The Chicago White Sox have fired government vice chairman Ken Williams and senior vice chairman/common supervisor Rick Hahn, the staff introduced Tuesday. The choice was made by membership proprietor Jerry Reinsdorf.
The White Sox enter Tuesday with a 49-76 report, clearly properly out of the playoff race after successful the AL Central in 2021 after which ending 81-81 final season.
“That is an extremely troublesome resolution for me to make as a result of they’re each proficient people with long-term relationships on the White Sox,” Reinsdorf stated in an announcement. “Ken is sort of a son to me, and I’ll at all times contemplate him a member of my household. I need to personally thank Ken and Rick for all they’ve achieved for the Chicago White Sox, successful the 2005 World Sequence and reaching the postseason a number of instances throughout their tenures. I’ve nothing however the biggest respect for them as individuals and recognize the dedication and fervour for the White Sox they exhibited over time.
“Finally, the well-worn cliché that skilled sports activities is results-oriented is right. Whereas we’ve loved successes as a company and have been optimistic heading into the aggressive window of this rebuild, this 12 months has confirmed to be very disappointing for us all on many ranges. This has led me to the conclusion that the very best resolution for the group transferring ahead is to make a
change in our baseball division management.”
The staff assertion famous that White Sox plan to rent a “single resolution maker to guide the baseball operations division” and that they anticipate making this rent earlier than the tip of the season. Within the subsequent a number of days, we’ll seemingly begin to hear studies of the White Sox assembly with candidates to take over. It’s notable that assistant common managers Jeremy Haber and Chris Getz have retained their jobs. Additional, first-year supervisor Pedro Grifol is protected for the remainder of the 2023 season, according to USA Today.
Williams, 59, was common supervisor from 2000-12 earlier than he was promoted to the position of government vice chairman. He was the GM who put collectively the 2005 World Sequence championship staff.
Hahn labored within the White Sox entrance workplace beginning in 2002 and was promoted to GM when Williams was himself promoted.
The World Sequence is clearly a huge deal and Williams — and to a lesser extent, Hahn — deserves a variety of credit score for that. Nonetheless, we’re nearing 20 years since then and the underside line is the White Sox have not been a really profitable baseball franchise for some time. Since that World Sequence title, the White Sox have solely made the playoffs in 2008, 2020 and 2021. They did not advance a spherical in any of these years, both, shedding three video games to at least one within the ALDS twice and two video games to at least one within the 2020 Wild Card Sequence.
In the meantime, this can very seemingly be the seventh time within the final 11 seasons that they’ve completed in both fourth or fifth place within the AL Central. Because the 2005 World Sequence, they’ve had a successful report simply six instances. Since 2012, they’re 834-970, which ranks twenty sixth within the majors.
Out there of Chicago, that simply is not even near acceptable and Reinsdorf identified the results-oriented nature of Main League Baseball. Although it personally may need been a really powerful resolution for Reinsdorf, from a baseball perspective, this was a transfer that wanted to occur for the betterment of the White Sox.
