White Sox manager survey results: How should they make their decision?

Reading hundreds of comments kind of stresses me out, more than it should given that the majority of them are actually not identifying me as a fraud. I’ll poke into an article’s comment section early on and try to answer some questions. But when you’re writing about Tony La Russa or the 2022 White Sox on a regular basis, it quickly becomes a flood of pitched emotions, where dipping out becomes an act of self-regard.

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At the same time — I feel it, you feel it, we all feel it — there is a level of fan discontent with the White Sox’s recent brand of baseball, and you are all waiting to see how the managerial hire will or won’t address it. Or perhaps, I’m just reading too many angry comments.

Either way, it’s brought us to this point of running a survey about the White Sox manager search that got more than 1,100 responses over a span of a few days. Here are the results.

What’s most important to you in the White Sox manager search?

This was ultimately the question that created this survey. When the hire is announced, I will provide insight into what I’ve heard about the new manager. Candidates like Joe Espada, Kevin Long or Pedro Grifol or whomever, have lengthy careers as assistants and have acquired associated reputations. But that will only say so much about what kind of managers they will be. Tony La Russa being a manager for a very long time only provided so much of a preview of how his second tenure with the White Sox would go. How Rick Renteria managed the Sox in 2018 only said so much about how he would manage in 2020. I’d even hazard a guess that Miguel Cairo as an interim manager is a limited preview to Cairo as a full-time manager.

So at this stage, a lot of the excitement for the external candidates — beyond a few things we read about them or their current team being good — is rooted in the idea that they would emerge from the interview process providing the best vision and solutions for the White Sox.

… Right?

A third of you heard Rick Hahn’s comments about recent hires being too insular and were nodding vigorously throughout, and maybe if the Sox simply hire someone without organizational ties, it will feel like a meaningful break from the past. I will concede that a “broad variety of candidates and interviews” might be a way of asking for the same thing, without being as strict about not hiring from within the organization, but about a quarter of you just voted for the long, drawn-out process of interviews that we seem to be getting.

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More than 26 percent of respondents voted for nothing mattering so long as they hire the right person, which I don’t think is as nihilistic a position as it might sound. The process is only encouraging if it also is empowered to drive the result. Maybe promoting Renteria from bench coach after interviewing 10 other candidates after the 2016 season would have provided a more stirring endorsement. Less so if a series of post-2020 season interviews still ended with Jerry Reinsdorf driving the hire of La Russa. In that vein, a relatively paltry sum (6.8 percent) voted for the front office driving the ship as the most important thing, but it was a popular write-in sentiment.

A lot of the write-ins seemed not to realize that there were more questions coming about the specifics of the candidate. A small number made weird jokes that only my editor Lauren and I will ever see. Your vote, your choice.

What is the most important quality for the next White Sox manager to have?

Since a third of respondents voted for searching outside the organization as the most important part of the search, it’s only right that a third of you also want that candidate to come from a “well-run and regularly contending organization.” Perhaps this group of roughly 370 people can all go out to dinner together and get one of those special prix fixe menus since you all agree with each other on everything.

Another fourth (25.4 percent) just want someone who can enforce Hawk Harrelson’s first rule of baseball (“catch the ball”) and other fundamentals, while a slightly smaller group (24.1 percent) voted for communication skills that allow the next manager to connect with the whole clubhouse. Though some write-ins made that latter description more explicit and asked for someone Spanish-fluent who could relate well to Latin players, I feel that voters who are asking for “a taskmaster” want someone who communicates expectations well so that the fundamentals improve. People want a good manager, is what I’m gleaning.

While the replies to my tweets explaining the rationale for in-game decisions reveal that people want a baseline of analytical fluency, it’s 2022 and Sox fans want more from their manager than just analytical competence (11.6 percent). Perhaps it’s more expected as a baseline, rather than a carrying trait.

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Special thanks to the person who wrote in “will work cheap.” I’ll let everyone go in their own direction with jokes on that one.

Do you wish teams announced their interviews, NFL-style?

I’m glad that 46.3 percent of respondents want more possibly misleading but juicy information about their teams, since it would make my job a bit easier. I appreciate the 26 percent of people who were honest and said they don’t care about my life and its frivolous challenges.

What is your greatest fear for this hire?

This seems like as good of a time as any to admit that my initial ambition for this poll was ranked-choice voting, asking you to prioritize your anxieties rather than choose between them. I would never, never presume that White Sox fans have only one fear. That’s an Athletic promise. Unfortunately, Google Forms couldn’t really handle that functionality and we decided to pass that inefficiency onto you, the paying customer.

