When you think about it (and I’d advise against it), what’s happening with the White Sox is crazy. A team that had playoff aspirations before the season began fell to a season-high 19 games below .500 on Sunday.
The 5-4, 12-inning loss to the Twins was fittingly brutal. Kendall Graveman gave up three runs in the ninth, wasting a very good effort from starter Lucas Giolito. No one who has watched the Sox this season was surprised by the latest disaster.
You know what 19 games below .500 is? It’s the kind of record rebuilding teams have. The Sox aren’t rebuilding. Their 26-man payroll is $130.2 million, which is the 11th-highest in baseball. Their .406 winning percentage is the lowest among the top 15 spenders. Ten of those 15 teams have records above .500.
You almost have to try to be as bad as the Sox are. This can’t be emphasized enough: The Sox aren’t trying to be this bad. They’re not trying to get higher draft picks. Their prolific losing is completely organic. Their losing is a living thing, a creature. This is spontaneous dreadfulness.
So, yeah, crazy. Maddening, too. And, more than anything, so beyond unacceptable that the Better Business Bureau should be brought in for a look-see. The gap between what was supposed to be and what is is so large 101 games into the season that heads should have rolled a long time ago. But these are the Sox, where lifetime employment is a reasonable, reachable goal.
First-year manager Pedro Grifol says he likes ‘‘the fight we’ve shown, the at-bats when we’re down.’’ The fight? What fight? You’re 19 games below .500. Your opponents show up for fisticuffs; your team shows up thinking it’s Rock, Paper, Scissors.
To be fair, Grifol wasn’t shy about listing the Sox’ shortcomings after a 3-2 loss Saturday. There were the usual suspects — poor plate discipline, mental lapses, all the things bad teams do. All the things rebuilding teams do.
The Sox are five seasons removed from a rebuild that was going to lead to what sports executives like to call ‘‘sustained success.’’ All the losing from that rebuild had brought in high draft picks and talented players.
As far as I can tell, the high point of the post-rebuild era came when rookie Eloy Jimenez hit a ninth-inning home run to help the Sox beat the Cubs in 2019. Jimenez, a former Cubs prospect, had come to the South Side with pitcher Dylan Cease in the trade for pitcher Jose Quintana.
‘‘Thanks, Cubs!’’’ Sox broadcaster Jason Benetti gushed after Jimenez’s home run. His voice carried the hope of all the good things to come for the Sox and the hurt of a fan base still convinced the dice were loaded in favor of the Cubs from birth.
The Sox have two unfulfilling postseason appearances to show for that moment and that rebuild — a loss in the wild-card series in 2020 and a loss in the Division Series in 2021 (after winning 93 games).
And now this. Now whatever that was we saw Sunday.
Professional sports is an industry in which executives almost always get fired for failure. The Sox and Bulls, both owned by Jerry Reinsdorf, are the two franchises in pro sports that don’t fire executives for failure. There are no other franchises with a bigger chasm between what the fan base wants (fire everybody!) and what the owner wants (more company picnics).
This isn’t about knee-jerk fans or media members. This is about an owner who thinks he’s George Bailey and his franchise is the Building & Loan. The Sox have finished above .500 only twice in Rick Hahn’s 11 years as general manager. Fire him, right?
Absolutely not, banker Jerry tells the agitated Bedford Falls crowd:
You’re thinking of this place all wrong, as if I had the money back in a safe. The money’s not here. Your money’s in Rick Hahn’s house, right next to yours. And in Kenny Williams’ house, the way it used to be in John Paxson’s house, and a hundred others. Why, you’re lending them the money to build, and then they’re going to pay it back to you as best they can. Now what are you going to do? Foreclose on them?
Well, yes.
In Reinsdorf’s bizarre world, the point is to surround yourself with loyal employees, no matter the results. For anybody else who cares about the Sox, it’s an awful life.
The only time the Sox have been above .500 this season was after a 3-2 victory against the Astros. On March 30. In the season opener.
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