Ain't That a Shame

According to the Associated Press, baseball attendance is down 1.4 percent from this time last year, a season that saw attendance dip to under a 30,000-a-game average for the first time since 2003.  Dare I say the chickens are coming home to roost?  Take a look at ticket prices to see what I mean.

 

The story notes that nineteen of thirty teams have recorded a drop while four teams, the White Sox included, have had “large rises”; in the case of the Sox, that’s a bump of 2,311 fans per game.  It might be more if not for the $5 popcorn, $8 lemonade and Dylan Cease pitching in the minors.

Commissioner Rob Manfred says there’s cause for optimism given cable ratings and figures for MLB.TV streaming, but that’s all in the eyes of the beholder.  Fans watching on multiple platforms are fans not buying popcorn and lemonade or $10.25 beer at the park.  How long until cable and streaming costs go through the roof to make up for “lost” concession revenue?   

 

 

 

And They All Fall Down

If I were to say that Cubs’ third baseman Kris Bryant and right fielder Jayson Heyward collided, you’d likely either scratch your head in confusion or ask if it happened on the base paths.  No, it happened when not one but two players found themselves in unaccustomed positions.

 

During the sixth inning of Sunday’s game against the Reds, Bryant was in right field, with Heyward moved over to play center; that’s two players out of normal position. Cincinnati’s Eduardo Suarez hit a fly ball that Heyward might have caught, had he not collided into Bryant.  Bryant was helped off the field and missed the next two games in Houston.

 

After the game, Heyward said he called for the ball, which would mean Bryant didn’t hear him.  Or it could mean Bryant doesn’t hear as well as Albert Almora or Kyle Schwarber, the two outfielders Heyward would be most accustomed to playing alongside.  Or it could mean calling for a ball in center is different than calling for a ball in right, Heyward’s normal position.

 

Or it could mean that, when you have thirteen pitchers on your roster, stuff like this will happen unless you never, ever rest your starters.  Ah, baseball for the analytically driven.  You have to love it, or not.

Swing, Batter

Launch angle, my pinkie.  After the White Sox struck out 16 times in Minnesota Sunday, I was almost too mad for words.  Thank God for the Cubs.  A day later, they struck out 17 times against Astros’ pitching.  Javy Baez struck out five times, for the second time in his career.

 

After the game, Cubs’ manager Joe Maddon told the Tribune (which actually sends a reporter to follow the team on the road), “One beautiful thing about Javy is I don’t think he’s going to lose any sleep over that.  He’s going to conduct himself in the same manner as if he got five hits.”  This is gibber elevated to a new level.  If I were Maddon, I wouldn’t want Baez going sleepless in Houston, but I would want him to learn from his mistakes.  And looking at the career of a former Cub would be a great way to start.

 

In a kind of coincidence that indicates the presence of a supreme being (and one fond of irony), the Cubs were flailing away in Texas on the same day Bill Buckner died.  Forget the fielding gaffe in the 1986 World Series, Buckner is a player worth studying.  I’d go so far as to say his 22-year career points back to the future of baseball, or should.

 

Yes, the 2715 hits are an impressive total, but so are the strikeouts, all 453 of them from 1969-1990; in comparison, Baez already has struck out 610 times in five-plus years.  Buckner never struck out more than 40 times in a season.  In 1982, he hit .306 with fifteen homeruns and 105 RBIs and just 26 strikeouts.  In other words, in 709 plate appearances that season, Buckner struck out 3.7 percent of the time.  Baez has twice struck out five (worry-free) times in a game.  Buckner never struck out three times in any of the 2517 games he played.

The analytics crowd probably wouldn’t like his career .321 OBP, reflecting the low number of walks, 450.  Tell you what.  The MLB draft is next week, with the White Sox picking third.  If I could take Bill Buckner II, I would.  And, just for fun, I’d watch to see where Javy Baez’s career is ten years from now.        

 

 

Climb Every Mountain

Climbers just love Mt. Everest, but Mt. Everest isn’t replying in kind.  At least ten climbers have died so far this season trying to reach the summit of the world’s tallest mountain.  Really, they need to take a hint.  I did.

 

The summer between college and law school, I drove to Colorado—by myself, no less—and spent time in Rocky Mountain National Park.  One day, I decided to go on a hike—by myself, of course—and see what life was like above the tree line.

 

Hiking up to 14,000 feet, give or take a few, I didn’t need oxygen, just the desire to put one foot after another, hour after hour, over the course of thirty miles, fifteen up and fifteen down.  There was an undeniable beauty to it—mountain lakes, the wind giving voice to pine trees, the play of light and shadow across the floor of a distant valley.  Sometimes, I could see the jet passing overhead, other times I could only hear it.  Either way, I’m pretty sure pilot and passengers didn’t see the speck of a young man making his way up the mountain trail.

