After the Chicago White Sox dealt ace Dylan Cease to San Diego last March, general manager Chris Getz was asked about the state of the team.
Like most baseball executives before the start of a new season, he delivered a positive spin.
“We’ve got impact on this roster,” Getz said in Glendale, Ariz. “We think it’s going to be a much cleaner style of play. Is it a reflection of the decisions we’ve made this offseason? Certainly. But it’s also a reflection of our coaching staff that’s been working with our players day to day.
“Do we still have work set out to accomplish for us to work toward our goal? Absolutely. But present day, we feel very good about where the Chicago White Sox are, not only for our major-league season but certainly for the future.”
Six months later, manager Pedro Grifol and two of his coaches have been fired, and the Sox are well on their way to breaking the modern-day record of 120 losses in a season, set by the 1962 expansion New York Mets.
Still feel good?
“I think if you would have told me we were going to end up flirting with the record, I would have been a little surprised,” Getz said Monday at Guaranteed Rate Field. “Now if you would have told me prior to the year that we would have ended up with over 100 losses, 105, 110, I wouldn’t have been as surprised. But this is the cards that we’ve been dealt at this point.”
It was a stunning admission from Getz, who built this team with an eye toward the future but never let on that he knew it was capable of losing as many as 110 games.
Did Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf feel the same way? We’ll never know since he hasn’t said peep all season, same as it ever was.
There was reason to believe the Sox would be bad, but not the end-of-the-world kind of bad. Before the season Luis Robert Jr. was coming off an All-Star year where he hit 38 home runs, Eloy Jiménez boasted he might hit 40 home runs, and Yoán Moncada was refining his bunting skills in Cactus League play, sending Grifol into a fit of ecstasy after a successful bunt against the San Francisco Giants.
“When was the last time you saw that?” a smiling Grifol asked reporters like he was reinventing the game.
No one expected the Sox to perform miracles, but with those three hitters near the top of the lineup and a rotation headed by Garrett Crochet and Erick Fedde, few envisioned the Sox becoming the worst team in baseball history.
But that’s where they stood Tuesday, with 112 losses heading into the night game against the Cleveland Guardians.
Barring a complete turnaround, they’ll probably break the record sometime next week, perhaps late at night in San Diego, when most Sox fans will be sleeping. At this point, anything less than a spot in the history books would be disappointing to Sox fans, who’ve suffered through this long enough and want some kind of payoff for their troubles.
It’s 121 or bust!
Meanwhile, Getz was getting lambasted on social media for his remarks.
Was Getz guilty of false advertising?
If he knew the Sox were capable of 110 losses, should he have tempered his enthusiasm in spring training and let fans — or at least play-by-play man John Schriffen — know how awful a season this was going to be?
I can’t imagine any executive telling fans the team is probably going to be the worst in franchise history, or maybe ever. That wouldn’t do much for ticket sales or TV ratings.
But Getz could’ve been more open about what was in store, lowering expectations somewhat, as former president Theo Epstein did with the Cubs in 2012.
Back in the first year of Epstein’s Cubs rebuild, he told reporters in spring training: “I can go ahead and write your stories for you now if you want. At some point you’re going to wake up and write about ‘Oh, the honeymoon is over. We’re not seeing enough progress.’ I don’t know when that’s going to be. It might be two years from now, it might be three years from now, it might be two months from now, it might be two weeks from now.
“But because progress as an organization isn’t linear, that’s coming, and we just don’t let it bother us … I care more than anything what our fans think. But I also operate with the belief that ultimately the only way to make them happy is to be able to provide for them baseball in October on a consistent basis, and a World Series championship eventually.”
Live and learn. Now that Getz has a year under his belt, he’ll know better next spring when he puts another 100-plus loss team on the field.
That’s what we can expect after Crochet is dealt and the Sox sign more low-budget, free agents to fill spots at second base, third base, shortstop, right field, catcher and the entire bullpen — assuming Getz can rebuild with five starting pitchers already in the system.
Getting someone to manage who has a pedigree in rebuilds will be easy if Miami’s Skip Schumaker doesn’t take the St. Louis Cardinals job that might be open as well. Schumaker is a graduate of the Tony La Russa School of Managing, which makes him a perfect fit for an out-of-touch organization where the 79-year-old La Russa serves as Getz’s consigliere and hangs out in the suite of the 88-year-old Reinsdorf.
You can almost hear Schriffen now: “Skip’s boys don’t quit. Grrrr.”
Next year will be a struggle, so no need for Getz to downplay anything. The Sox have already announced a cut in season ticket prices. It’s obvious they know most fans aren’t going to renew their packages after this disaster-filled season.
If the Sox marketing department had any sense of humor, it would offer a special $121 season ticket package for all upper deck seats — which would automatically turn into lower deck seats for games when the upper deck is closed for lack of interest.
Progress isn’t linear, we all know. But there is only one direction to go for a team that loses 121 or more games.
Hopefully that’s not Nashville.