After listening all week to Chicago White Sox general manager Chris Getz, manager Grady Sizemore and players discussing their feelings about the inevitable modern-era record for losses the team finally broke Friday night in Detroit, one word seemed to be missing.
Frustrating? Difficult? Disappointing? Painful?
No, we heard those descriptions a few dozen times.
The word I never heard uttered was “unacceptable,” as in “this loss was unacceptable.”
Time and again we heard about the bad breaks, as if the Sox had a monopoly on bad luck. We get it. They were millimeters short of a win on Aug. 28 when Texas Rangers left fielder Travis Jankowski’s brilliant leaping catch robbed Andrew Vaughn of a walk-off home run. The Sox bullpen has blown 35 saves. If only a handful of those went the other way, the Sox would’ve avoided going down in history as the worst team ever.
But no organization should ever field a team as poorly constructed as the 2024 White Sox and then talk about bad breaks or frustrating losses. This Sox team started out bad and got progressively worse as they crawled toward Sunday’s finish line.
It was not given the title as “worst team ever.” The Sox earned it.
When they entered the second half with a .276 winning percentage (27-71), the 1962 Mets’ record seemed safe. There was no way the Sox could play worse, right? They needed only 16 wins in 54 games to finish with 119 losses.
Yet the Sox head into Saturday with a .194 winning percentage (12-50) since the break and were by far the worst team in almost every significant category.
- Their starters were a combined 5-33 in the second half. Twenty-two starters had more wins after the All-Star break than the entire Sox rotation, including former Sox pitchers Carlos Rodon (seven), Jose Quintana (six) and Dylan Cease (six).
- The Sox defense was last in the majors after the break at minus-86 in Defensive Runs Saved, light years behind the second-worst team, the Oakland A’s (minus-59).
- The offense was also last in the second half in runs scored with 181, while the second-worst team, the Tampa Bay Rays, had scored 220. The Sox also were last in home runs (45), slugging (.329) and tied for last with a .221 average.
It was a complete meltdown that led to the record, and manager Pedro Grifol was only partly responsible because he was fired on Aug. 8 and shockingly replaced by first-year coach Grady Sizemore, who admitted he had no previous desire to manage and did not expect to get rehired.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever manage again, so I’m going to manage like it’s the World Series,” Sizemore said during the New York Yankees series. ”I don’t really care about anything else.”
But in the final two weeks, Sizemore never played one of his best offensive players, Yoán Moncada, who apparently rehabbed too slowly to get a fair chance in his final season in Chicago. No, this wasn’t anything like managing in the World Series. It was more like a modified version of spring training, with struggling prospects such as Miguel Vargas and Bryan Ramos getting time at third in meaningless games at the expense of actually trying to win.
The Sox got worse under Sizemore’s watch. His record was 11-32 heading into Saturday, but it didn’t seem to matter. The players loved him, and last week Sizemore officially became a candidate for the managerial opening that Getz originally vowed would be filled by someone from outside the organization.
Players wore T-shirts with Sizemore’s photo on it. His laid-back personality and positive outlook was welcomed. On Thursday I asked Garrett Crochet, the undisputed team leader, if he would lobby management to rehire Sizemore.
“I would put my name behind Grady,” he replied.
That doesn’t mean Sizemore will be hired but that his record would not disqualify him from being considered.
“What has impressed me is how our players and staff have continued to work and bring a professional attitude to the ballpark each day despite a historically difficult season,” Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement on Sept. 11.
That’s true. Sizemore did bring a more positive vibe to the clubhouse than Grifol, who lost the team in late May when he called them “f—ing flat” after a loss to the Baltimore Orioles.
But does Sizemore really deserve the job just for being Mr. Brightside?
Getz will get the bulk of the blame for the historically bad season, and deservedly so. He was the one who put together the roster and said last winter he would focus on building through pitching and defense. He was the one who retained Grifol, his first bad decision, and kept him through the All-Star break during the American League record-tying 21-game losing streak.
After finally being let go Aug. 8, Grifol thanked Reinsdorf and former executives Ken Williams and Rick Hahn in a text to the Chicago Sun-Times, failing to mention Getz. He failed to understand Getz could’ve fired him in April with just cause. Grifol was oblivious to his own deficiencies.
Getz’s best offensive player has been Vaughn, who still has a minus-0.1 fWAR. Luis Robert Jr., the only real star in the Sox lineup, has an 0.6 WAR in a dreadful, injury-marred season that almost certainly will be his last in Chicago. Andrew Benintendi, whose $75 million deal is the biggest contract in franchise history, has a minus-0.5 WAR despite heating up in the last few weeks.
The bullpen was a dumpster fire from the outset, but closer Michael Kopech was 4-0 with a 1.05 ERA entering Saturday after being dealt to the Los Angeles Dodgers at the trade deadline. Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior unlocked something that Sox pitching coach Ethan Katz could not. Who knew?
Getz’s acquisitions and free-agent signings included the likes of Vargas, Martín Maldonado, Mike Clevinger, Paul DeJong, Dominic Leone, John Brebbia, Braden Shewmake, Danny Mendick, Jacob Amaya, Enyel De Los Santos, Corey Julks, Brad Keller, Jordan Leasure, Dominic Fletcher, Zach DeLoach, Chris Flexen and Mike Soroka.
Some are already out of baseball. Others are soon to follow in the next year or two. Only the signing of Erick Fedde from the Korean Baseball Organization proved to be a great move.
If they started over from scratch like an expansion team, the Sox would have an improved product in 2025. Instead, some of those players will return in hopes that a year of development will lead to better days.
Getz said they’ll explore the free-agent market but “haven’t determined the level of free agency that we’ll be working in” this offseason.
“I can assure you it won’t be the top of the market,” he said. “But there are going to be other opportunities to go out there and sign players to help us.”
No assurance was necessary.
Everybody knows Reinsdorf prefers shopping for low-priced “bargains” instead of the top-level stars. He admitted as much last year when he hired Getz to be his GM.
“Look, we’re not going to be in the (Shohei) Ohtani race, I’ll tell you that right now,” Reinsdorf said with a chuckle. “And we’re not going to sign pitchers to 10-year deals. But we’re going to try to get better, and that means trades, it potentially means signing free agents, it means playing smarter baseball.
“It’s a lot of things. I don’t have a lot of time left. I don’t want to go through a long rebuild. I only expect to be here another 10 years.”
One year later, the Sox are officially the worst team in baseball history, with one game remaining.
It’s a record some say will never be broken.
