Billionaire Swap?

I have to hand it to my daughter. Despite caring for two kids, 3-1/2 and five months, Clare can still provide breaking White Sox news, as in a possible new owner for the team. Ladies and gentlemen, meet plutocrat Justin Ishbia. According to a story by Jon Greenberg in yesterday’s The Athletic, the 47-year old, Chicago-area head of a private-equity investment firm is intent on buying up shares from Sox minority investors, with the idea of then buying out owner Jerry Reinsdorf. The mind boggles, for both Twins’ and Sox fans. First off, Ishbia was negotiating with the Pohlad family to buy the Twins, and all was going well until this story broke. Why would Ishbia turn from an easy situation—the Pohlads want out, and the fans want them out, too—for one where he has to deal with Reinsdorf, a person who has to come out on top of every activity from owning things to flushing toilets? Maybe the soon-to-be 89-year old is finally ready to move on. Compared to the Twins, Ishbia would have a shorter commute to the South Side. And, if he could turn the Sox around, the payoff would be ever so much greater than in the Twin Cities. Chicago’s a bigger market, which means nice earnings, plus the Sox offer Ishbia the chance to show either Coast what the Midwest can pull off. It’s the kind of challenge to stoke a billionaire’s ego. The good news for Sox fans is that Ishbia is local-ish. On the other hand, his plans to build a mega-estate in Winnetka on the tony North Shore leave something to be desired. In true plutocrat fashion, Ishbia wanted the village park district to give him property on the lakefront in exchange for land elsewhere so he could have himself have a nice “little” compound without free of public land encroaching on it. A lawsuit settled last month put a stop to the attempted land swap. So, Ishbia is the kind of guy not afraid to push people around to get his way, a trait that Reinsdorf has always held dear. But maybe there’s more here. Maybe the devil we don’t know has virtues sorely lacking in the devil we’ve known for way too long. And maybe we’ll find out before long.

America's Team No More

Who says bad people and the teams they own don’t get what they deserve? Just look at Jerry Jones and his Dallas Cowboys. America’s Team? I doubt it. First off, Dallas hasn’t won a Super Bowl since 1995-96. Since then, they’ve gone 5-13 in the postseason. Oh, and they just hired Mickey Eberflus to be their defensive coordinator. Mickey hasn’t missed a beat. Talking to Dallas reporters on Tuesday, Eberflus offered up this gem: “You want to learn and grow from every experience and impart that wisdom onto the next crew, and that’s what we’re going to do here. You learn a bunch of things that are different and things that you grow from, and that’s important to do.” [quote from Wednesday’s Sun-Times] Some croutons on that word salad?

Rich

What better way for the Bears to put the death of team matriarch Virginia McCaskey behind them than by raising season-ticket prices by an average of 10 percent? Here’s what team president and CEO Kevin Warren wrote in a letter to season-ticket holders: “While we did not reach our goals during the 2024 season, we are making clear, intentional [as opposed to unintentional?] and strategic decisions to ensure our 2025 season meets the expectations of both our organization and our fans.” And for that a 5-12 team gets to jack up prices? How rich. Warren also pointed to “market dynamics, industry trends and a strong home schedule.” [all auotes from story in today’s Tribune] Industry trends in a hard-salary-cap business? And higher prices because the home schedule is full of visiting teams likely to beat the point spread? I can’t wait to see Warren lower prices for when the Munsters have a weak home schedule. And here I thought there was no one in Chicago sports who could make Jerry Reinsdorf look good. I stand corrected.

Next in Line?

