With Chris Getz, White Sox promise change while staying the same

Pedro Grifol made a strong first impression when the White Sox introduced him as manager last November. Little did we know that was his peak, but it wasn't meaningless. It was refreshing to hear somebody not previously affiliated with the organization issue a clear diagnosis of team failings and a strong vision of potential solutions, and fans had some hope to carry them over the winter and into spring training.

That Grifol has failed so spectacularly provides its own lessons, but Jerry Reinsdorf acted upon the wrong ones. Instead of trying again to instill hope even if it runs the risk of being unrealized, he all but eliminated it out of the gate with the laziest possible hire.

Reinsdorf, speaking for himself in a rare public appearance, made it clear how little he actually considered the biggest possible move when he promoted Chris Getz to replace Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn.

"The first thing I did was develop a list of qualified people around the game who I thought could come in and take over and be fine general mangers for the White Sox. Chris was on that list. There were quite a number of other people who were on that list," Reinsdorf said.

"But the conclusion I came to was that what we owe our fans and ourselves is to not waste any time we want to get better as fast as we possibly can, and if I had gone outside it would have taken anybody at least a year to evaluate the organization and to get familiar with all the people who were in it, and that would mean this year would not be a year of great progress.

"I had in Chris who I spent hours talking to who was intimately familiar with the organization, who knows who the good people are, who the medium people are, and who the bad people are, so he's going to be able to step in and start running right away."

And then, if it weren't clear enough, Reinsdorf emphasized that he didn't actually talk to anybody else.

"Even though I had a list of outside people who I felt could do the job I also had a list of one among the inside people who I felt could do the job as well as anybody I was going to interview. I didn't have to interview these people because I knew them all, and I knew that they were qualified, but what I didn't know was I had somebody inside who could start right away making things happen, and that's the reason why Chris was selected."

Reinsdorf is correct in the sense that if it probably wasn't worth interviewing the people he already knew, because they'd probably all be worse hires than Getz (he only name-dropped Branch Rickey, who died in 1965). A real process would have identified people Reinsdorf didn't know, but apparently there wasn't time.

Of course, there was time. Reinsdorf just didn't have the effort or desire. One line Reinsdorf said before everything quoted above stood out to me:

"For the first time in all the years that I've been associated with the White Sox, I had a farm director who was doing what I wanted."

That line is lifted out of context, but it's for your benefit. The context is that Reinsdorf said that Getz was doing a great job teaching the game of baseball, and that doesn't square up with any available evidence. It's easier to believe that Reinsdorf just wanted somebody who made him feel important. Grifol is good at that, too, and Getz could accept being saddled with Grifol under the guise of "stability," so there you go.

This was the dark cloud under which Getz was introduced. He looked nervous, and he probably should be. He came out of the gate with a strong opening statement ...

I am not naive to the expectation that things need to change. To that I will say, the fans deserve different. I am different. We will be different.

... but when pressed for details, he couldn't elaborate on what any of it meant.

And of course he couldn't. He bears a non-negligible amount of responsibility for the team's lack of depth, and clearly marking areas where he disagreed would be throwing previous and current team employees under the bus. He's an extremely compromised hire, so there's no particular reason to fake enthusiasm for it.

One action in particular overshadows the words: the decision to retain Grifol.

"Pedro will be back next year," Getz said. "I think it's important to provide stability to our players. There have been a lot of changes the last couple of years and certainly here recently, and I believe we need to get back to playing baseball, focusing on baseball, so when these players show up each day they can just focus on the game and not the leaders in the organization."

When Vinnie Duber asked what Getz thought of the job Grifol has done this year, he started his answer by saying, "Pedro's had to wear a lot of hats this year." Jon Greenberg followed up by saying, "What do you mean by that?"

Getz paused his longest pause before saying that Grifol was a first-year manager who had to learn his roster below and the decision-making engine above. The hesitation was probably because, he, too, could only count one hat. Getz just happens to think Grifol is the only guy he's ever seen pull it off.

Prior to the conference, Reinsdorf spoke about 2023 in the past tense, even though the last 10 days have shown how long the next five weeks might feel ...

... and by committing to Grifol with a full month left, Getz is essentially doing it, too. It smacks of hubris despite all the attempts to convey humility.

The White Sox are 17-34 over the last two months, and one more month of .333 ball will put them at 100 losses. I wouldn't discount the amount of badwill that can bubble up if the Sox continue to face-plant over the next five weeks. Getz said he needs to have plenty of conversations with individuals throughout the organization. What if a running theme from these conversations is a lack of respect for Grifol as a leader? Getz probably wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Then again, it might not be Getz's decision to make. Grifol went over the head of Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams by saying people who had complaints about the lineup card could take it up with Reinsdorf, so he's already revealed who he's playing to. And it's a smart move, because Reinsdorf has retained managers over the objections of his front office three of the last four times.

Getz might be replacing Williams and Hahn in the front office directory, but he's probably not the single decision-maker he and Reinsdorf claimed him to be. Things will ultimately be done Reinsdorf's way, and Getz looks like the most convenient person to carry that out.