The prix fixe dining group (37.8 percent) is worried about an insular hire, while nearly a fourth (23.5 percent) is worried about the internal divisions that a controversial, insular hire would probably bring. A slightly smaller percentage (21.7 percent) is consumed with dread about how such a hire would probably also be behind the times. Hey man, I’m not the one saying these fears are all connected — you are.

“All of the above.”

“That any and all of the above are possible.”

“Is there an all of the above option?”

“Why can’t we select both the insular hire and the first-time manager in over their head ones? Largely that’s what we’ve gotten over the last 30 years.”

“In addition to dysfunction, I’m worried that Sox management will think a new manager is sufficient change and run it back with the same flawed roster.”

Some of you assume to be consumed by the idea that there will not be other opportunities to raise other concerns with the organization. And while SoxFest is indeed canceled, I looked it up and we ran our last White Sox fan survey in early January. So, count down the days. You were so optimistic back then.

A little more than 5 percent of respondents are worried about the next manager being an algorithm in a human suit with no baseball feel. And while the overall sentiment is valid, you haven’t even seen what the human suit looks like yet! What if it looks like Bernie Mac?! You wouldn’t enjoy a manager explaining run expectancy matrices in Bernie Mac’s voice and cadence?

What is your biggest hope for this hire?

Despite maybe some dominant narratives about where the White Sox should be looking, some old-school concepts are winning the day here.

Nearly 60 percent of respondents are gunning for improved fundamentals enforcement (37.4 percent) and DA FIRE AND DA PASSHUN (21.9 percent). While these can seem like somewhat basic things to want, everyone appreciates them when they’re present. And on the heels of a season where the White Sox clearly lacked it, and the Guardians dominated them by wielding it like a club despite seemingly inferior overall talent, it’s not hard to see why it’s a focus.

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Also, it’s not like it’s at odds with smarter in-game tactics (20.9 percent) or hailing from a smart organization (11.6 percent). Something I tried to do, possibly unsuccessfully, is highlight the qualities people are searching for when they express enthusiasm for Ozzie Guillen. It didn’t get a lot of traction, but that’s why you see experience and track record as options, since the first thing I would say about Guillen is that obviously he’s done it before and had the most success with this organization of anyone alive. But since he managed probably the best defending and baserunning White Sox team that anyone has witnessed, I would imagine the support for those qualities is part of his voting base as well. Also part of his voting base is a group who just wrote in “Ozzie Guillen” for this question.

Not sure exactly who the ideal hire would be for the person who wrote in “lets be real haha there is no hope,” but I wanted to acknowledge them.

What have previous, recent White Sox managers lacked most?

A big fear is that I would show my bias and tilt the responses with the way I wrote the questions. But when I write something as snappy and brilliant as “better rosters” for what previous White Sox managers lacked, and it only gets 6.7 percent of the vote, it convinces me you aren’t particularly swayed by my words.

In keeping with the theme, respondents feel like the White Sox have lacked standards in their fundamentals (35.4 percent) and that their manager needs to better hold them accountable for it (15.8 percent). Complaints about in-game decisions (25.2 percent) performed a bit more strongly here, but I think the results have been pretty consistent. Demands for the manager to iron out the goofy-looking play are a bit louder than the demands for no more goofy in-game decisions.

Conceding how little we know about how these managers will work out, which of the confirmed and reported interview subjects, vaguely rumored possibilities and frequent podcast topics would be the best option?

I didn’t really want to include this question because it’s kind of ancillary to the thrust of the survey, and as a result, I did a pretty bad job on this question. I forgot to include Phillies hitting coach Kevin Long, and wound up running a survey right as some chatter around him kicked up a bit. If he, or pretty much anyone but Astros bench coach Joe Espada, gets this job, hopefully they don’t hold this poll against me forever. If Espada gets it, hopefully he’ll hold up a huge printout of him dominating the voting here (56.3 percent) at his introductory presser, Gerrit Cole style.

Since I’ve poisoned the voting here irreparably, beyond noting Guillen’s 12.8 percent showing, let’s focus on the ephemera. And for the sake of Pedro Grifol — who should continue to have a strong future in this industry as a good clubhouse communicator — hopefully there’s nothing to read into Scott Merkin outpolling him.

Long was probably the most commonly mentioned write-in candidate. I am fonder of the person who wrote in “none of these bozos” than the three people who voted for me. Whoever voted for Tom Fornelli is banned for life from The Athletic on all platforms. Jimmy Dugan is a character from “A League of Their Own” and not a real person. Today I learned that Don Kessinger is still alive, and special, special shoutout to whoever voted for White Sox assistant director of baseball operations “Hot” Rod Larson. Whoever you are, you made my day.

(Top photo of Ozzie Guillen, Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams: David Banks / Getty Images)

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