'Today is a pretty exciting day around here': Sox believe Grifol is right man for job

Judgment days are coming for Pedro Grifol, and they won't be pretty.

The White Sox are going to be mired in a lengthy losing streak in the not too distant future. Grifol will be blamed.

A lesser team like the Tigers or Royals are going to sweep the Sox in an upcoming series. Grifol will get the heat.

Maybe it'll be a questionable pitching change. A lethargic baserunning effort. Sloppy defense.

They are all coming and - as the White Sox's new manager - Grifol will be the convenient target for scorn.

For now, he's looking like the manager the Sox have long needed.

"Today is a pretty exciting day around here," general manager Rick Hahn said after Grifol was hired and signed to a multiyear contract Thursday. "You may see me smiling a little bit more than you have over the past year and gushing a little bit more than I have in the past year and that's because it's a little difficult for me to contain the excitement that many of us feel being able to present Pedro Grifol as our new manager."

Hahn was frowning for much of this season, mostly because the White Sox (81-81) were MLB's biggest flops and partly because former manager Tony La Russa was a major problem and regular foil for a furious fan base.

A lasting La Russa image will be the Hall of Fame manager apparently nodding off during an Aug. 1 game against the Royals.

A glaring lack of inspiration hampered the Sox from top to bottom throughout the season, but that's going to change next year.

"I'm going to bring the energy every day," Grifol said after being introduced as manager at Guaranteed Rate Field. "Every single day, I'm going to bring the energy. I guarantee you that our staff is going to bring the energy every single day and that's going to permeate through that clubhouse."

That sounds like an obvious thing for a new manager to say, but Grifol has earned the right to be taken at his word.

The 52-year-old Miami native has been scratching and clawing toward his ultimate goal since 1991, when he was a promising catcher selected by the Twins on the sixth round of the draft out of Florida State.

He never made it past Triple-A as a player, but Grifol started thinking about managing early in his career and the long journey soon began.

Starting out as a scout with the Mariners in 2000, Grifol spent 13 years in Seattle's organization doing a little bit of everything.

"This game just grabs you and takes you," he said.

Grifol just wrapped up his 10th season on the Royals' staff. He was Kansas City's bench coach the last three years and also worked as quality control/catching coach, hitting coach and special assignment coach.

Grifol didn't get discouraged when he interviewed and failed to get managing jobs with the Giants and Tigers in recent years and the Marlins this year.

"There's no frustration at all," Grifol said. "I have big-time faith in everything happens for a reason and the right time will show up when the right time shows up. I went after every job hard and when they called me and told me I wasn't the guy, you reflect and you improve in your presentation.

"But I could do another ten of these, I'm going to be the same guy. You just need an organization that when you're presenting yourself to them, they believe in you. And this was it. And it just so happens to be with a club that's got a great core of players that can play in October next year. I couldn't be happier. I'm blessed."

Hiring a manager with no ties to the organization for the first time since Gene Lamont came aboard in 1992, the White Sox are thrilled to have Grifol in the dugout.

With Hahn working from an initial list of 30 candidates, Grifol made the cut down to eight and emerged as the winner.

"Pedro was the second of the eight we sat down with and from about an hour into our conversation, it became very clear that the bar had been risen," Hahn said. "At the end of our first meeting, I said to him something to the effect that I know you've been working toward becoming a big-league manager for the last 20 years or so and I can't imagine that not happening here in the not too distant future, whether it's with us or somebody else. We were very fortunate it wound up being with us in the end."