Pedro Grifol makes disenchantment very easy. In fact, it's cyclical and self-perpetuating. The worse his team plays, the louder he has to kiss up to his bosses, making his smarm the most sustainable resource on Earth.
Even if I weren't already attuned to Grifol's penchant for flattery, this exchange that Paul Sullivan highlighted in his column would've set off every detector possible.
“Why not? If there’s ever an opportunity to do that, this is it,” Grifol said. “My suggestion, my advice to everybody who’s going to come to our camp next year in 2024, if they truly want to play in the big leagues, they’ve got to come in with that mindset because they’re going to have an opportunity to (play). They really are. We share a pretty similar — if not exact — vision on how we want to see this thing look next year. It’s pretty neat and cool to know that the general manager and the manager see things the same way and the style of baseball that we want to play.”
That style would be, well, like the way Chris Getz played, according to Grifol.
“He was a smart player that ran the bases well and was as consistent as consistent could be,” Grifol said. “That’s the kind of baseball he wants to see, and that’s the kind of baseball I want to see.”
I'm not sure how many times I audibly groaned, because I might've just emitted one continuous low rumble from "if not exact" to the last line in that excerpt. Sullivan can't let it pass, either:
That quote certainly will look good in Grifol’s performance review.
Grifol seems like the guy who makes sure to mirror Getz's body language and wardrobe, so if Getz ever wanted to test Grifol to see how far he could lead him out of his element, he could start by naming bands and songs. Next week, Grifol will roll into the clubhouse like:
While it was nice of Britt Ghiroli to step in and help me get two days' worth of posts out of one idea by publishing her interview with David Wilder on the same morning I examined the White Sox's failing international strategy, that was always James Fegan's role, and he pitched in from the Sun-Times this weekend.
On Friday, I wrote about Andrew Vaughn's disappearing walk rate, and how it negated a lot of the gains he'd made over his first career 20-homer season.
On Saturday, Fegan talked to Vaughn, who said that the edges of the zone will be at the center of his offseason work.
“Definitely chasing more than I would like,” Vaughn said. “That’s definitely something that’s kind of happened, swinging at those borderline pitches. It’s something to go into the offseason and really hone in on.” [...]
Vaughn has fit into an impatient Sox lineup more than anticipated and is on pace to walk less than 6% of the time for the second consecutive season. He’s not Luis Robert Jr.-level aggressive, but per FanGraphs, Vaughn swings out of the zone more than the league average.
This is where Vaughn castigates himself the most for swinging at borderline pitches early in the count. Staying competitive on borderline pitches with two strikes is an attribute. Deploying it too early can erase opportunities to build on the 20-homer total that he has finally reached and keep him from complementing his power with on-base ability.
I wouldn't count out Vaughn in his ability to develop further, because the White Sox's aggressive/reckless handling of his career has forced him to figure out all sorts of things on the fly. It'd just be a little easier to bake it into future projections if the White Sox had an ability to coach it up with anybody else and any point.
