General manager Chris Getz gave a frank assessment of the Chicago White Sox in the aftermath of a 101-loss season.

“We have a talented group, there is no question,” Getz said Tuesday during the MLB general managers meetings at a resort in Paradise Valley, Ariz. “I don’t like our team, and we have to make some adjustments to improve in 2024.

“When I say ‘I don’t like our team,’ we’ve got pieces that are talented and attractive and they can be part of a winning club, but obviously we haven’t gone out there and performed. It’s not a well-rounded club right now and so we’ve got to find players to come in here and help get us in the right direction.”

Manager Pedro Grifol echoed Getz’s sentiments during a video conference call Tuesday.

“When we talk about team, it’s not about one guy or two or five, it’s about 26 guys really loving to play with each other when that bell rings, and we didn’t have that,” Grifol said. “It’s our responsibility, and my responsibility, once we put the roster together, to make sure that chemistry is where it needs to be every time we step on the field.”

Getz reiterated a point he made at his introductory news conference as the team’s GM on Aug. 31, saying there weren’t any untouchables.

“If we feel like we can multiply or strengthen our group both presently and in the future, then we’re going to look at that,” Getz said.

Getz did note, when asked if ‘no untouchables’ applied to Luis Robert Jr., that the All-Star center fielder “is a guy you build around.”

There’s plenty of building to do. The Sox have questions at second base, shortstop, right field, catching and with their rotation and bullpen.

“We’re looking for players that understand what it takes to be on a winning ballclub,” Getz said. “That starts with their approach on a day-to-day basis, being in the right place at the right time, on the field and more or less being baseball players going out there and working together, competing.”

Here are three Sox takeaways from the GM meetings.

1. Defense is a priority.

The Sox were tied for 10th in the American League with 95 errors and tied for 11th with a .983 fielding percentage.

Getz said the team is “set out to really improve our defensive play, which will allow our pitchers to attack the zone and be more efficient.”

The Sox are aiming for steady defenders who have a knack for “making plays you are supposed to make,” Getz said.

“We made too many (defensive) mistakes through the years,” Getz said. “When certain plays aren’t being made, it’s a traumatic feeling for a team, it’s a traumatic feeling for pitchers.

“I really want to just settle back down so pitchers are comfortable attacking the zone and outs are made where they are supposed to be made.”

2. The Sox had a ‘heavy’ conversation when deciding to decline Liam Hendriks’ club option.

The Sox on Saturday decided to decline shortstop Tim Anderson’s club option for 2024. The day before, they took the same route with closer Liam Hendriks.

The reliever’s deal included a $15 million buyout that would be paid in 10 equal installments from 2024-33.

Hendriks appeared in five games in 2023 after an inspirational return from non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He had season-ending Tommy John surgery in August, with 12 to 14 months as the timeline for coming back.

“That conversation was a heavy one, because of what he’s meant to this game, not only the White Sox,” Getz said. “But you talk about an open book, Liam is very much an open book and very easy to talk to, and he understood where we were coming from.

“And just like (Anderson), if there’s a situation that makes sense for both of us, we’d certainly welcome Liam back, as well.”

3. There were plenty of nuggets to fill a notebook.

Yoán Moncada has played 203 career games at second base.

Could the third baseman could see time at that position again?

“I think he is capable of playing different positions,” Getz said. “I think he’s a better third baseman than second baseman. That doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be perhaps games he goes over to second or plays first base and perhaps even the outfield. We’ll do what’s best for our club.”

While Moncada has never played first, Getz said, “He’s a very good athlete. And if that means we need to have Yoán be more versatile to help our lineup on a nightly basis, you do that.”

The Sox said former manager Tony La Russa is a senior adviser with the club.

“That type of experience is invaluable, not only in the team-building aspect with so many little pieces that go into a major league club, there is going to be mentoring with some of our minor-league coaches and our players as well,” Getz said. “He’s an asset. I’m going to take advantage of him.”

Look for the Sox to shift their international signing approach.

“We’re going to certainly attack things a little more strongly on the pitching front,” Getz said. “There are different ways to allocate international bonus money. We had a meeting last week with (special assistant to the general manager, international operations) Marco (Paddy) and everyone else in our front office and we’re putting together a strategy for the White Sox moving forward. But you can expect a different approach.”

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Just two weeks ago, Keaton Mitchell’s NFL career was more possibility than reality.

Yes, the Ravens rookie running back had tantalized fans with Ferrari-grade acceleration during training camp and had made the team as an undrafted free agent. But he started the season on injured reserve and had touched the ball exactly once going into the Ravens’ Nov. 5 game against the Seattle Seahawks.

Nine carries and 138 yards later, his name was on the lips of every fantasy football manager in the country. If anything, Mitchell seemed more untouchable a week later against the Cleveland Browns, running away from the best defense in football to put the Ravens up 14-0 in the first quarter. He looked like a video game character whose speed had accidentally been set 25% higher than everyone else’s.

“I can’t call it; you’ve got to see it,” quarterback Lamar Jackson said, grasping for words to capture Mitchell’s burst. “Every time he touches the ball, it’s like he’s right in front of me and next thing you know, he’s in the end zone.”

After the rookie turned a short pass into a 32-yard gain to set up another score against Cleveland, anything seemed possible.

Mitchell touched the ball twice the rest of the game, setting off a firestorm among Ravens fans who wondered why this potent speedster sat on the sideline as a 15-point lead slipped away.

In two games, the soft-spoken 21-year-old moved himself from the fringes to the heart of Baltimore football discourse.

“I don’t really focus on things like that,” Mitchell said Tuesday. “I’m just here to do my job and make things happen when I get my chance.”

What about facing the two-time defending AFC North champion Cincinnati Bengals in prime time Thursday?

