White Sox' Pedro Grifol is out, but that only scratches the surface of broken organization's problems

How many ways might there be to lose a baseball game? Dozens? Hundreds? More than that?

Whatever the answer, Pedro Grifol has experienced more of them firsthand in recent years than perhaps anyone else in baseball. He was the Royals’ bench coach when they lost 104 games in 2018, 103 in 2019 and 97 in 2022. He lost 101 of them in his rookie season as White Sox manager, a 2023 campaign that was viewed at the time as a spectacular failure. But it was a nothingburger compared with what has gone down — way down — in 2024, with the Sox at 28-89 and chasing the 1962 Mets, who were 40-120, for the major leagues’ worst record of the modern era (beginning in 1900).

Of course the Sox had to fire Grifol, which they finally did Thursday. He knew far too much about how to lose and seemed from the start to be merely guessing at how to win.

It will always be a bit telling that when the Royals were looking for a manager going into 2023, they hired somebody else’s bench coach instead of their own one who’d been with the organization for a decade. Instead, they threw in with Matt Quatraro, who’d been part of one winning team after another on the staffs of top managers Terry Francona in Cleveland and Kevin Cash in Tampa. Quatraro’s first Royals team went 56-106, even worse than the Sox. But now the Royals are winning, in wild-card position as they soar miles above preseason win projections.

Clearly, the Sox hired the wrong guy. Pin that on former general manager Rick Hahn, who was so sure Grifol
was a home-run hire he struggled to contain his glee. Pin it on former vice president Kenny Williams and — what’s his name again? — Jerry Reinsdorf, the big cheese, too.

Grifol’s dismissal was overdue. Then again, for months now — and especially during the obscene 21-game losing streak the Sox finally snapped Tuesday — a segment of the fan base has been wondering what the point even would be in firing the on-field manager in a bigger-picture production that has made the Sox organization a laughingstock. It’s a completely fair question without a completely satisfactory answer.

Also, some thought Grifol should have to finish the season so the abysmal results would stain his managerial record and not someone else’s. That’s just petty. Funny, but petty.

But many fans are pointing the finger at Reinsdorf, and that’s not about to stop — nor should it. The Sox have won three playoff games and zero playoff series since the 2005 World Series. Reinsdorf’s strange desire to rehire Tony La Russa as manager still isn’t far in the rearview. The Sox still have never signed a player to a $100 million free-agent contract, an egregious, unforgivable embarrassment and middle finger to their paying customers. Reinsdorf has the unmitigated gall to expect taxpayers to help fund a new stadium. He threatens to relocate the club to a new part of the country, which some, no doubt, view as a welcome threat.

Since Reinsdorf meets the media roughly as often as Dracula does cannonballs at 31st Street Beach, it fell to first-year GM Chris Getz to address how Reinsdorf is feeling about his team.

“He understands the direction we need to head and where we’re going, and I’m very confident he’s going to be supportive along the way,” Getz said. “He is someone that watches games closely. He’s a fan of the game and someone who wants the White Sox to compete and win every night. So it’s hard when we’re coming up short. That said, he understands where we are and he understands the plans we have to get us where we need to go to feel like we’re accomplishing something special for our fans.”

Getz did a little better speaking on his own behalf. Asked to defend his record, the former Sox farm director and assistant GM said he’s pleased with where the player development system is at, with how the Sox fared in the recent MLB draft and with the direction of the farm system.

“I feel very good about what we’ve accomplished so far,” he said, “but I certainly understand the skepticism of the direction we’re going based on our major-league club right now. I feel very good about where we’re at and where we’re headed, but — without question — there’s still a lot of work that needs to be finished.”

In discussing where Grifol went wrong, Getz referred to “misalignments” and “different belief systems” and said, “Obviously, there was something that was broken” with the big-league team. But pretending all this was primarily a Grifol problem would have been an absurd way to go, and at least Getz isn’t doing that. When asked how much of the blame for the failure leading to Grifol’s dismissal belongs with Grifol’s bosses, Getz led with this revealing comment:

“Obviously, we’ve come to the decision that we feel like we need to go outside the organization to find someone to be that person to lead [us].”

Because the organization is broken, too, and don’t think potential managerial candidates won’t know it.

The Sox’ recent past is fresh enough to still stink. Their future is unknowable, not that there’s reason for anyone outside the organization to be filled with belief. In between is the present, a 2024 season that can’t be saved but must be completed. Infamy for the ages is only 32 losses away.