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“The State of the Sox”
To say the 2022 season for the White Sox was a disappointment would be an understatement. But its more than that, this was a franchise supposedly in the middle of a window of contention, six years after a needed rebuild was begun. To see how the White Sox played this season… uninspired, badly lacking in fundamentals, poorly constructed and injury prone suggests deeper issues than just “one of those years.”
White Sox fans wish that was the case… that it was just an outlier, “one of those years.”
Since the organization as usual isn’t saying much and with the cancellation of Sox Fest this coming winter which deprives fans of asking questions to the front office, I canvassed my sources that I’ve gotten to know over the years, individuals who have a professional connection in various ways to the White Sox, sometimes for decades, to get a sense of what they think, what they know and what bothered them not only about the 2022 season but about the organization as a whole…from the front office, to the medical, training and conditioning staffs, to the broadcasters and of course the entire Tony LaRussa experiment.
In order to get honest opinions, without fear of repercussions I told them that no names would be used, no titles would be revealed.
Their beliefs suggest that the organization now is in a state where inept, dysfunctional and incompetent adjectives aren’t far-fetched in describing the state of the Sox.
The readers of course can judge for themselves.
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Thoughts on this past season
“We really thought we were going to have a great year, maybe not win it but go deep in the playoffs.”
“The problem with this team is there was no real leadership, nobody to hold guys accountable. No red-asses like the Sox had in the past… Carlton Fisk, Jack McDowell, A.J. Pierzynski. Paul Konerko was a quiet guy but when we weren’t doing well he’d get really pissed. Elvis Andrus tried to supply some leadership when he came and Lucas Giolito tried.”
“I’d come into the locker room after a game and you couldn’t tell if they won or lost, just nothing.”
“You’d go in the locker room and all the Latino guys would be in one place, the whites in another and the African-Americans someplace else.”
“I had heard that groups were apart and not close but part of that could be human nature, language divisions for example. I know the Latin guys were always around Jose’s locker, Moncada was always there. The Sox locker room is a big square so guys aren’t close to start with, the Cubs locker room is circular. I don’t know if that was by design or what but that lends itself to guys getting together.”
“The problem is some of these guys just don’t care, they want to win sure but they already have gotten their money with these contracts before they proved anything. Moncada would strike out and just walk back to the dugout like no big deal, he fouls a ball off and now he can’t play for three days? His contract makes him untradable but he needs to go.”
“There was a lack of urgency the entire season. People would say the right things but they never translated.”
“To me it was the May 9 game with Cleveland, (Author’s Note: The Sox blew an 8-2, 9th inning lead and lost in extra innings which snapped a six-game win streak.) That showed Cleveland that they could play with the Sox but what I noticed was the only person that game seemed to bother was Tony LaRussa. Another one was the Triple Play Game against the Twins. (Author’s Note: The Sox ran themselves into an 8-5 triple play on July 4. They wound up losing the game 6-3 in extra innings) Adam Engel faced the music afterwards, he made a mistake and owned up to it. Moncada who also made a mistake was nowhere, he was already gone. Then the next day he was saying that he didn’t know people wanted to talk with him.”
“They were the most disappointing team in baseball. They were consistently redundant, by that I mean day after day they’d make errors, have dumb base running mistakes, take bad approaches at the plate and lack effort. They were the dumbest, laziest team in baseball, I don’t know if they were the most disappointing team ever in Chicago but I’ve used the phrase that the 2022 White Sox were “Trying Barely”… they reminded me of the 2004 Cubs.”
On G.M. Rick Hahn
“The issue with Rick is he’s got all these guys around him like Jeremy Haber (Author’s Note: Haber is the Assistant General Manager), friends from Michigan or someplace and they aren’t baseball guys. They didn’t play the game and have no real idea of what it takes. D.J. (Author’s Note: Sox broadcaster Darrin Jackson) and others have said the same thing.”
“I thought Hahn was prepared to do well, his last few years as assistant G.M. he was out on the road, watching guys, scouting, trusting what he saw. Then when he became G.M. he started getting guys like J.B. Schuck.”
“Rick won’t leave in part because his wife doesn’t want to leave the area unless it is for a job in California where she’s from.”
“Hahn actually is in charge, more than people think, although Kenny has input and of course JR has the final say.”
