White Sox’s Jerry Reinsdorf Won’t Sell Team: ‘I Like What I’m Doing, as Bad as It Is’

Jerry Reinsdorf has owned the Chicago White Sox since 1981, and he does not expect that to change any time soon.

“I’m going to couch this so nobody writes that I thought of selling,” Reinsdorf told reporters Thursday, according to the Chicago Tribune‘s Paul Sullivan. “Friends of mine have said: ‘Why don’t you sell? Why don’t you get out?’ My answer always has been: ‘I like what I’m doing, as bad as it is, and what else would I do?’”

“I’m a boring guy,” Reinsdorf continued. “I don’t play golf. I don’t play bridge. And I want to make it better before I go.”

The 53-81 White Sox are one of four MLB teams to have accumulated more than 80 losses. Reinsdorf called the 2023 season “a nightmare,” “embarrassing” and “disgusting,” per NBC Sports Chicago’s Chuck Garfien.

“All the bad words you can think of is the way I feel about the 2023 season,” Reinsdorf said. “It was just awful.”

This will mark the second straight missed postseason for the White Sox after the team fell short of the 2022 playoffs with an underwhelming .500 campaign. The season is currently on pace to rank among the team’s worst win-loss records in 123 years of franchise history. Through Thursday, Chicago is fourth in the AL Central with just a .396 win percentage.

At the trade deadline, the White Sox gutted its pitching rotation, sending out players including Lucas Giolito and bringing in top prospects. Recently, the team fired general manager Rick Hahn and executive vice president Ken Williams, both of whom had held those roles since 2012.

Those changes feel like a rebuild, even if Hahn was reluctant to call it one. But the White Sox have indicated they might try to compete in 2024. The Chicago club turned down offers for valuable trade assets like Dylan Cease, and Reinsdorf said that his reasoning behind promoting an internal candidate to general manager was so that the team could get better as quickly as possible.

“One of the things that I owe the fans is to get better as fast as we can possibly get better,” Reinsdorf said, per Garfien. “Speed is of the essence. I don’t want this to be a long term proposition.”

Improving quickly will necessitate more changes. Reinsdorf made it clear those will not involve his status as team owner.