Next Steps

The Bears this season were a good team blessed with plenty of luck. The luck ran out last night in overtime at a frigid Soldier Field. Rams 20 Bears 17. There were at least two balls tipped by the Bears’ secondary that could’ve turned into an interception; they didn’t. In the second quarter, the Bears’ Montez Sweat sacked and stripped Rams’ quarterback Matthew Stafford, who had the good fortune of falling on top of the football. Again, no luck. Caleb Williams, the future of this franchise if there ever was one, made one extraordinary throw to tight end Cole Kmet that defies description. With fourth-and-four at the Rams’ 14 and his team down seven with 27 seconds left in regulation time, Williams faced a rush that sent him scurrying back, back, to the 40-yard line, from where he found Kmet in the corner of the end zone. Williams also threw three interceptions, though each one of them could’ve been the fault of the receiver or the coach who called the play. No luck. Now comes the hard stuff, starting with what the Bears need to avoid,which includes becoming next season’s version of this season’s Commanders, a team that went from 12-5 in 2024 to 5-12 in 2025. Wait, there’s more. GM Ryan Poles has to keep identifying talent (especially the defensive line and the linebacking corps), which will be harder given improved play translates into a lower place in the draft. And Poles won’t have the same salary-cap space to maneuver that he did this year. So, we’ll see if 2025 was lightning in a bottle or the product of a maturing front office. The same goes for head coach Ben Johnson. Matt Nagy took the 2018 squad to a 12-4 mark, after which it was, look out below. Nagy had Mitch Trubisky as his quarterback; Johnson has Williams. That’s one big advantage. But it’s just too soon to tell what’ll happen. For now, best to watch video of Williams scrambling, scrambling…

Art or Science?

The weather outside is frightful, with the clock ticking down to the Rams-Bears’ kickoff at Soldier Field after nightfall. What better time to talk about baseball? Today’s Sun-Times had an interesting story on White Sox free-agent pickup Jarred Kelenic, a real prospect-to-suspect if there ever was one. According to the Times’ Kyle Williams, Kelenic thinks the Sox have a “clear plan of how they were going to help make me the player that I can be.” In other words, fix him. Williams noted the Sox “have rebuilt their infrastructure, emphasizing player development and improved communication, creating a more efficient process and shifting many game-planning duties from their lead coaches.” Wait, there’s more. “New hitting coach Derek Shomon will lead the batters. But the team has also hired Tony Medina, who will handle practice designs, handle the group’s batting-cage work and a ‘lot of stuff behind the scenes to really help our hitting department,’ according to manager Will Venable.” How telling but sad. Everything points to hitting as a mechanical exercise or just an exercise to be perfected through proper oversight. If Kelenic were a machine, this would be the perfect approach to increase production. Only he’s human, and he’s playing a game that refuses to be subject to the dictates of analytics. For a Christmas present, I once gave Clare a copy of Charley Lau’s The Art of Hitting .300. I was never a big fan of Lau’s take on hitting; it was mechanics-heavy and a harbinger of what was to come. Still, he realized that hitting was an art, and he had honest-to-goodness major-league experience as evidenced by an eleven-year career. Give me Lau over the system the Sox have in place. Better yet, give me Bill Robinson. Robinson was what the 26-year old Kelenic aspires to be, someone who goes from prospect to suspect to solid major-league hitter. Robinson couldn’t hit his way out of a paper bag until the age of 30, when he began hitting 122 of his 166 career homeruns. Before he stopped playing at the age of 40, Robinson had won a World Series ring with the Pirates, helping Pittsburgh top the Orioles with a 5-for-19 performance over all seven games. Robinson the player turned into Robinson the hitting coach. Let’s just say he didn’t hurt the Mets, the team he helped coach to a World Series win in 1986, with a philosophy that emphasized working with players as they were and not turning them into some kind of hitting machine. Or, as Robinson put it, “A good hitting instructor is able to mold his teachings to the individual.” Which meant, “If a guy stands on his head, you perfect that.” The White Sox, like the rest of major-league baseball, has gone in a different direction. Good luck to Kelenic in finding success with it.

Hoosier Holdup

All of a sudden, the state of Indiana is offering to open the bank to get the Bears to move somewhere in the northeast part of the state, traffic nightmares be damned. Oh, and this is a state that wants to “right-size” its Medicaid rolls. In today’s Tribune, the mayor of Arlington Heights said the team’s annual tax bill without the right to PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) would be somewhere between $100-200 million. He envisions something more along the lines of the $9 million tax bill for the Rams’ SoFi Stadium. Good thing figures—and figurers—don’t lie. One question, though. If this is such a transformative project, why shouldn’t it be subject to taxes that reflect all that wealth generated?

