When White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf decided to bypass a thorough job search to hire one of the most important positions in the organization and instead promoted Chris Getz as the team’s new general manager he cited a lack of time as the reason. Reinsdorf is getting older, and said he owed it to the fans to get better as soon as possible. He wasn’t interested in another rebuild.
You reap what you sow. The White Sox have gone full White Sox. As the team slogs through the last month of the season they are arguably farther away from World Series contention than ever. Sure the White Sox have prospects. The last rebuild also had prospects and it didn’t net a single playoff series win. The foundation of this team is far worse than the building blocks laid back in 2018.
Never in the organization’s 123-year history have they lost 107 games. The White Sox have already surpassed that mark with 22 games left to play. In the history of the MLB, a team has never had a record that was worse than 40-120. The 1962 Mets are about to have some company.
Tuesday’s game against the Orioles is a perfect encapsulation of how the season has gone. Former prospect Eloy Jimenez playing meaningful baseball for his new team after being an utter disappointment during his six years in a White Sox uniform, hit a routine fly ball. That fly ball should have been the third and final out of the inning. One of the White Sox newest prospects, Miguel Vargas, who was acquired at the trade deadline after Getz traded away Michael Kopech and Erick Fedde for pennies on the dollar chased after it only to collide with the highest-paid player in franchise history, Andrew Benintendi. As Vargas rolled on the ground in pain, Benintendi trotted after the ball while two runs scored.
Orioles’ play-by-play broadcaster Kevin Brown summed it up perfectly. “Oh, my goodness. The White Sox have just gone full White Sox.”
During Getz’s introductory press conference, Reinsdorf provided this gem of a quote.
“I wanted baseball taught in the minor leagues a certain way where people understood what they were doing,” Reinsdorf said. “They understood what’s the right thing to do in a certain situation. And nobody ever did it right – until Chris came along. And this I observed, you know, a couple of years ago. I was thrilled.”’
Does this look like a team that plays baseball the right way? In one fell swoop, Chris Getz has assembled one of the worst rosters in baseball history. The highest OPS in the White Sox lineup on Tuesday was Andrew Vaughn’s .667 mark. The major league average this season is .714.
The White Sox own the longest losing streak in the MLB this season at 21 games. It comes after they already broke their franchise record for the longest losing streak with a 14-game slide between May 22 and June 6. Now they are sitting on a 12-game losing streak, the third longest in the MLB this season. No other team has lost more than ten games in a row this season. The White Sox have managed to do it three times under two different managers.
It’s gone past the level of embarrassment and comically bad. This team is just sad. The White Sox have earned the label of the worst team in MLB history. A label that will stick with them for a long time.
