If Pedro Grifol's tenure with the White Sox accomplishes nothing else, he certainly accelerated the lifecycle of the phrase "attention to detail." It usually takes years for that mission statement to fall apart, but here it happened in just 3½ months.
Not that it's necessarily Grifol's fault. Just like the White Sox's fortunes as a whole, a problem that's reached its breaking point while Grifol happens to be in charge. Nevertheless, he's certainly the most severe example of "attention to detail" being used to build a guy up and tear a guy down.
When you google the name of a White Sox manager and the phrase "attention to detail," and you can find articles that state the renewed focus at the beginning of his administration, only to bemoan the lack of it by the end of it.
Here's Rick Hahn when announcing Grifol last November:
“A modern baseball mind who is seeking to build a cohesive and inclusive clubhouse environment and one where the attention to detail and the accountability will be priorities.”
And here's Grifol on Saturday:
Grifol was asked if he has seen the attention to detail he wants from his players.
“No, no, no, no,” the first-year manager said. “We have to get better at that. That’s something we’ve spoken about individually. I have conversations with these guys. I don’t like doing too much team stuff. I do have a lot of individual conversations on things we need to get better at. I have a lot of meetings with our coaches on things we need to address.”
Here's Hahn on Tony La Russa back in February 2021:
“I would think so,” Hahn said. “I’m fortunate in that I’ve spent the last several months working with the guy. I’ve been able to see the focus, the attention to detail, the intellect and the things that are really going to serve us well over the course of the summer.
Feb. 17, 2021
And here's Seby Zavala this past March:
“We lacked that attention to detail, urgency last year in spring training and it kind of trickled into the season and we were never able to get it back,” Zavala said. “But this year everybody is real detail-oriented and making sure we do the little things and make sure something like last year doesn’t happen again. We have too many talented people on this team to have a repeat of last year.”
Here's a story on Rick Renteria's first spring training:
Success for this camp begins with Renteria. He's exceedingly upbeat, with an attention to detail shared by his staff. That detail ranges from simply talking to a pitcher after his bullpen session for a few reassuring moments, or moving pregame practice solely to the back fields Thursday in order to focus on drill work.
And here's Steve Stone on Renteria after Renteria's firing in October 2020:
Here's praise for Robin Ventura at the end of his first spring training:
For those of you who know him, it has been amazing to see Robin Ventura’s unruffled karma spread through camp. There is an incredible amount of positive teaching going on — the coaching staff jokes about “Coaching Up” — and there is an efficient focus on details and fundamentals in camp. We have been able to see this attention to detail exhibited in games in terms of outfielders hitting cut-off men, bunting (both as sacrifices and for base hits) and our ability to harass the opponents’ running game. Almost every person I asked, listed this as the biggest positive for the spring.
"Attention to detail" wasn't front of mind at the end of Ventura's tenure because of everything else that went wrong in 2016, the cruel and unusual way Jerry Reinsdorf effectively made Ventura fire himself, and the fact that the White Sox immediately hired Renteria without a process.
(As for Ozzie Guillen, you never got "attention to detail" stories because he was more likely to talk about how little work he did.)
This 11-year journey shows that Grifol isn't alone in promising "attention to detail," and it's probably common with other organizations as well. It's a succinct way to easily emphasize how a new leader might reinforce standards, and its inclusion of the word "details" makes it easy to overlook how non-specific it is.
But specific to the White Sox, it's worth disregarding "attention to detail" because it's a symptom of their overall myopia. When you lack the ability or willingness to step back and make sweeping changes to the franchise, then trying to fine-tune the potentially correctable aspects of a flawed model is all that's left. It's spiritually aligned with overinvesting in relievers to jealously guard the few leads the White Sox generate, instead of imagining a world where the White Sox offense scores more runs.
So Grifol isn't unique here. He just happened to arrive at the precise moment the White Sox reached a dead end, and all the practice and preparation couldn't provide an escape. There isn't going to be an outlet unless there's an overhaul.
