3 ways it can still get worse for the Chicago White Sox

Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf did the unthinkable when he fired executive vice president Kenny Williams and general manager Rick Hahn.

Reinsdorf is notoriously loyal to his people and firing them both with the season still in progress was a bit of a shock.

Think about it, there is a generation of Chicago White Sox fans that have only known Kenny Williams as being in charge of the baseball operations.

You would have to go back to 1990 to find the last time Reinsdorf fired his main baseball decision-maker. Even then Jerry refused to say he fired Larry Himes.

The biggest surprise was Kenny getting a pink slip. Williams has been a part of the front office since 1992.

He started as a scout, moved to director of player development, general manager, and then executive vice president.

His crowning achievement was when the Chicago White Sox won the 2005 World Series. As Jerry said in his statement, Kenny was like a son to him.

Hahn’s departure is not that big of a shocker. He reportedly tried to resign a few times but Reinsdorf would not let him out of his contract to pursue other opportunities.

Although, it is not like both deserved to stay in power. The Sox have won just three playoff games since 2005. Hahn’s rebuild that he started in 2017 yielded no championship parades that he boldly forecasted.

Instead, the championship window that opened up in 2020 slammed shut this season after the team started 8-21 and has yet to hit rock bottom.

The announcement came with some hope that Reinsdorf might finally bring in a baseball executive who could build a winning team for the modern game.

That excitement lasted until Wednesday morning when USA Today’s Bob Nightengale reported that Jerry Reinsdorf had already picked the next person to run the club.

That possible decision is one of three ways things could still get worse for the Chicago White Sox.

Promoting Getz and hiring Moore is a bad idea for the Chicago White Sox.

Getz could be a good general manager someday. The keyword is someday.

Right now, he has proved nothing that warrants having the final authority in a front office. He has been running the Sox farm system and it has consistently ranked among the league’s bottom for a couple of years now.

The only reason the system has moved up in the rankings lately is because of the trades made by Hahn and Williams before the trade deadline.

Let that sink in for a moment. The two guys who got fired had to make trades before they left to improve the Chicago White Sox prospect pool because the guy who might replace them was not able to develop a good farm system.

The Sox currently have three prospects in MLB Pipeline’s Top 100. One of them came over in one of the recent trade deadline acquisitions.

Jerry seems to have this weird fascination with people who worked in the Kansas City Royals front office. What makes this even stranger is this appears to be Jerry hiring Dayton Moore to babysit Getz.

It is not a great look to clean house and then hire someone who needs on-the-job training. There was some hope that maybe Reinsdorf would pivot to Washington Nationals head honcho Mike Rizzo, but that has faded thanks to Bob Nightengale’s reporting Rizzo is staying in DC.

Let’s get back to the Royals and how they might be an even worse organization than the Sox. To be fair, the Royals did win a World Series in recent memory, but for the most part that organization was awful with Moore in charge.

Moore built a World Series winner in Kansas City, but the organization quickly crumbled into one of the worst teams in baseball.

It is one of the reasons he was fired last season. Really, Moore caught lightning in a bottle much like Kenny did in 2005. The only difference was Dayton had two chances to win a World Series.

The Royals do things on the cheap and that must appeal to Reinsdorf. Being cheap is what helped get Williams and Hahn eventually fired.

Pairing these two together is worse than hiring Tony La Russa to replace Ricky Renteria. We will get to Tony in just a bit.

Jerry Reinsdorf has a chance to reset how the organization is viewed by the fan base.

He could go out and hire Theo Epstein, David Stearns, Kim Ng, or any other competent baseball person and it would be greeted with roses being thrown at Jerry’s feet. If Jerry follows through with his plan, he might have to run from the pitchforks.

Plus, if he wants to hire someone from another organization, at least avoid the Kansas City Royals.

The Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians, or the Los Angeles Dodgers are all franchises that are run ten times better and have a track record of recent sustained success. Instead, Reinsdorf will be lazy in his search and hire someone he knows.

Pedro Grifol remaining the manager in 2024 will be a nasty disgrace.

Grifol might be one of the worst managers during Reinsdorf’s tenure as owner. That is saying something as he once employed Terry Bevington as the Sox skipper.

Grifol was hired by Hahn in the offseason to clean up the mess La Russa left behind. He somehow has managed to make it worse.

The team does not play fundamental baseball and they do not play hard every night. These are things Pedro promised to have the team do.

Instead, the clubhouse became a dysfunctional mess and Grifol’s excuse was he overestimated players leadership skills.

The guy charged with leading the clubhouse literally blamed the people he was supposed to be leading as being directionless. Wonder how that happened?

Eloy Jimenez revealed that the team still has not discussed its leadership problem.

Grifol should have been fired along with Kenny and Rick. I bet the reason he was not fired is because Reinsdorf did not want to pay Pedro the two remaining years on his contract to do nothing.

Grifol is like the White Sox version of Jim Boylen. That was another bad coach Reinsdorf employed with the other team he owns, the Chicago Bulls.

It has gotten so bad that Jerry had to (allegedly) bring back La Russa as a consultant. That is right, Tony is reportedly back with the team and armed with influence.

There are rumors that La Russa is the man behind the Chris Getz, Dayton Moore, and Pedro Grifol power trio.

That would be the third reason things could get worse but you just knew Reinsdorf would call Tony for help. That is the part of being a fan of something that someone else owns.

Keeping Pedro as the manager in 2024, especially on La Russa’s recommendation, would put the new power broker at a disadvantage. Whoever Reinsdorf hires (please do not be Getz) should be allowed to tap their own manager.

Forcing a bad manager on the new person is, well, a bad decision (like promoting Getz).

Keep in mind the Royals could have promoted Grifol to be their manager and did not. They fired Moore and let Getz go work for the Chicago White Sox. It might be a better idea to copy what the Royals did in terms of letting these guys work for other organizations.

Jerry Reinsdorf keeps the spending limits for the Chicago White Sox.

It does not matter who Jerry hires if he keeps imposing budget restrictions.

He is one of the few remaining owners to not hand out a contract over $100 million. The highest amount of money ever given to a free agent by the Chicago White Sox was to a contact-hitting left fielder. Before that, it was a slow catcher who was not very good at catching the ball.

Those are the types of signings you get when the owner keeps putting a salary cap on a team in a sport that does not have a spending cap.

Granted, it has been a long time since a team went out, signed a bunch, and won the World Series.

The White Sox’s problem during the brief contention window was that they did not spend enough to put the team over the top or find a long-term solution that the farm system could not produce.

Second base and right field have been a hole in the lineup for over a decade. Self-inflicted wounds from a bad farm system and trying to solve problems on the cheap.

Jerry allowed the payroll to go over $200 million in 2022 but then cut the payroll following an 81-81 season. No wonder this team has seen its title window close abruptly.

This penny-pinching would make sense if the team played in Milwaukee, Tampa, or eventually Nashville.

The Sox play in the third-largest market in baseball. Sure, they share it with the more popular Chicago Cubs. The market is still large enough to where the Chicago White Sox should be able to spend to bring in premium players.

So, unless Reinsdorf loosens the purse strings a little bit, then it does not matter who he hires because that person will be dealing with the same obstacles the last regime had.