'I want to make it better': Reinsdorf talks state of White Sox

This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CHICAGO -- There was a great deal of material to go through from White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf’s 30-minute interview with selected media members prior to Chris Getz’s introductory press conference Thursday as the team’s new general manager. One story was not enough, so let’s continue.

White Sox lease
The team’s lease at Guaranteed Rate Field runs through 2029, and the White Sox haven’t really begun talks on their future. As for a speculated move to Nashville or anywhere else, as reported in a recent article in Crain’s, Reinsdorf refuted that point.

“Ever since the article came out, I've been reading about I've been threatening to move to Nashville,” Reinsdorf said. “That article didn't come from me. But if we have six years left, we've got to decide what's the future going to be? We'll get to it, but I never threatened to move out. We haven't even begun to have discussions with the Sports Authority, which we'll have to do soon.”

Tony La Russa
I was just in Las Vegas for 25 hours to attend the funeral of my cousin, Ellen, who had her wonderful life taken away in only six weeks by the insidious disease that is pancreatic cancer. So, La Russa being cancer-free and healthy really is the only important story in this discussion.

But Reinsdorf wanted to clarify La Russa’s current involvement with the team, pointing out that La Russa had nothing to do with the decision to fire executive vice president Ken Williams and general manager Rick Hahn.

“Not once did he ever say to me, ‘You ought to get rid of these guys,’” Reinsdorf said. “Now I did ask him, as I asked a lot of other people, give me some names as I was building my [GM] list. But the only way Tony found out that Chris was going to be the general manager was I told him. He was not involved in the process.

“Going forward, Tony will not have any decision-making authority in the organization, but he's a tremendous asset. If Chris wants to talk to him or [manager] Pedro [Grifol] wants to talk to him, they can talk to him. If they don't want to talk to him, they don't have to talk to him. Or if they do talk to him and he makes a suggestion, they can follow it or they cannot follow it, whatever they want. But it would be stupid not to have this man available to Pedro and to Chris if he's willing to be available. And he is.”

Reinsdorf also defended his decision to bring back La Russa, who left his second White Sox managerial run during a ’22 season mired in mediocrity when he took ill. La Russa managed for parts of two years in his three-year-deal.

“I am so sick and tired of reading that bringing Tony La Russa back was a mistake,” Reinsdorf said. “Tony La Russa came back in 2021, and does anybody know what we did in 2021? Does anybody remember we won 93 games? We won the division by 13 games. Was that a mistake to bring Tony La Russa back? Last year he was sick. The man had a heart problem, he had cancer.

“You didn't see the Tony La Russa last year that we saw before that. Remember, this guy has won more games than any other manager in the history of baseball who had an over .500 record. I reject the idea it was a mistake to bring Tony La Russa back.”

Selling the team
There was no direct question to Reinsdorf concerning thoughts of selling the team. It was shaped more about doing something else in life at 87. Reinsdorf expressed no intentions of moving away from baseball or the White Sox.

“I’m going to couch this so nobody writes I thought of selling,” said a smiling Reinsdorf. “Friends of mine have said, ‘Why don’t you sell? Why don’t you get out?’

“My answer always has been, ‘I like what I’m doing, as bad as it is, and what else would I do?’ I’m a boring guy. I don’t play golf. I don’t play bridge. And I want to make it better before I go.”

Decision on Williams and Hahn
There was a reason for the exact Aug. 22 dismissal of Williams and Hahn, and it was centered upon time.

“I wanted to get Chris as much time (as I could) to get started,” Reinsdorf said. “The end of the season’s coming up. Free agency is going to become an issue. We’ve got the general managers’ meetings. We’ve got the Winter Meetings.

“And the second reason was I wanted to give Rick Hahn as much time as possible to get on somebody else’s radar rather than wait until the end of the year. But the No. 1 reason was: Why not give Chris as much time as possible?”

As for Getz...
Getz, who turned 40 Wednesday, seems to have a plan in mind for turning things around. It includes thorough conversations with Grifol, who will return for a second season as manager following a dismal opener, thorough conversations with the players and doing a deep dive into every aspect of the organization. He also will be fighting the perception of simply being another White Sox hire from within.

Aside from overall team budget, it will be on Getz to make the decisions to turn the White Sox organization around. Reinsdorf made that point clear five or six times during this interview session. Getz certainly will solicit other input, but he is the organization’s final baseball voice.

“Just like any leader of an organization you’re shaped by your experiences and I’m a recent player, was an executive in another organization and obviously I’ve got my experiences here,” Getz said. “You learn through those experiences and that’s going to shape me in the leadership style I’m going to have.

“I realize that there is skepticism, I do. I am an internal hire and I’ve got to bear that burden, and this is my job to go out there and prove otherwise.”