* I tested positive for COVID this week (mild symptoms other than fatigue), but I wanted to do a quick post about this…
The White Sox have fired manager Pedro Grifol.
The first-time manager lasted less than two seasons, going 89-190. The Sox were 61-101 in a bitterly disappointing 2023. This season was far worse, with the team at 28-89 and on pace to challenge the 1962 Mets (40-120) for the major leagues’ worst record of the modern era (beginning in 1900).
Coach Grady Sizemore will be the interim manager, the Sox said.
Bench coach Charlie Montoyo, coach Eddie Rodriguez and assistant hitting coach Mike Tosar were also fired, sources told the Sun-Times, and additional coaches may have been dismissed Thursday.
Some observers felt dismissing Grifol was long overdue. Other asked: What was the point? And there were others who thought Grifol should have to finish the season just so the abysmal results would go on his record and not on someone else’s.
In government, you can’t just “blow everything up” and start all over because lots of people depend on government. What are DCFS kids supposed to do during a rebuilding? We learned these lessons the hard way during the Rauner years.
* But nobody’s gonna die if Jerry Reinsdorf sells the White Sox to someone who cares. Rick Morrissey wrote a heck of a column this week about how horrible Reinsdorf has been…
Now, you might think that we already have a pretty good measure of this team. The White Sox won a game Tuesday night, putting an end to an American League record-tying 21-game losing streak. They’re well on their way to breaking the modern-era record for most losses in a season, 120, set by the 1962 Mets. By any yardstick, that speaks of a terrible club.
But numbers can’t capture the absurdity involved here.
What a peculiar franchise Jerry Reinsdorf’s Sox are. Built on resentment, weaned on stubbornness, fermented by inanity, the organization seems to enjoy thumbing its nose at fans. That the Sox don’t care what the fan base thinks is apparent in almost everything they do.
It’s one thing to be bad. It’s another to do nothing about it. And still another to say, “Fire? What fire?’’ Even as the flames engulf the building.
Go read the rest.
The general manager needs to go, and the disastrous play-by-play announcer John Schriffen definitely needs to go. But nothing will really improve until ownership sells the team.
Your own thoughts?
- DuPage Saint - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:38 pm:
So does this help or hurt Reinsdorf’s plans for public funding of his new stadium?
- Keyrock - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:41 pm:
You’re right. The GM and announcer need to go. But nothing will improve until Jerry sells.
But Jerry doesn’t want to sell, because of the tax consequences. He wants us to wait until he dies so that his kids can sell the team — with a stepped-up basis and a lesser tax burden. (And possibly to an out-of-town buyer.)
Ugh.
- rac1222 - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:42 pm:
Is it the case that Reinsdorf cant really sell the team because he would incur an enormous tax bill wiping out alot of his huge gain in the value of the team that he bought so long ago? Any tax/inheritance law experts out there?
- jolietj - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:44 pm:
Illinois stand up (banned punctuation) lol
- Barrister's Lectern - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:45 pm:
Hopefully the team does us a favor and moves to Nashville.
- Levois - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:47 pm:
Part of me wishes we could bring back the Comiskeys.
- Henry Francis - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:50 pm:
I think the Sox fans have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.
- jolietj - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:52 pm:
You pay taxes on the gain in value since you acquired inherited asset. That’s why farmland often sells once kids inherit. Sell it when inherit it, no tax bill.
- Larry Bowa Jr. - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:53 pm:
“But nothing will really improve until ownership sells the team.”
The same is true of the Bulls. Biggest standalone market in the NBA, at one time the most popular sports team on earth, and now they are a total afterthought. Rich people and corporations still buy tickets, mostly to watch players on other teams.
- fs - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:55 pm:
Just waiting until they hire the eventual replacement. Perhaps an unknown named “Lony Tarussa”
- JoanP - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:55 pm:
Morrissey’s column has some very fine lines. Among the best:
“Hiring La Russa was like bringing back leisure suits.”
“Reinsdorf has circled the wagons so many times over the years that there are permanent grooves for the wheels outside Guaranteed Rate Field.”
- Parlay Player - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 1:56 pm:
This awful season has to bring a smile to Jason Benetti’s face.
- Three Dimensional Checkers - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 2:08 pm:
Reinsdorf won’t sell the team. I will give Getz time before trashing him, even if the hiring process was very insular to say the least. I do not think Schriffen is particularly good, but I do not understand the sport media fascination with him. All hometown play-by-play guys are state TV for the hometown team. He is not particularly good at it, but he is not that bad. At least he hangs out at the tailgates.
Insular, resistant to change, oddly loyal, these are just flaws of Chicago culture, all Chicago culture.
- Anon324 - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 2:15 pm:
==You pay taxes on the gain in value since you acquired inherited asset. That’s why farmland often sells once kids inherit. Sell it when inherit it, no tax bill.==
This is incorrect.
- Treefiddy - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 2:15 pm:
Fun fact, last year Sizemore was an intern making $15/hour in the Diamondbacks front office. Wonder if Reinsdorf made him take a pay cut to become manager.
- Andy Not The Clown - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 2:20 pm:
I prefer Ed Farmer in his present condition to the terrible John Schriffen.
- Keyrock - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 2:25 pm:
Jerry is a tax lawyer by training. He will have the most sophisticated family estate plan that is possible.
There have been repeated reports, some speculation, some apparently based on Jerry’s words, that Jerry wants his son to take over the Bulls, but his family to sell the team after he’s gone.
Here’s a sample.
https://www.southsidesox.com/2022/8/29/23325369/jerry-reinsdorf-selling-chicago-white-sox-not-on-his-life
- mrp - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 2:37 pm:
Speedy recovery, Rich. Everybody mask up and stay safe out there.
Hire Ozzie back for another World Series Crazy Train..
- Benjamin - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 3:16 pm:
Firing Pedro Grifol was probably necessary, but is hardly sufficient to turn the team’s fortunes around. There are so many problems in the organization that nothing but a top-to-bottom firing (and an expensive player hiring spree) is going to help at this point. As a Sox fan, this is agony.
Take care, Rich.
- BC - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 4:41 pm:
@Keyrock makes some good points.
It’s also worth noting that the actual ownership structure of the White Sox is, as Winston Churchill said of Russia, “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside of an enigma.”
No doubt that “Chairman” Reinsdorf controls the day-to-day operations of the franchise, but it widely believed that he does not own anything close to a majority interest of the team. So a decision related to the sale of the franchise could be in the hands of many. We just don’t know.
- Lefty Lefty - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 4:47 pm:
I just wish a Sox game would be on free TV once so I could hear this Schiffren fella call the game. He’s been taking a beating as badly as the team this week. How bad could he be?
- Jurist - Thursday, Aug 8, 24 @ 5:10 pm:
Idea of the day: State of Illinois waives Jerry’s tax bill if he sells the team to a buyer who signs a covenant to never move the team out of the City. Stranger things have happened.
Also, we are coming up on the year anniversary of the Sox Park stray bullets. Whenever anyone wants to solve that case, and shed light on the ensuing “investigation,” maybe Jerry will be inculpated enough to draw Manfred’s attention.