“Hahn put his foot down with Renteria, he wanted his manager to start doing what he (Hahn) asked.”
“Hahn is a go-along, get along type of guy, I don’t want to say he was dour this past season but there was a defensiveness to him that you could see especially when Tony was mentioned.”
“I’ll use a political term to describe Rick, he’s a ‘filibusterer.’ When Theo Epstein was running the Cubs everything he said meant something, if you went back to reread what he said you could read between the lines and figure out what he was saying. With Rick you heard what he said but then when you went back and reread his comments you realized he said less than you thought he did when he first spoke.”
“In 2016 when the rebuild started I thought he did the right thing and he deserved credit for that. I also thought at the time that giving out those long-term deals was good. No one could have foreseen how those contracts impacted those guys and their effort. But it was clear when Tony LaRussa was hired that Rick really is powerless. I just don’t have a lot of faith that he can get this done. And words matter, when he talked about “Multiple championships” and “Call me after the parade”…if you are going to be arrogant like that you need to deliver and he hasn’t.”
On Executive V.P. Kenny Williams
“Kenny is a totally different guy since he remarried. He’s happy, friendly…if you say something to him he’ll talk with you. I don’t know if it’s true he’s told JR that when his contract is up he’s going to retire but that would make sense given his circumstances.”
“I don’t know if his contract is up in 2023 or 2024 but I think he’s already checked out.”
The stadium naming rights deal
“Wintrust offered a much better deal than Guaranteed Rate but part of what Wintrust wanted is the name had to be changed back to Comiskey Park and Jerry Reinsdorf didn’t like that at all. He also wasn’t told some of the details in the agreement that may have made a difference had he knew.”
On former manager Tony LaRussa
“Hahn went to JR and told him it would be a bad idea to hire Tony not because he didn’t think he was a good manager but because physically how can you ask a 76-year-old man to go through that grind? But JR signs his paycheck so what are you going to do? Rick did what he was told and tried to make the best of it.”
“Rick Hahn and Jeff Passan from ESPN are tight and if you’ll recall it was ESPN that first got word of Tony’s DUI arrest, then the Phoenix TV station picked it up. You have to wonder, was that story leaked? If so by whom?”
“Tony harmed his legacy by coming back to take the Sox job. I don’t understand what his motivation was. I just don’t have a lot of sympathy for him. I don’t know exactly what took place behind closed doors but you look at the way things happened, the lack of effort, the dumb mistakes, that’s on the manager, it wasn’t because of a lack of talent.”
“I don’t blame Tony for the roster construction but I kept waiting to see a sign of him fighting back, to at least give the media some appearance of tension taking place. The Sox were just flat. There was a Sunday game, I don’t remember if it was the past year or the season before. The Sox were playing the Tigers I think and they lost a close game. There were two calls in the game that went against the Sox but the TV replay cleared showed both umpire calls were wrong. The Sox never challenged either of them. In the press conference Tony was asked about them and he defended his video crew, it was brought up to him that TV showed both calls were wrong from the umpires. The next day he said that he should have challenged at least one call. That told me this was not a tight operation.”
On a new regional TV network
“The NBC deal expires in a year or two and the Sox are looking into starting their own network along with the Bulls and Blackhawks. I know before the NBC deal was completed there was some talk about trying to do something then but JR and others thought it wasn’t the right time, the market wasn’t right to get the best deal.”
Broadcast announcer issues
“It’s happened a lot, even to guys like Ed Farmer, where they thought they had a deal with the Sox only to be told it was changed. There were screaming matches in the hallway at the stadium with guys yelling at Sox officials because they were so angry over what happened.”
“I remember hearing Ed Farmer say, 'I work for Jerry Reinsdorf not the White Sox.”
“Jason Benetti’s deal with the Sox is up, the Sox hold the option for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. He went to Fox to negotiate that deal with them after he was told to do it and then come back to the Sox and they’d work something out. Jason wanted to get the deal done with the Sox first and then go to Fox or ESPN or whoever. Turns out when he came back to the Sox and said that he needs 40 days off so he can do the Fox work he was told, ‘no, that’s not happening.’ So I don’t know what’s going to happen to him or Steve Stone.”
“The radio guys would bitch about the TV guys; the TV guys would bitch about the radio guys. Steve Stone was not well liked.”