 

I got above tree line, which I think is about 12,000 feet, by early afternoon and kept going until there was no place higher to go; then I rested.  Starting back down, I thought it would be fun to slide down the snow pack in front of me, and it was, until I realized my body would keep going once the snow gave way to rock.  I did a full Fred Flintstone to come to a stop right at the edge of the snow.

 

The snow slide was not my only dumb decision.  In addition, I failed to tell anyone where I was going, and I failed to realize how long it would take to complete a thirty-mile hike.  Let’s just say hiking down a mountain in darkness isn’t nearly as much fun as it sounds, and, if it doesn’t sound like fun in the first place, well, you’re right; all I had to do was trip over a root or a boulder and it was bye-bye Doug.  But God looked down and took mercy on a fool.

 

After that experience, I’ve pretty much been a contented flatlander ever since.  Who knows, you might bump into me on the stairway to heaven someday, but never, ever, on a climb to the top of the world.   

The Sport of Kings

Horseracing is the sport of kings, and I am the walrus.  No, horseracing is a sport whose time may have come and gone.

 

On Saturday, a horse died running at Santa Anita, for the third equine fatality in nine days, and the 26^th since December 26^th.  They die racing or practicing.  Either way, stepping onto that track risks an animal’s very existence.

 

NBC is set to broadcast the Breeders’ Cup in November.  That’ll give plenty of time for Lester Holt to do an exposé on conditions at Santa Anita and horse racing in general, but I won’t hold my breath.  What I will do is protest any attempt by the racing industry to get help from Springfield to prop up Illinois race tracks.  Sorry, guys.  If people prefer slots to ponies, you’re time is up.  But look at the bright side.

 

You literally get to ride off into the sunset.

More Old School

I hate soft toss, always have.  It took Clare a while to adjust to it because she was a pure fastball hitter.  But once she did, my daughter would put on a show during high school and college BP.  But to what end?  In a game, nobody threw from twenty feet behind a screen, and I think it just depressed some of Clare’s teammates that they couldn’t hit with her kind of power.

 

I feel the same about the MLB equivalent.  The “pitcher” stands a little further back throwing the same kind of slop that goes into the stands.  Again, to what end?  No major league pitcher throws like that, and nothing of importance gets addressed.  If anything, BP “slop” encourages a hitch that will cause outs come game time.  You’d think the slumps that come with winning the homerun derby at the All-Star Game would get people to change their minds.         

 

Well, maybe it has.  I read in the NYT Friday that some teams are rethinking their approach to BP.  Out with the slop, in with the hard stuff.  The story says slop-BP has been around since before the Flood, but I disagree.  If memory serves, Ferguson Jenkins of the Cubs threw BP between starts, and I’m betting a lot of other pitchers did, too, before the advent of free agency.

The days of Jenkins bearing down on the likes of Ron Santo and Billy Williams aren’t coming back, but a pitching machine set to high would do the trick.  Let’s see how long until either Chicago team changes how it handles BP.    

 

 

Consistency

What did Ralph Waldo Emerson write?  Oh, yeah, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”  On that basis, White Sox general manager Rick Hahn must be blessed with one big mind, because he sure is inconsistent.

 

One day after Lucas Giolito’s gem in Houston, Reynaldo Lopez laid an egg against the Twins.  Lopez gave up eight earned runs in 3.2 innings on eight hits (only three of them homeruns) and two walks.  Where Giolito threw 107 pitches over nine innings Lopez threw 82 before being lifted in the fourth.  Giolito threw 77 percent of his pitches for strikes, Lopez 61 percent.  Figures don’t lie.

 

So, tell me this—if Dylan Cease is better off learning whatever it is he’s learning in the minors, why not Lopez, too?  After Friday’s outing, he has a 3-5 record with a 6.03 ERA.  Either he’s not listening to Don Cooper, or our pitching coach has gone mute.  Oh, and Lopez comes with a personal catcher.  That would be Welington Castillo with his .176 BA.  That’s a real daily double.  Throw in Yonder Alonso at .177, and we’re talking serious trifecta.

 

Daniel Palka gets sent down because he wasn’t producing, fine.  Now explain why Castillo and Alonso are different.  Palka with his 27 homers as a rookie generated what I would call minimal goodwill with the front office commitment.  Contrast that to Castillo, who served an 80-game PEDs suspension, and Alonso, who’s in his first—dare I say only?—season on the South Side.  To my small mind, this is arbitrary decision-making

 

Early on, rebuilds feature retreads—think Castillo and Alonso—to hold down spots while a team amasses enough young talent to compete.  At some point, a rebuild is supposed to involve prospects performing at the major league level, only the White Sox refuse to bring up Cease or his battery mate, Zach Collins.  No, we’re going to pull off a rebuild by sticking with the old guys.