What It Means, or Should

The Dodgers have gone out and signed free-agent outfielder Kyle Tucker to a four-year, $240 million deal, with two opt-outs. Listen closely and you can hear the whining. Oh, the Dodgers sign everybody. We can’t compete. It’s the end of baseball as we know it. Not by a longshot, folks. If anything, every other team in baseball should thank the Dodgers for putting a bullseye on their collective backs. Any team facing LA is the underdog, every win against them that much sweeter and every series that much more of a drag on the World Series’ champs. Also consider how close the Dodgers have moved to the edge. I don’t know what the luxury tax will be for them this season, but I bet it’ll be sizable. And their minor-league system will take a hit with the loss of four draft picks and international bonus-pool money for signing Tucker and closer Edwin Diaz. You know what that means, right? First, the loss of draft picks will start to degrade the minor-league system. Second, this will be a veteran team prone to injury, with only two starters in the Opening Day lineup under the age of 30 (centerfielder Andy Pages, 25, and Tucker, 29). Aging bodies plus Southern California heat will at the very least stress the Dodgers’ system, and could very well overwhelm it. Dynasty? Maybe. Or the ’64 Yankees heading into 1965. We’ll see.

Cautionary Tale

According to the Transactions’ notice in today’s Sun-Times, the Blue Jays have signed Eloy Jimenez to a minor league contract, with an invitation to spring training. And suddenly I’m reminded of ex-Sox outfielder Thad Bosley, who, if I’m not mistaken, once said, “I used to be a prospect. Now I’m a suspect.” Whoever said it could’ve been talking about Eloy. As recently as 2023, Jimenez still flashed plenty of potential, as in eighteen homeruns and a .272 BA. Then it all fell apart in 2024. Eloy managed just sixteen RBIs in 229 at-bats with the Sox before being shipped off to Baltimore, where he hit .232 with seven RBIs in 95 at-bats. Last year, he split the season with Triple-A teams for the Rays and the Jays. I’ll swear on a stack of Bibles the problem was Eloy’s lack of seriousness. Gifted with power and a good eye, Jimenez was content to get by on raw talent. His best two years were his first two, when manager Rick Renteria held him accountable, certainly more than Tony La Russa or Mickey Mouse ever did. And now he’s a 29-year old fighting to hang on. Not my problem anymore, though I’m OK with the big guy finally figuring it all out. What I really want, though, is to avoid any repeats of Eloy with the current group of young Sox players. Chris Getz and Mickey Venable need to stress that talent alone will not be enough to make this team; hustle and coachability will matter just as much. With that, players can wave to the TV cameras to their hearts’ content.

Calling Dr. Gump, Calling Dr. Gump

Yesterday, The Atlantic ran its annual head-scratcher column with its writers explaining their Hall of Fame votes. Cooperstown would be better off with chimps deciding. How could twelve voters get it wrong so often? Go no further than the five who voted for David Wright, he of the 1777 hits and 970 RBIs. No votes, though, for Paul Konerko, despite his 2340 hits and 1412 RBIs. Third base/ first base, apples to oranges? OK, if Wright belongs in the HOF, what about Robin Ventura, with 1885 hits and 1182 RBIs? Ventura had six Gold Gloves at third vs. two for Wright, by the way. And then we come to pitching, where ten voters felt the need to cast a ballot for Felix Hernandez, with 169 wins and a 3.42. Mark Buehrle, with 214 wins and a 3.81 ERA? Buehrle mustered all of three votes. The Sox lefthander had 33 complete games and ten shutouts to 25 and eleven for Hernandez. Wait, there’s more. Baseball coverage in The Athletic, normally heavy on analytics, looks the other way with Buehrle, who has a 59 WAR according to baseball-reference.com. Hernandez? Nearly ten points lower, at 49.8. Hernandez had one no-hitter, a perfect game, to Buehrle’s two, including a perfect game. But what do I know?

Not in the Least

Channel 5 did a story yesterday on whether the Bears’ win Sunday will affect their push for a new stadium. If that means public funding from Springfield, it shouldn’t in the least. The win demonstrated that need a new stadium isn’t needed to compete. No, what matters is competence—drafting, hiring, signing the right people, that’s how you win in the NFL. New stadiums don’t affect team budgets in a hard salary-cap sport. New stadiums affect ownership bank accounts and family trust funds, nothing more. There’s one talking head in particular who drives me up a wall, a self-styled sports-business guru who’s all in for spending my last dime on somebody’s stadium plan; he lives to give a quote. Yesterday, he said the “Chicago contingent,” whoever that is, had to realize the Bears weren’t staying in Chicago. Last month, he was on the radio charging it was “irresponsible” for leaders in the General Assembly to say a new Bears’ stadium wouldn’t be a priority in 2026. “Are they out of their minds?” (Marc Ganis on 670 The Score, 12-18-2025) To use this guy and throw in a quote from an Indiana politician that the Hoosier State is ready to help the McCaskeys relocate isn’t so much reporting the news as it is nudging it in a certain direction.