“The broadcasters would go to JR and talk with him about what was going on and it finally got to the point where JR said he doesn’t want to hear about this anymore.”
“The folks in charge of broadcasting at the MLB offices can’t stand to work with some of the Sox officials.”
On organizational in-fighting
“Things started to change when Howard Pizer (Author’s Note: Pizer is the Senior Executive Vice-President) was told that he’d no longer be in charge of everyone, that some folks would no longer have to answer to him. That opened the door and some people are trying to get themselves into position to become a team president. Folks aren’t telling JR everything; in some cases they are lying to him.”
“Howard Pizer was the only guy who could tell JR ‘no’ and stop something. If people are angling to try to become a vice-president or president that’s just embarrassing.”
“I know the friction in the front office just wore Bob Grim down.” (Author’s Note: Grim retired after 30 years with the organization. He was the Senior Director of Business Development and Broadcasting)
“Here’s a story about scouting/development. Nick Hostetler was ‘promoted’ to the Special Assistant to the Vice-President/General Manager. He was ‘promoted’ because he was overheard complaining about a scout in Arizona, Ken Williams Junior. Someone got their revenge. I liked Nick, he was independent, he was his own guy.”
“People wonder why Dennis Gilbert (Author’s Note: Special Assistant to the Chairman) is around.”
“Mike Shirley is the darling of amateur scouts right now. (Author’s Note: Shirley is the Director of Amateur Scouting) He’s the power broker. I heard him saying that he’s been in baseball a long time, I looked up his career and it was only a couple of years maybe a half season of at-bats.”
“I think Chris Getz (Author’s Note: Getz is an Assistant General Manager and in charge of Player Development) is getting to much power to soon but I like him, he’s got some interesting ideas.”
“There are department heads in the organization who don’t know what they are doing, worse, all they care about is getting ahead themselves, some of them are real snakes.”
On the constant injuries
“Alan Thomas (Author’s Note: Thomas was the Director of Strength and Conditioning) was let go because his son was draft eligible and he was told the Sox no longer wanted to draft sons of members of the organization. Turns out his kid is playing center field for the Diamondbacks. I’m not saying he’d be playing center field for us but he’s good enough to be in the Major Leagues. I don’t know the new guy they brought in, but guys are getting hurt left and right.” (Author’s Note: I had heard Thomas disagreed with the results of the Sox injury study conducted last winter which was never released to the media or public. I was told he felt the Sox issues were only caused by the COVID restrictions. “The Sox play checkers where others teams play chess” when it comes to injury prevention, conditioning, nutrition, sleep schedules is a phrase I had heard mentioned.)
“The White Sox playing shorthanded started in 2007 when Jermaine Dye got hurt and Kenny Williams refused to call up Brian Anderson or Ryan Sweeney. Maybe they were cheap, maybe they wanted to protect Herm’s record of keeping guys off the DL.” (Author’s Note: Herm Schneider was the Sox longtime head trainer and for years the Sox were among the league leaders in keeping players healthy.)
“Jake Peavy made the comment one time, ‘They have no reservations about playing shorthanded.”
“You know about Mike Reinold right? (Author’s Note: Reinold is the White Sox Senior Medical Advisor) He was fired by the Red Sox because he was injecting players with Toradol.” (Author’s Note: Bleacher Report had a story on this situation published in February 2013. Here is the link to that story: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...sial-substance)
“Given the inordinate amount of soft-tissue injuries they have had you’d think that they would do a complete change in the training, conditioning and nutritional areas.”
On Jerry Reinsdorf
“JR is 86 and he’s in great shape, he looks good, still drives himself around but I just think at this point he simply doesn’t want to be bothered with having to bring in a new front office, maybe he thinks in a few years it won’t matter anyway.”
“People, his friends… have tried to tell him what has been going on, “Hawk” Harrelson, the late Ed Farmer… God rest his soul, Darrin Jackson, Scott Reifert (Author’s Note: Scott is the Senior Vice-President for Communications) , Bob Grim and others but it’s just not registering for some reason.”
“I wonder what impact his wife passing away earlier this year has had on him.”