“I ain’t never really experienced nothing like this,” he said. “I don’t know how big this is supposed to be.”

In the next breath, Mitchell said it would be “just another game.”

Ravens fans and fantasy gurus will surely keep an eye on Mitchell’s usage given his fade from the game plan against the Browns.

Coach John Harbaugh acknowledged that the Ravens might have benefited from keeping the rookie more involved. “Looking back on it, would we have wanted him out there more? Yes,” he said Monday. “I think that’ll factor into this game plan. The way it got called [against Cleveland] — those plays weren’t the ones he was scheduled for.”

Why did offensive coordinator Todd Monken steer away from Mitchell’s hot hand while the Ravens averaged 3.4 yards per carry in the second half? The rookie had demonstrated he could run between the tackles against Seattle, and he’s also a threat to line up wide for a pass route or motion into a jet sweep.

“It’s a very good question,” Harbaugh said. “I think it’s something that’s probably … As you look back on it, [it’s] part of the process of getting a young guy in there and working him into the game plan as part of the process as we go. I don’t think we felt probably as an offensive coaching staff we were going to throw the whole game plan on him. Those are the plays that get called from the groupings that were called in the second half.”

While fans were happy to second guess the Ravens’ process, Mitchell showed little interest in stoking controversy.

“Hopefully, I can get in the game a little bit more,” he said. “Whatever happens, happens. If it comes my way, I’ll make the best of it.”

Spoken like a second-generation NFL player whose father, Anthony, helped the Ravens win their first Super Bowl.

“Just always be ready; you don’t ever not want to be ready when your name’s called,” he said, recounting the advice he received at home. “Things happen, but when my name’s called, I’m going to do my best.”

Harbaugh believes the sons of NFL players are unusually equipped to deal with the inevitable crests and dips of a football life.

“I think there really is an advantage,” he said of Mitchell. “He comes from a great family. He’s been raised so well, and he’s been raised in the football environment where he’s watched his dad. He’s proud of his dad. He’s seen the old clips of his dad with the Ravens. It’s very meaningful to him to be in the National Football League, to be here.”

Mitchell closed his college career with seven straight 100-yard rushing games, scoring a dozen touchdowns in that span, but East Carolina had little chance to take center stage playing in the American Athletic Conference. He then went undrafted as teams turned up their noses at his 4.37-second 40-yard dash time because they feared his 5-foot-8, 191-pound frame would not hold up to NFL pounding.

So this really is his first big bow on the national scene. “Just the social media aspect, you know everybody’s watching around the world,” he said. “You get attention all over the world, not just locally.”

He’s coping by keeping his life as simple as possible. When a hole opens, he knows what to do with it.

“If I get some space like that, I’m hoping for a touchdown,” he said. “I hope I don’t get caught. That’s the only thing. My friends are going to be on me, so I can’t get caught.”

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Musical theater master Stephen Sondheim surely went to his grave knowing that he was deeply appreciated. In March of 2020, the New York Times devoted a nine-page supplement to him on the eve of his 90th birthday, when a revival of his 1970 musical, “Company,” was set to open on Broadway. While COVID abruptly wiped live theater away, dozens of the biggest names in Broadway and Hollywood created an online-only tribute to him, featuring songs from a half-century of his musicals.

That production of “Company” finally opened in November of 2021, and Sondheim attended a preview 11 days before his death. What he experienced was more than just a revival: It was a reimagining, transforming the central character from male to female, his romantic liaisons from female to male, and changing one of the five couples in their orbit to two gay men.

Britney Coleman as Bobbie and the North American Tour of “Company.” (Matthew Murphy)

It took home five Tonys last year, including “Best Revival of a Musical,” and now the touring version has landed at Minneapolis’ Orpheum Theatre. It’s quite an entertaining almost-three-hours of musical theater, full of strong voices, vivid characterizations and imaginative staging ideas, the 14-person cast selling every song with passion.

When “Company” debuted in 1970, it was the rare Broadway musical that could be about any of the “Another Hundred People” that theatergoers had passed on a New York City street that day. It’s also less a story than a series of vignettes about a woman turning 35 and visiting with five couples who present the pros and cons of committed relationships.

Perhaps Sondheim (who wrote both the music and lyrics) and book writer George Furth set out to defy the conventional manner of making musical theater, which is to take a story and set it to music. For it often seems that Sondheim could have written the songs first, based on the agreed-upon theme, Furth then figuring out how to assemble them into a musical.

Yet this is an almost unimpeachable production. It was director Marianne Elliott’s idea to make the gender switches (originally for a 2018 London revival; Sondheim loved the idea) and she’s fashioned each scene and song into an engaging miniature, bursting with colorful characters. And Liam Steel’s clever choreography is meticulously executed on Bunny Christie’s set full of adjoining frames, brownstones and balconies, and benches made from the letters that spell “Company.”

Britney Coleman carries the show engagingly as protagonist Bobbie. It’s a tricky role, in that she’s something of a straightwoman for her flamboyant friends, but Coleman seizes scenes when given the chance, particularly on showstopping ballads like “Marry Me a Little” and “Being Alive.” The latter (the last of his songs that Sondheim ever experienced in a theater) brings energy back to a second act that gradually peters out before it.

Then again, it’s hard to top the hilarious first-act production number that is “Getting Married Today.” Matt Rodin’s rapidly pattered evocation of a groom getting cold feet is a hoot, aided by a choir that explodes out of every portal in his apartment. It’s a brilliant piece of musical comedy that will surely stand as one of the most memorable moments on a Twin Cities stage this year.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at wordhub@yahoo.com.

‘Company’

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 1 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday

Where: Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis

Tickets: $139-$30, available at hennepintheatretrust.org

Capsule: While relatively plotless, it’s a passionately performed showcase for Stephen Sondheim’s songcraft.

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