When Jason Benetti officially took over for Hawk Harrelson, it reminded me of the White Sox letting A.J. Pierzynski go and giving the catching job to Tyler Flowers. Benetti and Flowers were both younger options who stood a better chance at fulfilling the modern expectations for the position going forward, but neither was likely to provide the same kind of visceral satisfaction their predecessors routinely achieved.
Flowers ended up having a nice career and validating the value of his skill set, but his excellence at the subtle parts of the game couldn't be appreciated as the immediate replacement for Pierzynski, who was so much better at playing to the arena. Flowers needed to return to Atlanta in order to be evaluated on his own merit.
Benetti actually survived the adjustment period and became a fixture in his own right, albeit in a different way. As noted in the discussion about his departure to Detroit, he couldn't deliver on the same level as Harrelson when it came to the big moments. Harrelson had three decades to establish his unique rhythms and language, and he had the license to let his emotions lead him to some majestic peaks, even if they also dragged him into some really dark corners.
Benetti couldn't match Harrelson on that raw emotional level, but Harrelson left so much room for improvement elsewhere. Benetti could certainly out-prepare him. He could certainly show more curiosity about the game and its players. He could certainly care more about what Steve Stone had to say.
He stuck to all of his strengths, and what resulted is a broadcast that took the responsibility of informing fans seriously.
I suppose Benetti's style could be seen as replaceable. He's a Syracuse grad, so he initially sounds like a number of other broadcasters until you listen long enough to recognize the individual touches. His sense of humor had fans and haters, although I think the excess silliness was often a defense mechanism against awful baseball, and the White Sox provided way too much of that.
But however his choices hit your ear, the information was always current, because his interest in telling the story of the teams, their players, and the state of baseball in 2023 was genuine. One of the reasons the White Sox finished among the top booths in baseball is because they correctly (or correctly enough) relayed accurate information about the opponents.
"Genuine" also described his his relationship with Stone, whose interaction with Benetti revealed greater depth to the person. My ear always caught the moments when Stone would tell Benetti that he hadn't shared a certain story before, or that Stone wouldn't accompany anybody else on the Nationwide jingle. Setting aside the debate about whether the Nationwide jingle should've been retired years ago, it symbolized a level of gameness that Stone offered to Benetti and nobody else.
That's the biggest reason I think Benetti will be hard to replace, and there's no reason to think the White Sox can gracefully do so in a year where they've displayed staggering incompetence around every corner. However, there's some solace in the idea that Benetti helped install what should be a forward-friendly booth. If somebody like Mike Monaco takes over, they'll probably automatically be 85 percent of the way toward replicating a Benetti-quality broadcast the moment he arrives. That wasn't the case when Benetti started working his way in on Harrelson's turf. He absorbed the unfriendliest feedback and other consequences from being the man who replaced The Man. The transition should be smoother for whoever's next.
The remaining 15 percent will be the tricky part. That involves things like his wide-ranging knowledge and quick recall, his upbringing as a 1990s Sox fan, his empathy and his ability to connect with marginalized groups. The hope is that the next person has their own 15 percent that makes it easier to appreciate them for what they bring.
(Going backward is not an option. Hawk Harrelson is 82 years old and will probably take his grudge against Brooks Boyer to the grave.)
As for the reasons the White Sox let Benetti go, it didn't seem to be just one thing. The contentious negotiations from last year had Benetti talking about which companies appreciated him, and this part of his introduction with the Tigers jumped out to me:
“I got on a plane to come here because in the interview process, I felt and knew,” Benetti said. “It was just a feeling. I knew that I was surrounded by people who want to be so extraordinarily great and forward-thinking, and do this in a smart, analytical way that is just beyond the scope of anything I would have expected in terms of what they also want from their television announcer.”
Over the course of the day, other factors emerged. Dan Bernstein said Jerry Reinsdorf didn't care for Benetti's sense of humor, while Stone said later on that Benetti wanted a multi-year deal, while the White Sox might not want a contract that extends beyond their deal with NBC Sports Chicago, which expires after next season.
Some of my own speculation: Reinsdorf and Boyer probably saw plummeting TV ratings that started with a "0" and didn't think Benetti could be all that valuable. Introspection has never been Reinsdorf's long suit, and he'd much rather foster a culture of people who wouldn't or can't leave him, even if a superior product requires talent that takes effort to retain.
Given all this, I'm not broken up about it because Benetti is too young and in-demand to be stuck in a job that won't reward him. He's right to question whether his loyalty is misplaced and explore the way other teams go about their business. He always did what he could to be a conduit for White Sox fans, and he saw that responsibility all the way to the end of this chapter, didn't he?