Every baseball franchise has historic strengths and weaknesses. With the White Sox, you never spend more than a couple of minutes talking about great left fielders or catchers. It’s all pitching and centerfield—plus shortstop. Consider that the White Sox had four shortstops—Luke Appling, Chico Carrasquel, Luis Aparicio and Ron Hansen—from 1931 to 1971. Two of them, Appling and Aparicio, are in the Hall of Fame. Some of the guys who came later—like Bucky Dent, Jose Valentin and Ozzie Guillen—weren’t too shabby, either. Which brings us to the next presumptive standout, Colson Montgomery. Never has a 22-year old talent raised so much anxiety. Why? Only decent with the glove, Montgomery is going to have to prove himself hitting, which he hasn’t done a whole lot of since he left high-A. The pride of Jasper, Indiana, hit .244 at Double-A Charlotte in half a season in 2023. Last year, Montgomery moved up to Triple-A Charlotte, where he showed some pop with 18 homeruns and 63 RBIs. But the .214 BA and 164 strikeouts—yikes. But I’m not supposed to worry because Montgomery hit .264 with 13 RBIs over 19 games in September and then followed that up with .313 and 11 RBIs in 11 games in the Arizona Fall League. Let’s see if this keeps up starting Saturday. Otherwise, shortstop is going to turn into another catcher or third base for the Sox.

More Moves

So many ex-White Sox players, so many moves to either coast. I forgot to mention Nick Madrigal signing a minor-league deal with the Mets and Eloy Jimenez with the Rays. Well, the trainers will have a busy spring. The two names that really caught me by surprise, though, were Yolmer Sanchez and Trayce Thompson. Yolmer is hoping to land a spot with the Angels (for an Anderson/Moncada/Sanchez reunion, no less) while Thompson is trying his luck with the Red Sox. Like, wow. If Thompson, 34 on the Ides of March, were to make the Red Sox, that would be his sixth major-league team. The right-hand hitting outfielder and brother of NBA star Klay Thompson has had three separate go-arounds with the Sox and two with the Dodgers. Thompson has also played fourteen seasons in the minors. I can’t even begin to count the different teams. As for Yolmer, he’s a tad younger at 32 with a birthday in June. He’s played for three major-league teams and has spent twelve seasons in the minors plus six seasons of winter ball in Venezuela. Again, I can’t begin to count the seasons. At the end of Ball Four, Jim Bouton wrote, “You see, you spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time.” What holds for pitchers holds for position players. Good luck, guys.

No. No. No

I read an op-ed in the Sun-Times yesterday written by a Chicken Little of a lawyer who fears the end of professional baseball is upon us. Why? No hard salary cap. Chicken Little sees billion-dollar ballplayers on the horizon if something isn’t done. And, as Robert Preston used to warn in “The Music Man,” that spells trouble in River City because inflated payrolls “may not be supported by ticket sales, sponsors and television deals.” Wait, there’s more. “If baseball does not intervene with a real [as in hard] cap, small-market teams like the Twins, Reds, Guardians and others may falter.” So, the solution is to prevent hundreds of players from a shot at getting filthy rich—Chicken Little seems to be particularly upset with Juan Soto’s $765 million contract—by ensuring that a handful of owners get to earn obscene profits at the time of sale of their teams? No, no, no. No hard salary cap without a hard windfall profits’ tax. Failing that, let the magic of supply and demand work itself here. If costs go ever higher until fans and broadcasters balk at covering them, the market will adjust. If the contracts for Soto and Alex Bregman bring us one step closer, so be it.

Premonitions

This week, the White Sox signed 31-year old Joey Gallo (career .194 BA, hasn’t broken .200 since 2019) and 33-year old Michael A. Taylor (career .235 BA, .220 and .193 the last two seasons). What gives? My suspicion is that both moves are evidence of trades likely to happen before Opening Day, as in Andrew Vaughn and Luis Robert Jr. gone, to be replaced by the likes of Gallo and Taylor. And let’s not forget Andrew Benintendi. You think GM Chris Getz wouldn’t love to move him and start Mike Tauchman in his place? I also think the Sox “brain trust” is in no rush to promote any of its top prospects this season, especially not starting pitchers Noah Schultz and Hagen Smith. Check that. They might go with Colson Montgomery at short, assuming he can hit the ball better in Arizona than he did last year. Nothing says (Non) Rookie of the Year than a .214 BA at Triple-A Charlotte. Other than that, I’m really excited about the upcoming season on the South Side.