White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is a man of his word.
At the end of August, when he was in the process of draining all possible excitement from the introduction of Chris Getz as general manager, Reinsdorf told the assembled media, "Look, we're not going to be in the [Shohei] Ohtani race, I'll tell you that right now. I'll tell you that."
It was a bold proclamation, mostly because it potentially violated the terms of the CBA regarding comments about free agents and it was just unnecessarily off-putting in general, but in the end, Reinsdorf lived up to his promise:
Shohei Ohtani will not be a member of the White Sox. He didn't even come close.
Instead, after a crazy, whirlwind free agent courtship involving a half-dozen teams requested to remain silent about all interactions, which prompted fans to fill in the silence with private-jet tracking and social media sleuthing, Ohtani settled for a 10-year, $700 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers.
https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/1733579104916492574
Reinsdorf's decree ran counter to the notion that the White Sox could or should be interested in a player of Ohtani's caliber, mostly because he does just about everything well, and the White Sox don't do anything right.
Moreover, vows by White Sox decision-makers had fallen flat in recent years.
After his introduction as the newest White Sox manager last November, Pedro Grifol said "We're going to prepare every night to kick your ass." The White Sox went on to lose 102 games.
Toward the end of that disastrous season, Reinsdorf said that he hired Getz without considering other candidates because "we want to get better as fast as we possibly can," and while the jury is still out, Getz mostly appears to be clearing salary.
Prior to Getz, Rick Hahn told White Sox fans "the money will be spent" after the team's failed pursuit of Manny Machado and the quiet abandonment of Bryce Harper. The White Sox didn't sign any premium free agents over the course of Hahn's second rebuild, and while Hahn tried to write off complaints as hot takes, his attempts to revise history never connected with fans who felt betrayed.
On one hand, the White Sox's utter indifference to Ohtani signaled an end to carefully constructing offers designed to finish, at best, a distant second. Others saw it as maintaining the White Sox's long-standing tradition of avoiding free agents who run the risk selling jerseys to fans, rather than immediate relatives only.
However it happened, the White Sox fulfilled the promise of being completely indifferent to Ohtani, clearing the path for White Sox fans to be completely indifferent to the White Sox.
