Robin Ventura and the Danger of Treating Symptoms

Do you know what the most common disease is in American household dogs and cats? It’s periodontal disease. House pets, in general, have bad oral hygiene and fairly gross teeth and gums. When left unchecked and untreated this can result in bleeding gums, cracked teeth, and systemic illness. The cure for this is obvious: clean the teeth and pull the unhealthy ones out. Yet far more often than you’d like, the pet owner will simply demand antibiotics instead. “Won’t the problem just go away if you give my pet pills? I don’t want to pay $800 for a dental.” The problem of course won’t go away until you remove the source of infection, but that’s not the easy way out and that’s not what people want to hear.

Which brings us to the failed experiment that has been Robin Ventura, White Sox Manager. His contract is up at the end of this season and it’s pretty damn hard to imagine the White Sox actively making an effort to bring him back. His five years as manager have resulted in a .461 winning percentage and one winning season, despite the team attempting to be contenders for four of those years. He’s been given more than enough rope to hang himself and for whatever reason (White Sox tradition, misguided over-loyalty, hubris, stupidity, reader’s choice) management keeps grabbing his legs and propping him back up to provide more slack. It’s always been obvious that his tactical decisions are questionable if not downright harmful and this season’s multiple incidents of clubhouse discord have shown that his personality managing abilities can only be described charitably as pedestrian at best.

So why not just fire him now? The brass has already admitted the season was yet another failure. Give the fans their bread and circuses and get a head start on the hunt for his replacement. But that’s all it would be: bread and circuses. A mild amount of sound and fury signifying nothing.

Because until the institutional problem with the White Sox is solved, it doesn’t matter who is tabbed as the next manager. Rick Hahn could somehow find a way to resurrect Earl Weaver and get him to manage the team, but even Frankenweaver wouldn’t be able to turn this squad into a contender. And that’s because overall the organization doesn’t seem to have a consistent or realistic plan on how to improve or contend. The nightmare of fixing relationships in Latin America is still a tremendous work in progress, but no one expected that to be fixed overnight. Ocean liners don’t turn on a dime and whatnot. And the minor leagues remain barren as ever.

The team drafted two pitchers who seem destined to be relievers in the first round over the last two seasons and are hellbent on getting them there as soon as possible. Tim Anderson‘s 85 OPS+ is the most successful hitting prospect since Gordon Beckham. The chances of Zack Collins staying at catcher decrease by the day. And nothing has changed. But you can live and contend for a window of time without a farm system. Look at the Tigers. Look at the Yankees of the past two decades. It’s an ethos. But you have to spend money. The biggest contract in franchise history somehow still remains Jose Abreu‘s 6 years/$68MM. The Royals have given out a bigger contract. The White Sox want to compete while spending like the Pirates and drafting like the mid-00’s Yankees. That’s not a strategy. It’s a leaky pipe dream.

Robin Ventura is a bad manager. He might even be a horrible one. But he’s not the main problem and replacing him and only him does nothing more than mask the larger problem. One of the worst things you can do in medicine is chase and treat symptoms without trying to tackle the actual disease itself. But that’s what the White Sox seem most likely to do.

Lead Photo Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea – USA Today Sports Images