While I’m writing this article, the 2024 Chicago White Sox sits at 36-120. They have the worst record of all teams in Major League Baseball and it’s not even close. The second-worst team has twenty more wins than them. 

While things look bad on the surface for the White Sox, things are definitely worse behind the scenes. They’re set not just to break the all-time loss record set by the 1962 New York Mets, but to shatter it. They have six games left on the season with three of those games coming against the Detroit Tigers, a team competing for the final American League Wild Card spot. 

It’s no surprise that this year’s White Sox are struggling as a majority of the key players on their 2021 AL Central Championship team have been sold off in trades to other teams, let go in free agency or injured to a point where no other team wants them. 

The youth and inexperience on the team was very evident this season, as mostly every key roster spot was occupied by players yet unproven in this league. Their starting rotation consisted mostly of rookies and guys transitioning from being a reliever into a starting pitcher, such as Garrett Crochet. 

Taking a risk on a guy like Crochet, who prior to coming into the season had never started in the Major Leagues, paid off as Crochet was the only All-Star selection from the team and was named the MLB Pitcher of the Month in June. It’s been the only thing that’s gone right for the White Sox this season. 

The White Sox have set all sorts of records as a team, none of them good. Following a June 6 loss against the Boston Red Sox, they set a franchise record for most consecutive losses at 14. 

But this wouldn’t be their worst losing streak on the season. On August 5, following a loss against the Oakland Athletics, they would lose their 21st consecutive game. This tied the White Sox with the 1988 Baltimore Orioles for the longest losing streak in Major League history. 

And with their Sunday, Sept. 22 loss against the San Diego Padres, they’ve officially tied the 1962 New York Mets with the most losses in a regular season at 120 losses in the modern era (post-1900). Now who’s to blame for the blatant incompetence surrounding this baseball team? 

It boils down to one thing: bad ownership. White Sox fans, former players, coaches and media members alike have placed their share of the blame on the owner Jerry Reinsdorf, who has refused to adapt to the modern game and relies on bringing names of the past back to the franchise. 

After manager Rick Renteria wasn’t brought back after the 2020 season, resulting in a Wild Card Round exit against Oakland, Reinsdorf brought back former manager Tony La Russa. La Russa had been out of the game since winning the 2011 World Series with the St. Louis Cardinals. 

Safe to say that La Russa’s old-school ways had gone by the wayside. While the 2021 edition of the White Sox showed great improvement, winning the AL Central, the dysfunction within the team was very evident as La Russa frequently criticized players for lack of effort and disrespecting the unwritten rules of the game. 

No evidence was clearer than during a game in the April 2021 season where, after rookie designated hitter Yermin Mercedes hit a home run on a 3-0 pitch in a blowout win, La Russa criticized Mercedes for swinging at the pitch that resulted in the Twins throwing behind Mercedes in his next at-bat. 

“I heard he said something like, ‘I play my game.’ No, he doesn’t,” La Russa said. “He plays the game of Major League Baseball, respects the game, respects the opponents. And he’s got to respect the [take] sign.” 

Things wouldn’t get much better the following season as La Russa would resign from his position as manager after going through some health difficulties throughout the season. Where Reinsdorf and the front office messed up during the following offseason was their decision on whom they hired as their next manager. 

Out of all the candidates considered, they would end up hiring Kansas City Royals bench coach Pedro Grifol as their new manager. Considering the Royals finished in last place in the previous season resulting in their manager getting fired, many questioned the hiring. 

What the White Sox got in Grifol was a guy who was completely overmatched by his new role as manager. Grifol was somewhat complicit in the White Sox going 61-101 in his first year on the job, injuries and underperformance by key contributors left over from the 2021 team did not help his case. 

Many pieces on that 2021 team such as shortstop Tim Anderson, third baseman Yoan Moncada and designated hitter Eloy Jimenez would have their production severely hampered due to injuries and the performance of starting pitchers like Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito. Catcher Yasmani Grandal would also experience a significant drop in production and performance. 

Combining this with Grifol’s incompetence and the team’s unwillingness to compete, many contributors like Lynn and Giolito were traded at the 2023 trade deadline. The team also saw players like Anderson and Grandal not being re-signed during the offseason and trading away star pitcher Dylan Cease in March.

What was left of the White Sox team heading into the 2024 season was a decrepit roster barely resembling what it once existed as. A team assembled mostly of veteran players past their prime and young players who are unproven at this level, showing that darker times were ahead. 

Grifol’s message in his introductory press conference of preparing his team to kick everyone’s behind had not truly been heard in the clubhouse. According to an article written by Mitchell Kaminski of sportsmockery.com, Grifol had a “very laissez-faire attitude to how he handled players his first year at the helm.” 

People from Grifol’s own coaching staff had grown tired of Grifol’s messages of “flush it” after close losses. 

In that same article, Bench Coach Doug Sission mentioned how Grifol’s messaging had worn ineffective after a 6-1 loss to the Houston Astros on August 17.

“Things were addressed during that game, but we didn’t play good baseball that night. Not at all,” Sission said. “We have to fix that. I don’t believe in the ‘flush it’ thing. You use that as a competitive edge. We have something to prove today. Games are lost now more than they’re won.” 

Grifol was fired from his position on Aug. 8, 2024, after the infamous 21-game losing streak had concluded. Grifol’s tenure has gone down as one of the worst managerial stints of all time as his .319 winning percentage marked the second-worst winning percentage of managers who’ve managed over a minimum of 200 games in the modern era.

Watching this year’s 2024 Chicago White Sox is the equivalent of having The Three Stooges playing baseball. There’s no cohesion and the communication between players on the field is severely lacking but at least you get some comedic entertainment out of it. 

While things haven’t gotten much better since Grifol’s firing, they at least appear to have some sort of competitive fire to them. It was evident in their recent series against San Diego where they took the Padres into extra innings Friday and kept it close on Sunday but lost both games. 

But with all sorts of records in a bad way working against them, including an MLB-worst -320 run differential with the next closest team being 97 runs away from their total, things have most certainly reached rock bottom on the southside of Chicago. 

But as White Sox fans will tell you, with Jerry Reinsdorf still in control of the organization and him threatening to relocate the team to Nashville, things can most certainly get worse. 

Mikalofsky can be reached at [email protected].