The White Sox lost their 18th consecutive game on Friday, subtracting another one-thousandth from Pedro Grifol's winning percentage, which is already the worst in franchise history with room to spare. They're on pace to finish the season with a 39-123 record, which would be the worst in the modern history of Major League Baseball. What's more: If they lose tonight, they'll round up to 39 wins instead of down.
The size of the wreck is now creating a gaper's block from the greater sports world, generating all sorts of basic existential questions. Once you get past the natural reactions like "Why is this happening?" and "How could this be allowed to happen?", the next step is to wonder if they've fired anybody. And when they realize that Grifol is still managing the team along with all of the coaches they carried into the season, the next question might be:
What is Pedro Grifol's salary?
Those following the White Sox -- or maybe those who follow the Bulls and feel comfortable applying lessons from one to the other -- know the White Sox are famous for never announcing the terms of their non-playing personnel. In theory, shielding the length or amount of a contract as official policy means never having to concede lame-duck status. In practice, it shields the White Sox from blowback. If the average fan knew when the Sox could've theoretically be free of Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn, it'd make it all the more glaring when Jerry Reinsdorf retained them for years beyond the most convenient exit ramp.
We only learned with any measure of certainty what Grifol is earning -- and for how long -- from a Bob Nightengale article in USA Today back in June.
Grifol is in the second year of a three-year contract for about $3 million. The White Sox are expected to re-assess this winter to determine whether a managerial change is needed.
From Nightengale's previous reporting on MLB manager and White Sox manager salaries, this passes the smell test. He wrote in October that $1.75 million is the median manager salary, and six managers only make six figures. Given that Grifol had no previous MLB managing experience and was not a hot commodity bench-coaching for a 97-loss Royals team, a three-year contract for $1 million a season sounds about right in this context.
The answer: Pedro Grifol's contract has him earning $1 million a year, more or less
But not only is this information still non-official, it's buried in one of Nightengale's gargantuan Sunday notebooks, beneath a headline and thousands of words about players getting death threats from gamblers.
Because the White Sox never announced it themselves, this information doesn't show up when you search Google for Pedro Grifol's salary.
When you search "What is Pedro Grifol's salary" or even "pedro grifol salary" on Google, the first item that turns up -- highlighted -- is an article by Front Office Sports, with the search page summoning the pertinent information before you even have to click the link.
Now, if you follow the White Sox somewhat closely, you'll realize that paragraph is wrong in all sorts of ways. For one, Grifol would never earn $5.5 million to manage the White Sox, because that's $1.5 million more than what Nightengale said the White Sox were set to pay Tony La Russa in the final year of his contract. It's safe to say Pedro Grifol is no Tony La Russa, regardless of the vintage.
If the first two sentences didn't trip you up, the third sentence should, because obviously Grifol did not sign a contract with the White Sox in 2020, much less a contract extension, because the White Sox hired Grifol back in November 2022. Whether it's lousy AI or lousy research, the Front Office Sports piece in question seems to be lifting information from Vinnie Duber ... about Aaron Bummer.
Bummer, the latest target for such calls on social media, makes more. His 2023 salary is $3.75 million, plus he’s due $5.5 million in 2024 on the contract extension the White Sox gave him in 2020.
Perhaps whoever, or whatever generated the text for Front Office Sports confused Grifol being a bummer for Grifol being a Bummer, but either way, that's where the very wrong salary figure for Grifol came from.
So, to go back to the question in the headline about Pedro Grifol's salary...
What are the White Sox paying Pedro Grifol?
Based on the most specific reporting available, Pedro Grifol is earning a $1 million salary through the 2025 season, more or less. He's definitely not earning a salary more than five times that amount, and he definitely isn't among the highest-paid managers in baseball.
Whenever the White Sox fire Grifol and hire a new manager to replace him, perhaps this will inspire them to announce the terms of the contract. Since Grifol's contract information doesn't exist under team letterhead (or website head), bad information will fill the void of no information.
The White Sox are not responsible for an outlet wrongly publishing that Grifol is one of baseball's highest-paid managers, but given that Andrew Benintendi is the highest-paid player in franchise history -- easily verifiable, published under whitesox.com, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the White Sox would invest just as strangely in a skipper.
