The Chicago White Sox have been a bad team for a while now. It starts at the top with owner Jerry Reinsdorf. All of the people that he has trusted to run this team have failed and he has taken way too long to do anything about it.
Yes, Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams are gone now but the White Sox are still stuck with many of the problems that they left behind. One of those problems is Pedro Grifol who was hired to be the manager during the off-season.
He is the last gift still giving (in a negative way) from the old regime. To be honest, you can make a good argument that Pedro Grifol is the worst manager in the history of the Chicago White Sox. There might be some pretty bad ones but nobody comes close to Grifol.
Let's start with the play on the field. Maybe the team isn't all that good but they also mostly play uninspired baseball. There have been off-the-field issues in the clubhouse and they just have no chemistry. That all comes down to the manager.
The Chicago White Sox are not a team with a good manager right now.
We have seen pretty much everyone, with the exception of Luis Robert Jr., take steps backwards with Grifol in charge. No good has come to the players as a result of being managed by him. He seems to have brought the Kansas City Royals ways with him.
Guys like Tony La Russa, Rick Renteria, and Robin Ventura look like the greatest managers ever next to Grifol and they were horrible. The team needs to get out of this stretch of hiring bad managers because it is part of what is holding them back.
Off the field, we already touched on the clubhouse issues. He is also horrible at handling press conferences. The answers that he gives to the media, even at this stage of the season when they are mathematically eliminated, just make him look foolish regularly.
There is absolutely no reason for new GM and President Chris Getz to keep him for 2024. Grifol was Rick Hahn's guy (maybe) and he does not need to return. He has absolutely been one of the worst managers in franchise history and his 58-93 record (as of Tuesday) is proof.
This isn't to say that he still can't grow into a good manager. This was his first experience and he wasn't very good. It is time for him to be a bench coach again and continue to learn. Maybe one day, he'll be good at it but that time is not right now.