Sources: Pedro Grifol will be named next White Sox manager

Pedro Grifol was one of the first candidates to reportedly interview for the White Sox's managerial opening. Almost a month later, there's yet to be a report that he's been eliminated as a candidate, and now sources are saying he'll be the last man standing.

Buster Olney of ESPN was first to report the news Tuesday, and many others have confirmed that Grifol is expected to be the next Sox manager.

Who the heck is Pedro Grifol? Good question. The short answer is he's been working for the Kansas City Royals since 2013, most recently as the bench coach. But up until he was named as a candidate with the Sox, I had never heard of him.

As I've mentioned before, I wasn't really sure who I wanted the Sox to hire. I was more sure of what I didn't want:

1. I didn't want the Sox to promote someone internally.
2. I didn't want the Sox to hire a retread who had worn out his welcome somewhere else.
3. I didn't want the Sox to hire one of Jerry Reinsdorf's cronies to manage the team.

In that regard, this is a success! While I can't say I'm excited about Grifol, I'm not outraged either, because the Sox at least hired someone from outside the "family," who will bring some different ideas to the organization. Whether those ideas are winning ideas remains to be seen, but I'll take comfort knowing the Sox didn't make the insular hire that I expected.

Grifol, 52, is a bilingual Miami native with Cuban heritage. He has some managerial experience in the Dominican and Venezuelan winter leagues. His strengths are said to be his communication skills, preparedness and ability to manage personalities.

While in Kansas City, he held assorted roles, including hitting coach, quality control coach, catching instructor and bench coach. When the Royals were at the height of their powers in 2014-15, Grifol was serving as the catching instructor. In fact, Grifol was a catcher as a player, where he reached the Triple-A level before fizzling out.

Of note, the Royals also had a managerial opening this offseason. They opted to hire former Tampa Bay bench coach Matt Quatraro. This will lead some to ask the legitimate question: If the 97-loss Royals didn't consider Grifol a managerial candidate, then why did the Sox? 

I'm reluctant to hold that against Grifol, as all his superiors in Kansas City -- including team president Dayton Moore and manager Mike Matheny -- just got fired. It stands to reason that the new regime in Kansas City would want to bring it its own guys, and that's not necessarily a commentary on Grifol's fitness for a manager's job.

We're also hearing that former Toronto Blue Jays manager Charlie Montoyo is going to be hired as the new Sox bench coach. Pitching coach Ethan Katz is expected to be retained, but other members of the Sox coaching staff could be shown the door, according to a tweet from The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal.

Worth noting: None of this is official. No formal announcements can be made on a day when a World Series game is being played, so we'll have to wait until the the next off day -- or the end of the series -- before we hear from Sox general manager Rick Hahn. But it appears that these reports Tuesday are coming from multiple credible sources.