On the eve of 121 losses

The White Sox are on track to surpass the 1962 Mets as early as tomorrow

If you had told me in 2019 that just years later the White Sox would implode and make history by being the worst team in Major League Baseball, I would’ve rolled my eyes and gone back to browsing for a new José Abreu jersey. Yet here we are, on the eve of losing 121 games, passing the current record the White Sox have now tied with the 1962 New York Mets. History is being made right in front of us, but not the good kind. This is the history no one hoped to be a part of, except maybe Mets fans who are now relieved to be free of this cursed legacy.

I wanted to find who was to blame for this mess, and while I know Jerry Reinsdorf will always be the villain in this story, there will always be more. The now-infamous article by Brittany Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal painted a picture of how this organization, as a whole, has been terrible for longer than just a few seasons. There have been terrible hires in every department, mostly consisting of “yes men” for Reinsdorf, because we all know his ego needs more of a boost. There was a spineless Harvard grad who coined the phrase “mired in mediocrity” and promised to step down when the time was right. A guilty conscience hire to make up for decades’ worth of regret. Plenty of in-house promotions instead of searching for someone with any talent. Because, duh, a guy who was in charge of a horrendous farm system for years would be better than actually going out and doing a search for someone better.

The treatment of players has consistently been poor. Starting with using a plane old enough to fall in the elder millennial category. Going into players being thrilled to finally escape the Single-A lifestyle the major league team provides. All this looks into what really happens within the confines of Guaranteed Rate Field. We hear this often, recently with Tommy Pham and Keynan Middleton. Or when players, especially pitchers, leave the team and excel elsewhere. You know, on a real team.

As a former employee suggested in the Athletic article, it’s no longer 1992. Smart teams are spending money, providing a welcoming experience to players, hiring people who care about the sport and look to advance it, and know when it’s time to let go. More importantly, some may argue, that smart teams actually find analytics to be helpful.

I hate to assume, but I would guess that if you’re reading this, you’ve seen or read Moneyball, or are at the very least familiar with Sandy Alderson and Billy Beane and their use of sabermetric principles to field a winning team with a low payroll. It revolutionized baseball at the time. I couldn’t browse Twitter after a Yasmani Grandal walk, hit, or home run without seeing the GIF from a highly quoted scene in Moneyball: “He gets on base.”

Now imagine a world where Reinsdorf allows his general managers to extend generous offers to players, especially players worthwhile instead of the usual washed veterans and documented abusive pitchers who no one asked for. I’d also add, signing someone’s brother-in-law in hopes of landing a bigger fish.

Not someone like Andrew Benintendi, who signed a five-year, $75 millioin contract with the White Sox, including a $3 million signing bonus, $75 million guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $15 million. You know, the largest contract ever given by the White Sox. All for someone who has -1.0 WAR this season.

In this world, the team also uses sabermetrics, analytics, smart hiring, leadership structure, and people who want the best for this organization, and its fans.

Yet here we sit, about to break the most embarrassing record. Other teams, hell, even the Oakland Athletics are feeling sorry for us.

Even horror writer Stephen King.

The communications team braces for impact every day because who knows what fuckery the team or front office will produce each day. Attendance records are a joke, memes are being made by the end-of-game tweets from the team account, and there still isn’t an answer as to who carried a gun into the stadium last season.

But let’s ask for billions of dollars to move this clown show to the South Loop.

At this point, I think my therapist prefers trauma dump days over me complaining about why the White Sox made me mad this time. I’d love to succumb to ennui or apathy, but my toxic trait is that I care too much about the things that hurt the most.

Congratulations, Jerry Reinsdorf! Enjoy owning the worst team in the history of Major League Baseball. But does it really matter to him if he’s still generating some income? Of course not. Sell the team, bozo.