World Series: White Sox Should Have Interviewed Terry Francona in 2011

White Sox front office incompetence led to franchise hiring inexperienced manager over a manager with postseason experience. Now they watch as the person they didn’t interview manages in Fall Classic.

The Chicago White Sox had an opportunity to move on from Ozzie Guillen in 2011 with a manager that was fired by the Red Sox. After Boston collapsed at the end of the 2011 season, Terry Francona was fired by the Red Sox.

With the Sox needing an experienced manager to guide the team back to success, the front office made the idiotic decision to hire Robin Ventura as its next manager. Francona, who had once coached in the Sox minor league system was later hired by the Cleveland Indians.

Now, five years later the Indians are playing in their first World Series since 1997, and the Sox are sitting at home watching the postseason. The Sox choose not to interview any managerial candidates and instead talked Ventura into becoming a manager for the first time.

Since Francona became Indians manager during the 2011 off-season, Cleveland has gone 352-294. The Indians also have reached the postseason twice with Francona in 2013 and this season. The Sox on the other hand, only had one winning season with Ventura as manager.

The Sox are forced to watch their crosstown and division rivals do battle in the World Series. If the Sox would’ve actually interviewed Francona in 2011, who knows how much better this team could have been with him as manager?

With new manager Rick Renteria, the Sox could very well make the stupidity of not interviewing Francona go away. But this is dependent on the Sox becoming contenders sooner rather than later. The Sox have a long way to go to get back to contention, but they can’t make the same mistakes they’ve made in the past. One of those mistakes could become a World Champion manager in Cleveland by next week.