Eight days after parting with long-time lead decision-makers Ken Williams and Rick Hahn, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf has chosen Chris Getz to be the club's new head of baseball operations. The club has officially named Getz senior vice president and general manager, the same two titles held by Hahn before he was fired.
Williams' job title was president and it appears that spot has been left vacant, at least for the time being.
"The 2023 season was my 43rd season in baseball," Reinsdorf said Thursday (via Chuck Garfien of NBC Chicago). "It was absolutely the worst season I've ever been through. It was a nightmare. It's still a nightmare. Embarrassing. Disgusting. All the bad words you can think of is the way I feel about the 2023 season. It was just awful."
Getz, 39, has for the past seven years guided the White Sox's minor-league operations and player-development apparatus. For the last three years, he's also served as an assistant general manager. Before that, Getz worked in the Royals' front office under Dayton Moore during Kansas City's championship run.
As a player, Getz spent parts of seven seasons in the majors as a second baseman with the White Sox, Royals, and Blue Jays. The White Sox drafted Getz twice -- first as a sixth-rounder out of a Michigan high school and then two years later as a fourth-rounder out of the University of Michigan. In all, Getz spent parts of three minor-league seasons and two major-league seasons in uniform with the White Sox.
As for hiring from within, Reinsdorf offered up the following thought process (via Garfien):
"You lose a year [with an outside hire]. And here I had somebody on the inside who was very very competitive. I then came to the conclusion that if I had someone on the inside who can do the job, why not do it inside and save a year. That's basically how I got to Chris."
Getz has an onerous task ahead of him, as the Sox at present have both a flawed roster at the major-league level and a a somewhat flawed farm system. Our own R.J. Anderson recently laid out the critical decisions facing the new regime.
The White Sox are 53-81 and in fourth place in the American League Central, the weakest division in baseball this season.