 

Then again, what do I know?  I try to be consistent in thought and action.

School Time

Lucas Giolito’s recent run of strong pitching—he’s 6-1 on the season after last night’s 4-0 complete-game shutout of the Astros—leads to the question, is Giolitio old-school or new-school?

 

Listening to him talk about how he changed his approach in the offseason, you’d definitely say new-school; I’m pretty sure Giolito mentioned “centering his core” or words to that effect.  Whatever, he attacked the zone yesterday, throwing 107 pitches (82 for strikes) and netting nine strikeouts against four singles and a walk.  I actually heard Giolito say after the game that he took a look at his pitch count in the seventh inning and felt he could throw a complete game.

 

Now, that’s old-school.

Around the Horn

This is all my daughter’s fault.  I’d much rather be watching her play softball, but, short of finding a time machine, that ain’t gonna happen.  So, off I go to watch another installment of the White Sox “rebuild,” now visiting the Astros in Houston

 

And fans of the rebuild get an extra treat whenever Ivan “See If I Implode” Nova pitches, as he did yesterday.  Nova got a double play in the first and second innings but not the third.  No, he got himself a triple play, around the horn, no less, third base to second to first.  Then the Sox turned two more double plays; Jose Abreu had a homerun; Eloy Jimenez hit two; and Charlie Tilson hit a grand slam, which also happened to be his first career homer.  Sox 9, Astros 4.

 

Tilson said he’s going to give the homerun ball to his parents, which is almost as nice as it was dumb for Sox GM Rick Hahn to say he won’t bring up Dylan Cease for a spot start.  Hahn told the Sun-Times today, “Putting yourself in position to win one specific game at the expense of the longer-term development of a player you feel has a chance to be a premium guy doesn’t make a lot of sense to us right now.”  So, tell me, Rick, when would it?       

 

The idea is for Cease to pitch in the majors, yes?  Then why would it be a bad idea for him to get his feet wet with a few appearances?  Manny Banuelos goes down with an injury, Cease doesn’t come up.

It’s all my daughter’s fault.

Inching Closer to the Penguins

MLB has decided to devote a website to all things (professionally) minor league, which is nice because it saves me time from having to go from team website to team website to see how White Sox affiliates did the night before.  And, of course, there are stories on all the up-and-coming players.  Why, just the other day I read about a pitcher from New Zealand the Phillies had signed.

Let’s see.  Part of New Zealand stretches south of Australia, which means MLB is inching closer to Antarctica.  I figure it’s only a matter of time before teams start holding tryouts for penguins, provided they’re male.  Because we all know there couldn’t possibly be a single female in all the world who could play in the major leagues, right?  A pitcher from New Zealand has more talent, just like those two pitchers from India who were signed by the Pirates in 2009 after winning a throwing contest/reality show.  What were their names again?     

 

   

 

Don't Bother

I admit to learning how to read—better, if not completely—thanks to newspaper comics strips.  Ditto the sports’ pages.  Well, those days are long gone.  The comics are shrinking to the point of invisibility.  Ditto the sports’ section.  

 

Today’s hardcopy Tribune couldn’t be bothered with scores from last night’s Cubs’ and White Sox games, though ex-Cubs’ pitcher Jake Arrieta did get a nice picture that took up half of the front page in sports.  The White Sox got a picture, too, inside, on page three.  That’s all they got, along with directions on how to find more online.

 

If you went online, you could find the box score and an AP story.  Really, why do they bother?

Here They Come Spinning Out of the Turn...

There are two kinds of people in the world, animal people and non-animal people; the second group worries me.  There are four primary animal people: dog people; cat people; people who think it’s OK to put their arm in a cage at the zoo; and people who think reptiles make good pets.  Reptiles do not make good pets; it is never OK to stick your arm through the bars at the zoo; and cats give me the willies.  By process of elimination, I’m a dog person.

 

We lost Thelma, our basset hound of fourteen years, last October, and I was willing to make the transition to ex-pet owner; losing an animal is just too hard.  But my wife felt otherwise, and, six weeks later, we found ourselves with an eight-month old basset, Satan, though everyone insists on calling her Penny.  Why “Satan”?  Because dogs, least of all basset hounds, aren’t supposed to fly through the air the way this one does, ears snapping in her wake.  And, until now, I was unaware my toes make a good snack food.

 

People who race dogs for a living are a subgroup of dog people, and a vanishing one, so I won’t bother with them other than to say, Bye-bye.  People who keep a horse the way we do a dog are nuts, but more power to them if they can afford it.  People who breed horses to race and people who buy horses to race are another subgroup, and one I have about as much affection for as I do people who keep tarantulas for pets.  Spiders are not a pet, and horses shouldn’t exist for our betting amusement.

