Picture credit score: © Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports activities
Again in September, the White Sox carried out the primary real overhaul of their entrance workplace in over 20 years. There’s an virtually limitless record of issues incorrect with the group, however for the primary time in a very long time, they appear actually desirous about fixing the issues they face. These options can appear half-baked (as when the group reasonably hurriedly employed Chris Getz (a player-turned-executive with deep preexisting ties to the group) to switch Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn) or odious (within the case of their present push to take up residence downtown and turn into South Siders in identify solely), however at the very least they’re attempting some issues.
Probably the most quietly aggressive and engaging strikes they made got here virtually straight away, too. Getz had scarcely taken his seat earlier than he poached Giants Director of Pitching Brian Bannister, bringing him house to the group the place his father Floyd had been a prized free-agent signee and a profitable workhorse for half a decade. The youthful Bannister was a teammate of Getz briefly in Kansas Metropolis, however that wasn’t the entire motive for his departure from San Francisco. Gabe Kapler was fired on the finish of a disappointing season for the Giants, and whereas Bannister in all probability might have survived that cull, it was an excellent time to get out of city.
That’s to not say that what Bannister had been doing wasn’t working, although. The Giants have been fourth in MLB in DRA final yr. It’s simply that they hadn’t fairly been ok to recover from the hump in 2023, after a disillusioning 2022 banished any hopes that 2021 marked some reestablishment of the Giants dynasty. When a group doesn’t attain its targets, the extent of bother anybody will get in for it’s inversely proportional to the variety of dangers they’ve been taking—the extent to which they stand out from the sphere. Bannister wasn’t more likely to keep in favor in San Francisco on the event of their two straight seasons of falling wanting the postseason, as a result of nobody has been doing issues much less conventionally on the mound for the final two years than the Giants, and it’s been largely at Bannister’s behest.
