Pedro Grifol, The Worst Baseball Manager Ever, Was Finally Fired By The Chicago White Sox

Brandon Sloter. Getty Images.

Our long national nightmare is over. Pedro Grifol is no longer a Major League manager.

The White Sox being on pace to be the worst MLB team since 1899 is obviously not entirely Grifol's fault. This is an organization that is a complete disaster led by an 88 year old owner in Jerry Reinsdorf that thinks he's a baseball hero because the team got hot at the right time in 2005.

I don't recall any organization run worse than this current White Sox situation. I'm old enough to have seen the Montreal Expos be taken over by MLB and run more efficiently and effectively than the White Sox currently. I wrote about it yesterday but I do believe they will break the MLB loss record of 120 this season.

But let's talk about how horrific Pedro Grifol was as a manager. If there was an auto mechanic as bad as Grifol was at his job, he'd be cutting brake lines on every car he worked on. Pedro Grifol wasn't just the worst manager in baseball. Pedro Grifol is the worst manager who has ever lived.

I'm not going to take too much stock in John McCloskey. I love baseball history but I can't speak too intelligently about whether McCloskey should have pulled Bugs Raymond or Irv Higginbotham earlier. Those, by the way, are actual names of starting pitchers on the 1908 Cardinals.

I can talk about Doc Protho a little bit. The Philadelphia Phillies from 1939-41 were terrible and lost 100+ games every year. But they lost 105 games the season before Protho got there and 109 games the year after he left. I'm sure Protho sucked but the Phillies were in a stretch from 1918-1948 where they had one winning season (and went 78-76 in that year). They lost 100+ games 12 times in that span. It's the greatest stretch of failure in baseball history. That can't all fall on Doc Protho.

Ron Vesely. Getty Images.

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The wild thing about the White Sox being so bad under Grifol is that they weren't horrific before he got there. The organization was a train wreck and they literally had an elderly man as manager. But you know what? Things were better.

2021-22: Elderly Man (156-134) 

2023-24: Pedro Grifol (89-190)

There have been some horrific managers just this century. Al Pedrique was an interim manager for the Diamondbacks after they fired Bob Brenly and went 22-61 (.265). That's still a better winning percentage than the 2024 White Sox had under Grifol. It's also not really fair to pin shit on an interim manager. Grifol had two winters and two spring trainings to prepare and plan for this team to then promptly set themselves on fire.

The 2003 Tigers went 43-119 under Alan Trammell but that was an AAA team. No Tigers starting pitcher over the age of 27 started a game that year. I actually give Trammell some credit for improving that team to win 72 and 71games each of the next two seasons.

Bill James wrote that Fred Haney in 1959 is the worst season by any manager ever. But that's a whole different scale. The 1957-58 Braves (both also under Haney) each won NL Pennants and the 1957 won it all. I agree with James that the 1959 Braves had way too much talent to not make the World Series. Also, that team lost both games of a best of 3 tie breaker with the Dodgers to get to the World Series. Each game was by only one run and you could make a case both games had major mistakes by Haney. 

But what are we doing here. The White Sox are 28-89. Comparing Haney to Grifol is like comparing a jaywalker to John Wayne Gacy. 

I'll miss Pedro Grifol. We are so quick as a society to honor the greatest at something. Bur for every Michael Jordan or Babe Ruth, there has to be someone who is the absolute worst. It's just as rare. We all got to see the worst manager in baseball history. Sure, tell your grandkids about Wayne Gretzky and Lebron James. But make sure to tell them about Pedro Grifol as well.