This Week in White Sox Baseball!!!! (7th Sector of Hell Edition)

Guaranteed Rate Field

One thing that I've learned being a White Sox fan: Don't ever say it can't get worse. It probably will.

Last year at this time, we were ready for the season to be over. The team was mired in mediocrity, on its way to an 81-81 finish in a year that was supposed to conclude with playoff baseball. 

Those were the good ole days in comparison to this, and it goes far beyond the team's 52-79 record on the field. Here's a log of some of the things we've endured in recent days:

Aug. 21: White Sox announce plans to explore relocation, either within the city of Chicago and its suburbs, or possibly even Nashville.

Aug. 22: Senior vice president of baseball operations Ken Williams and general manager Rick Hahn are fired, after years of underachievement.

Aug. 23: Rumors circulate that owner Jerry Reinsdorf will promote farm director Chris Getz to the GM spot, and hire failed former Kansas City Royals GM Dayton Moore in some sort of role to assist Getz.

Aug. 25: Two fans are shot in the left-field bleachers at Guaranteed Rate Field, while watching the Sox get blown out by the league-worst Oakland Athletics. 

Aug. 27: Rumors circulate that the Sox are considering three places for relocation: near the United Center on the West Side, Soldier Field, or the Arlington Heights location the Chicago Bears recently purchased.

Aug. 28: Reports indicate the gunshots Friday night most likely did not come from outside the stadium, meaning that someone managed to sneak a gun past security at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Good grief, this is all crazy. Any one of these topics could be a blog post. But I'd like to just make a few quick reactions. I don't think these problems are going away.

On the GM search: I really wish the Sox would conduct an external search for the best possible candidate, instead of just promoting Getz and hiring Moore, who worked with Getz and manager Pedro Grifol in Kansas City. This is just more cronyism. Sure, Moore has a 2015 World Series title on his resume. That cannot be taken from him, but he also presided over 13 losing seasons in 17 years in Kansas City. Why are the Sox trying to emulate the Royals anyway? Kansas City is the one team in the AL Central that's even worse (at least on the field) than the Sox.

Further, if things have gotten so bad (and they have) that you need to fire the top two men in your baseball operations, why would you just promote the guy who is either third or fourth in command? Wouldn't it be both obvious and imperative that a new voice is needed?

On stadium relocation: The Soldier Field idea is absolutely awful. That place is a dump, and there's a reason the Bears are looking to get the hell out of there. Because of its status as a historical landmark, there are limits on what you can do architecturally. Not to mention, that place is impossible to get to. The traffic sucks. The parking sucks. All of it sucks. Romanticize the lakefront all you want, but nobody is going to care about the "beautiful view" or the "Chicago skyline in the distance" when there's only 4,000 people in the stands on weeknights, because fans have decided that it's too big of a pain in the ass to drive to Soldier Field after they get off work.

I'm open to the United Center neighborhood idea. I love going to Blackhawks games. I'll go to Sox games in that area, too. Great!

I'm open to the team staying at 35th and Shields. I've been going there for years. Great!

I'm open to the team moving to Arlington Heights. That location is 4.5 miles from my house. Now I can come on weeknights after work. Great!

Soldier Field? Screw that, and screw anyone who thinks that's a good idea.

On the safety issue: I attended Saturday night's game. I was undeterred by the incident Friday, although I acknowledge it's a terrible look for the Sox. If they want folks to feel comfortable going to these games, they might want to think about upgrading those metal detectors -- immediately. Judging by the looks of them, I don't think the Sox have the latest technology.

Me personally, I don't spend my life worrying about what could go wrong. Gun violence, allegedly deadly viruses, domestic terrorism, whatever. I'm not afraid of any of it. Whenever one leaves the house, there's always a chance that something could go wrong. Hell, you could get in a fatal car wreck on your way to the grocery store. Does that stop you from buying food? Of course not. 

Our risk calculation has gotten way out of whack in this society over the past three years. I'm not going to stop my life because of various things that could potentially kill me. Yes, I'm aware there is a non-zero chance that I could be gunned down inside or outside the ballpark. I just don't care, because that chance is so small that it isn't worth thinking about it. 

My advice: Continue living your life. Don't give up the things you enjoy out of fear. One day it will be over for all of us. That's a fact, but don't sweat it.

See you at the ballpark on the next homestand.

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. 

Moore will be no lame duck for Royals

The Kansas City Royals announced last week that GM Dayton Moore would be getting a two-year extension. His contract, which was set to expire after 2014, now runs through 2016.

Royals GM Dayton Moore.

Setting aside the issue how good or poor Moore is at running a baseball team, giving him an extension is a good idea for the Royals.

It's never a good idea to let a coach, or especially a general manager, go into a lame-duck season. Why? Because you don't want anyone making short-term decisions with the goal saving their job at the expense of the long-term fortunes of the team.

You could argue Moore has already done that, swapping Wil Myers for James Shields last off season. If the Royals hadn't just won 86 games and been on the periphery of the Wild Card chase, Moore might have been looking for a job right now.

Maybe the extension happened a year too late, because here's the thing: No matter how many years Moore has left on his contract, when Royals owner David Glass gets tired of him, he will fire him.

And why not? Moore made only $1 million per year on his original contract. Double that, extend him for five years, then fire him next winter, and the Royals will have wasted only a fraction of what Moore might spend on a low-tier free agent.

In that sense it is a false job security a baseball executive has with a long-term contract, though like most of us, I'm sure Moore and his colleagues aren't averse to being guaranteed some measure of financial security. The investment to keep management focused on the long-term is so modest compared to the downside of rash decision-making, it just doesn't make sense to let a GM twist in the winds of a contract year.