South Side Sox Podcast 128 — Lowered expectations

With the (still unofficial) word breaking early on Tuesday that Pedro Grifol was the new White Sox manager, members of the crack SSS Breaking News crew saw the Sox logo beamed up into the night sky and assembled to digest this new wrinkle on the age-old soap opera at 35th & Shields.

Tommy Barbee, Jordan Hass, Allie Wesel, Melissa Sage-Bollenbach, Joe Resis, Dante Jones and Brian O’Neill circled the Zoom table, with a discussion by sometimes-hatted, sometimes-dancing, sometimes-aching, and pretty much always-joking moderator Brett Ballantini.

It’s an hour-plus of SSS takes on the hire, process, and ramifications on bringing Grifol on:

• Immediate reaction to the news
• Who really wanted Grifol? (Hint: Rick Hahn, because he has hired a manager he can best work with control)
• White Sox Baseball 2023: It Could Have Been Worse
• What’s one positive and one negative ramification of the hire?
• Brian questions the knee-jerk dismissal of the hire simply because Kansas City didn’t want him; Dante demurs
• Various panelists at various points are guilty to drinking the White Sox Kool-Aid
• To that end, Tommy is a bit incredulous (and disappointed) at the volume of positive spins put on the hire, when it’s just going to be same-old, same-old
• White Sox Baseball 2023: Safe Choices
• Speed round 1: Do you like this hire?
• Speed round 2: Was Grifol the White Sox’s first choice for manager?
• Speed round, final: Are you more or less excited for 2023 after this managerial hire?

Listen below, on our built-in Megaphone player:

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