After a steady trickle of White Sox coaching staff leaks over the last week or so, the floodgates finally opened on Tuesday, culminating in an official press release announcing the new version of Pedro Grifol's cabinet.
At first glance, there's quite a bit of overhaul from the first year to the second, not just in names, but in positions.
| Position | 2023 | Position | 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bench coach | Charlie Montoyo | Bench coach | Charlie Montoyo |
| Pitching coach | Ethan Katz | Pitching coach | Ethan Katz |
| Bullpen coach | Curt Hasler | Assistant pitching coach | Matt Wise |
| Hitting coach | José Castro | Hitting coach | Marcus Thames |
| Assistant hitting coach | Chris Johnson | Assistant hitting coach | Mike Tosar |
| First base coach | Daryl Boston | First base/outfield coach | Jason Bourgeois |
| Third base coach | Eddie Rodríguez | Third base/infield coach | Eddie Rodríguez |
| Field coordinator | Mike Tosar | Major league coach | Grady Sizemore |
| Catching coach | Drew Butera |
Gone is the bullpen coach, replaced by an assistant pitching coach, which makes sense given the installation of Brian Bannister (Ethan Katz was the assistant pitching coach for the Giants in the year he and Bannister overlapped in San Francisco). "Outfield coach" and "infield coach" are now included in the job title rather than the job description, perhaps signaling an emphasis on better defensive fundamentals.
Elsewhere, there's also a distinct catching coach on the MLB bench for the first time, although Jerry Narron recently helped in that regard during Tony La Russa's time. "Field coordinator" and "major league coach" are both vague, but perhaps the scope of the new title is reflected in the narrowing of Tosar's role. This is how the field coordinator's duties were described last year:
Tosar will bounce around. He’ll help out with the offense in cage sessions, game-planning in hitters meetings, and also assisting with infield defense with new third base coach Eddie Rodríguez, who of course he also already knows and has worked with.
After that brief experiment as a Mr. Fix-It of sorts, it appears that he's now concentrating solely on hitting, while Bruce Levine said Sizemore will coach outfielders and baserunning.
(Also, credit to James Fegan for including a Tosar quote that aged like sun-tanned milk: “Our preparation on a daily basis will be elite.")
Why all the changes?
That's a pretty dramatic revision from the first year from a manager's first year to his second, especially since it's not like the rest of the league poached from Pedro Grifol's staff. Here are three potential reasons for it.
No. 1: A new general manager/single decision-maker.
If Chris Getz is overhauling the organizational coaching chart, then it makes sense to have lieutenants who are aligned to maintain consistent messaging down the chain. We still have to learn more about what the White Sox are trying to do on the hitting side, but if Getz brings aboard Bannister, and Bannister is used to working with a pitching coach/assistant coach setup, it doesn't make much sense to keep somebody like Hasler fixed in place.
No. 2: A change in mission.
The emphasis on instruction implies the White Sox may be running with a ... more impressionable roster. Take Butera, for instance. That specific coach wouldn't seem to be needed on an Opening Day roster with Yasmani Grandal and Seby Zavala, but if Korey Lee and Carlos Pérez are prominently involved to start the 2024 season, they'll need all the help they can get.
(This would contradict Jerry Reinsdorf's claim that the Sox didn't have a year to waste in trying to field a competitive team, but it's counterproductive to hold Getz to Reinsdorf's word. There's no honor in carrying out dumb orders here.)
No. 3: Working around a manager.
If Reinsdorf has prohibited Getz from firing Grifol until a later date, then this might be the most productive way to bide his time. I'm not sure how likely this is, but nevertheless, it's fun to picture Getz walking into Grifol's office and wordlessly jotting down the dimensions of the walls and floor while Grifol compliments Getz's choice of tape measure ("I also love Harbor Freight. I'm there just about every other day.").
Where did the new White Sox coaches come from?
The most striking thing about the White Sox's tweet announcing the new staff was the number of Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim caps on it:
Angels coaches were available for bulk pick-up since Phil Nevin was fired, and since Nevin took over for Joe Maddon in the middle of the 2022 season and everything in Anaheim seems haphazardly run, there's a chance the staff never really had a chance to jell.
Marcus Thames banked credibility elsewhere, spending six years as a hitting coach for the Yankees, including a run from 2018-21 as the main man. He then spent 2022 in Florida and 2023 with the Angels. The Yankees fired Thames' replacement, Dillon Lawson, in the middle of the 2023 season, and replacement they hired, television's Sean Casey, isn't returning, so it's not like the Yankees are thriving in a Thames-less world.
(Thames appears to make his offseason home in Mississippi, so pour one out for the White Sox's short-lived Miami minicamp.)
Matt Wise wasn't supposed to be the Angels' pitching coach, but he replaced Mickey Callaway in 2021 after Callaway's sudden firing for long-running lewd behavior, and managed to stay there for a couple of years. 2021 was the lone year that Gene Watson, the White Sox's new director of player personnel and longtime Royals baseball man, spent with the Angels.
Drew Butera was a familiar figure to the White Sox as a backup catcher for the Royals and Twins before retiring in 2022 to take the bullpen catcher job for the Angels. He then spent last year as the team's catching coordinator. He played for Grifol and the Sox's myriad Royals connections from 2015-2018. He played in 553 games across 12 big-league seasons despite hitting just .196/.252/.290.
Among non-Angels, Grady Sizemore joins Josh Barfield in moving from the Arizona farm system to a bigger job with the White Sox. The two were also teammates in Cleveland. Jason Bourgeois spent the last five seasons coaching with the Dodgers, serving as their outfield and baserunning coordinator the last three years. He was teammates with Getz for two years in the White Sox system, including this game from my scorebook in 2008, where they were at the top of the order for the Charlotte Knights.
