In Year Two Of The Grifol Era Nothing Has Changed For The White Sox
When Pedro Grifol was first introduced as the White Sox manager he talked about how the team would come to the ballpark ready to play each day. He boasted how the White Sox were going to “prepare every day to kick your ass” and discussed the importance of doing the little things right.
It was apparent early in the 2023 season that this was false. Grifol’s teams often looked disengaged, lackadaisical, and sloppy. The team, which was projected by many to win the AL Central, lost 101 games and finished 24th in the MLB in fielding percentage, 26th in ERA, and 29th in runs scored.
It wasn’t just that the White Sox were bad, they failed to play fundamental baseball. The season was plagued with base running gaffes and defensive mistakes. Grifol was given a pass. It was his first year managing and he was coming into a clubhouse filled with established MLB veterans who were expected to win the division. It’s not exactly an easy position for a first-year manager.
It’s now year two with a completely different roster and nothing has changed. On Tuesday night the White Sox managed to snatch another defeat from the jaws of victory at Target Field. The game was a perfect example of why Grifol deserves to be fired, but it has nothing to do with his in-game decision-making.
The White Sox were doing everything right. Eloy Jimenez hit a three-run homer, Erick Fedde notched a career-high 11 strikeouts and gave the White Sox six strong innings of one-run ball, and Andrew Benintendi came up with a clutch hit in the eighth inning.
After getting a pair of key insurance runs the White Sox held a 5-2 lead over the Minnesota Twins heading into the eighth inning. White Sox manager Grifol opted to bring in hard-throwing right-hander Michael Kopech for a two-inning save. Kopech allowed a pair of runs which prompted Grifol to bring in Steven Wilson to try and lock down the save.
In his second pitch of the inning, Wilson grooved a fastball over the heart of the plate and watched as notorious Sox killer Byron Buxton sent it 371 feet to tie the game. Wilson then walked Carlos Santana to put the winning run on first base. Santana moved 90 feet from home after Ryan Jeffers hit a soft pop-fly that landed for a double. Two batters later the White Sox were walking off the field as the Twins celebrated a game-winning RBI single off the bat of Alex Kirilloff.
The players failed to execute. But Grifol also failed to put them in the best position to win yet again. The Twins are not a prolific offensive team. They currently rank 28th in the MLB in runs scored. A major reason why is because they struggle to hit breaking balls. However, against the White Sox, they scored 11 runs in the first two games of the series. White Sox pitchers threw them 69% fastballs in game one and 66% fastballs in game two. That does not scream a team that is preparing every day to kick your ass. It screams a team that failed to read the scouting report.
The ball that Ryan Jeffers hit to left field in the eighth inning left the bat at 75 mph and traveled just 226 feet. The Estimated Catch Probability of the ball was 89%, but Benintendi got a horrible jump, failed to recover, and let the ball drop. Benintendi has now had multiple plays this season where his effort has come into question. It’s concerning considering one of the reasons the White Sox went out and signed him is because Pedro Grifol identified him as a player he liked working within Kansas City.
The improved defense was something that Chris Getz emphasized this offseason. Getz completely overhauled the roster adding veterans he thought would help change the culture and help the team play clean baseball. This season the White Sox rank 28th in Defensive Runs Saved with a -13 mark. They also rank 27th with a -2.4 BsR, a metric Fangraphs uses to measure baserunning. Meanwhile, the pitching staff owns a 5.14 team ERA and the offense ranks last in home runs and wRC+.
The win-loss record isn’t the issue. Grifol was facing an uphill battle with the lack of talent he was given. However, he has not delivered on any of the things he promised. The defense still sucks, the team looks unprepared, and mental mistakes have continued. With young players waiting in the wings in the minor leagues is this really the type of manager you want them learning in the big leagues under?
This isn’t to say he doesn’t care. He clearly wants to turn things around but if you listen to his postgame press conferences it is like listening to a broken record that has a generic answer written by AI stuck on a loop. It’s no wonder some of the players look like they have checked out.
With a former manager who has led playoff teams before sitting in the dugout, what is the harm in letting Charlie Montoya take the reins the rest of the way? The way things are trending, Pedro Grifol could go down as the man who managed the worst team in MLB history.