“JR has told his family he does not want any of his sons owning the team when he is gone. The Bulls are fine he said because they make Michael (Reinsdorf) money but baseball just doesn’t allow you to do that. (no salary cap)” (Author’s Note: Was told by an individual who knew some of the minority owners that “The Sox haven’t lost money in a long time.” A second source agreed with that statement. Seems to be a conflict doesn’t it? Maybe JR isn’t making enough money to suit him vis a vis the Sox?)
“With :30 seconds left in their selection time on draft day JR would say things like “You know this college right-handed pitcher has the lowest injury risk.”
“In October 2005 some investors asked JR to sell and get out while the going was good, but he wouldn’t.”
“Andrew Berlin, twice tried to buy the Sox around 2008 but wasn’t successful.” (Author’s Note: Berlin, grew up a Sox fan and is now the owner of the Cubs farm team in South Bend, Indiana.)
“I heard that JR owns 12% of the team but with some of the original investors passing away that has probably gone up to 18%” (Author’s Note: Even though he only owns a small percentage of the franchise Jerry Reinsdorf has absolute authority to run the team as he sees fit. It is written into his contract. That includes selling or not selling the club despite what the other investors wish. The only way he can be removed from his position is if he has done something illegal or appears to be losing his mental faculties.)
“I was talking with an agent and they said the next owner of the Sox can’t be a group of investors, it has to be a big company. That’s why Dennis Gilbert, who tried to buy the Dodgers won’t get the Sox, he can’t come up with enough big money investors”
“JR has become oblivious to things and what he’s allowed to happen is sad. He’s probably the most successful owner in Chicago sports history given the Bulls titles and the White Sox one which is dear to his heart, but what has happened the last two years is just sad. He is out-of-touch. And even worse he’s inaccessible. He’s either afraid of having to answer questions or he’s incapable of doing so.”
“JR likes the structure he has because it gives him an extra layer of protection from criticism.”
On the Manny Machado saga
“Manny Machado had no intention of signing with the Sox…none. He used them. And the idea of signing John Jay and Yonder Alonso to try to influence him…package deals never work.” (Author’s Note: Supposedly the sticking point with Machado’s representative was the Sox wouldn’t go the extra two years like the Padres did. Kenny Williams then had the comment (paraphrasing) ‘We need to have the money to resign our own guys when it is time.’)
Is there hope?
“It could happen, maybe there’s a 5% chance this front office could get it right. But first the front office has to admit they made mistakes. The catcher (Yamani Grandal), third baseman (Moncada) and shortstop (Tim Anderson) need to go. They need to get guys with a higher baseball acumen, the lack of urgency, the way they beat themselves this season was embarrassing. Anderson needs to go because the organization gave him the keys to the car and he drove it off the cliff. And he’s getting up in years (Author’s Note: Anderson will turn 30 this season), get something for him while you can, some talented young players. The organization also needs a major off season from the scouts, they have to find guys they can buy low on with a good upside and hope they produce.”
“The Sox should be past the point where they have to ‘hope’ the rebuild works.”
“It’s not hopeless that they could win the division, the A.L. Central isn’t the strongest although I wouldn’t bet on it or winning the league. Do they really have a ‘window of contention’ at all? It’s not like what the Astros, Cubs, Dodgers or Rays have been able to do. The best case is that things come together and they win the division next year but for that to happen guys like (Michael) Kopech, (Garrett) Crochet and (Aaron) Bummer have to get better and they have to do something about the glut of first base type players and some of their role players.”
“I think that there is hope. They need an intervention, maybe Michael (Reinsdorf) steps in. They need someone to come to their senses because the organization has gone dark. If they hire a good manager, make some smart free agent signings they can turn it around. They have talent, they have resources and they have a fan base. But this is a critical off season.”
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The State of the Sox...
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#1LITTLE NELL commentedEditing a commentNothing in that article should surprise anyone, this is a dysfunctional organization from JR down to the batboys and will continue to be until Reinsdorf sells the team. -
#2Bobby Thigpen commentedEditing a commentI am shocked, shocked I tell you that multiple people see that two of the biggest player problems are Moncada and Anderson. Who coulda thunk it? -
#3BigKlu59 commentedEditing a commentAnd there it is fine people, the Soap Opera that is the Chicago White Sox. 2022 was smoke and mirrors. A paper mache juggernaut sold to you,that disolved as soon as it left port and headed into battle. Atleast the Vasa could be found intact, the SS Palehose not so much…
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