Back when James Fegan worked at The Athletic, I enjoyed when we'd hit the same topic from different angles for two main reasons:
It was educational: What he reported often provided helpful confirmation or adjustments to what I perceived from the outside.
It was convenient: If I was short on time or I pursued an idea that didn't go anywhere, I could always highlight what he wrote in a "Following Up" post the next day.
At least The Athletic's Britt Ghiroli did me the same kind of solid Tuesday morning. At the same time I posted about how the White Sox's international strategy of signing older Cubans contributed to the organization's dead end, Ghiroli published an interview with David Wilder, the guy who preceded Marco Paddy and ran the Sox's international operations aground.
Wilder, who was formerly the White Sox director of player personnel, served two years in prison for his role in a skimming scheme. Wilder and two scouts were found to have taken more than $400,000 from the White Sox, and Wilder pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud.
On one hand, it's weird to give Wilder such a platform, especially a platform that employs Jim Bowden, who resigned from the Washington Nationals due to a similar scandal. The White Sox's official response used this angle to downplay whatever Wilder might end up claiming:
"We do not feel a convicted felon’s more than 15-year-old opinions, as well as his excuses for illegal activities victimizing the team and innocent Latin American players and families, merit a platform or a response."
On the other hand, there is something resembling a news hook because of all the upheaval in the White Sox front office. And even if there weren't, Wilder said he hadn't talked to any reporters about the scandal after his release because nobody asked him, and somebody should've probably asked him.
Better late than never, but with the scandal either long-forgotten or never known by a majority of White Sox and baseball fans, it demands critical reading skills. Usually an interview in a high-profile outlet like The Athletic would bestow a subject with a base amount of credibility, but with Wilder, you're best using your intuition on a question-to-question basis.
For instance, Wilder complains about getting denied another job in organized baseball, but that's easy to understand when he doesn't sound anything close to contrite about his wrongdoing.
Do you feel like you weren’t valued before you started skimming?
That’s the reason I started doing it. I got passed over for a World Series bonus. The (skimmed) money was negotiated from the buscones and taken from the buscones, not the kids. I oversaw the department and took charge of that. The judge said, you will get an extra year (than another scout involved) because you were in charge. But why didn’t they investigate all of baseball then? Everyone was doing this. Did people think we invented this? It’s everywhere. In the Dominican, at least.
I did two years for it. Yeah, it was wrong. I took money, but it wasn’t $400,000 — it was, maybe $175,000 personally over a couple years. I considered it the World Series bonus I never got. People may say, ‘Oh, sour grapes.’ But if you’re in your job and doing a great job and working hard and then you don’t get a bonus when they win?
That's straight from the Black Sox playbook, and it didn't help them much, either.
However, when it comes to the way the White Sox operate, in particular Jerry Reinsdorf ...
[Reinsdorf] sat in on everything. And if he didn't, every meeting they’d take notes and give it to Jerry. Minor league coaches, every Latin or Black coach I wanted to bring in, Jerry would — if they weren’t from the White Sox — usually not be interested. In any business you have, if you have someone who has been successful, I want their ideas. He never asked for ideas. He never said, ‘Dave, you were with Atlanta, what were they doing?’ He was too smart. Nothing has changed.
It was Rick and Kenny to some extent, they don’t have the ability to put together a team the proper way. But the only way they had was the “White Sox Way.” They used to talk about that (White Sox Way) all the time.
We had the owner who doesn’t know s— about baseball telling guys what to do. So the right guys got fired, but if I’m the owner of the team and it’s dysfunctional, it comes down on me.
... I ended up nodding, albeit reluctantly.
Even if you disregard Wilder's comment about "every Latin or Black coach I wanted to bring in" because that requires way too much trust, Reinsdorf just proved the other point in that paragraph with his arrogant, self-serving praise of Chris Getz.
If Reinsdorf’s professed belief in Getz is to be trusted, the future is in the hands of a GM who is literally one of a kind in Reinsdorf’s time with the Sox, which dates to 1981. Of everything Reinsdorf has said since firing Williams and Hahn, what’s most dubious might be that Getz is the first person who has taught the game to Sox prospects in the manner Reinsdorf wanted it to be taught.
‘‘Going all the way back to Roland [Hemond] and then Al Goldis, I wanted baseball taught in the minor leagues a certain way where people understood what they were doing, they understood what’s the right thing to do in certain situations,’’ Reinsdorf said, ‘‘and nobody ever did it right until Chris came along.’’
You'd be hard-pressed to find a White Sox fan who'd enjoy anything Reinsdorf has to say, but it was incredibly valuable to have him speaking for himself at Getz's introduction, because he made it abundantly clear that nobody should expect better from the White Sox as long as he's running the show.
Although I don't have high hopes for Getz, I'm very curious about how the removal of Williams and Hahn changes the way the media interacts with the organization. The trio of Jerry, Kenny and Rick fostered a sense of permanence and resignation. They weren't good at running a team efficiently or responsibly, but they were excellent at shielding each other from blame, and that might've been more important for them.
As the late-stage White Sox advance past Williams and Hahn, I wonder if we'll hear more leaks, gossip and hearsay. It's only been a couple weeks since the White Sox changed GMs and Dave Effing Wilder comes out of nowhere landing valid points, so I wouldn't underestimate the amount of other self-preservation efforts we'll hear, or shots fired at a hierarchy that isn't as experienced at deflecting heat.
