he never got the strongest rosters.
At the same time, a neutral manager can at least get the team to not be horrendously awful. A net-positive manager can win with them. Pedro made those teams even worse.
Nothing got better under him. Look at players that leave this club that are thriving, especially those that have played for him. Eloy Jimenez is hitting .500 for Baltimore. Michael Kopech is mowing down hitters in Los Angeles.
Maybe it is because they are on winners. It is also because they are not being asked to do more than what they can do.
That is on the Sox front office for asking them to do too much, but it is also Pedro not realizing what his guys are capable of doing.
He wanted a roster that could play up to his F.A.S.T. acronym. It sort of felt like this roster full of bad players was collected for Pedro so he could make them a merry-band of overachievers.
Instead, they were even worse than their underachieving careers had established. Paul DeJong used to be known for his glove and power. With the Sox, he hit home runs to get out of town but got worse as a defender.
Everything got worse under Grifol, but thankfully, he is no longer around to help ruin this franchise.
Pedro avoids having to wear a potentially awful final record for the 2024 season.
The one thing Grifol gets to avoid is the infamy of having to be the manager that potentially breaks the 1962 New York Mets for most defeats in a 162-game schedule. The Sox are still on track to break that infamous 40-120-1 record.
One logical reason to keep Pedro around was he has been so bad as manager that he should face that indiginity.
Instead, his early release from the job will keep him from wearing that awful record around his neck. At the same time, someone had to be held accountable for this train wreck.
The message might have been sent too late, it still needed to be sent that losing like this is not acceptable.
If the team wants to change the culture, it has to start with meeting moments like this. The timing may have failed to miss the mark, but at least it has been met. The next moment to meet is GM Chris Getz getting the next hire correctly.
feed