 

Sorry, but too many horses lead miserable lives without ever getting close to a chance to race for the Triple Crown.  The dirty little secret about horse racing is that the glue factory and slaughterhouse weren’t punchlines in a joke; they existed so as to get rid of horses unable to run like the wind.  Horses may no longer go there, but, trust me, many of the aged and unfleet of hoof are taken somewhere like that.

 

Stories about starving horses and down-on-their-luck horse farms are a staple on the news, and let’s not forget accidents; I saw in the paper yesterday that two racehorses died running over the weekend in California, at Santa Anita and Pimlico.  According to a story in the Sunday NYT, on average nearly ten horses a week died at American racetracks in 2018.  Racetracks would seem to be the glue factory.

So, forgive me if I don’t get all wrapped up in this year’s Triple Crown.  If I want to see an animals run fast, I can chase Satan around the yard.  When she starts chasing me back (which she likes doing), it may be on behalf of those horse that die in the name of racing.      

 

Second Chances

If anyone deserves a second chance, it’s outfielder Charlie Tilson of the White Sox.  I mean, the guy comes to the Sox from the Cardinals in 2016 with a shot to take over in centerfield only to tear his hamstring in his first game, thank you James Shields for giving up all those extra-base hits.  Then Tilson suffered two more injuries followed by a so-so performance in his call up last year. 

 

Tilson wasn’t even on the 40-man roster at the start of the season.  Instead, he played the good soldier and went off to Triple-A Charlotte.  But he hit the proverbial cover off the ball--.333 BA, .398 OBP—for the Knights and so earned another chance in the show.  Right now, Tilson is hitting .326, 14 for 43.  What can you say but “Way to go and keep it up”?

 

Yesterday’s starter for Toronto, Ryan Feierabend, had a steeper climb than Tilson to get back to a major-league playing field.  Drafted in 2003, the 33-year old Feierabend last pitched in the majors in 2014, after which he spent four seasons in Korea before signing with the Blue Jays.  I’m guessing it’s the knuckleball Feierabend featured yesterday that earned him this latest look-see.  Again, way to go and keep it up, just not against us.

 

Last but not least is Daniel Palka, sent down by the Sox last month despite hitting 27 homeruns as a rookie in 2017.  And how is DP doing?  Well, he’s hitting .307 with nine homers and 20 RBIs to go along with a .450 OBP.  In comparison, the more recently demoted Adam Engel is batting .194.

I want Palka back, and his stats say it's time.

Giving the Devil His Due

Yes, I dislike the gibber talk that comes out of the mouth of White Sox manager Rick Renteria (listen to any postgame interview for examples), and I’m not wild about some of his managerial decisions, e.g., the recent resting of youngsters Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson rather than the bat-dead Yonder Alonso.  But there are other things Renteria does that I do like.  For example, take Thursday night against the Blue Jays.

 

Renteria called for the suicide squeeze in the bottom of the eighth, and Ryan Cordell got it done.  You wouldn’t think of the 6’4” Cordell as a great handler of the bat, which is perfect, because a successful squeeze depends on the element of surprise.  If I heard him correctly on the postgame, Cordell said it was the first time he’d ever squeezed in a run.  In that case, congratulations.

 

It pains me to admit it, but the Sox are tied for tenth in all of baseball with a .254 team BA, and tied for second in stolen bases with 33.  Add it up, and you have a team not buying into launch-angle mania.  Good for them, I say.

 

Now, just cut down on the clown stuff.

      

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

Yesterday, the As clobbered the Tigers, 17-3.  Ex-White Sox Marcus Semien went one for six with three RBIs while ex-Sox Josh Phegley went four for five with four RBIs.  Phegley’s 26 RBIs on the year leads all AL catchers.  Ex-Sox pitcher Chris Bassitt threw eight scoreless innings to pick up the win.  On the season, Bassitt is 2-1 in five starts with a 1.93 ERA.

 

The other day, Sox GM Rick Hahn spouted gibberish about trading away possible NL Rookie of the Year Fernando Tatis Jr. as part of a 2016 deal to land the immortal James Shields.  Speaking to mlb.com, Hahn called the initial signing of Tatis a “great success for our international scouting program.”  And what do you call packaging him in that trade, Rick?

 

Let’s see.  Once upon a time, we had Semien, Bassitt, Phegley and Tatis, then we all but gave them away for the likes of Jeff Smardzija and Shields.  If you didn’t bust it in the first place, you wouldn’t need to rebuild it.

 

Company Line

Company Line

 

Here’s why sports’ talk radio and The Athletic exist: the web pages for every pro team in America.  Take the White Sox, please.

 

Every headline combines the bland with the obvious.  Players and the team are forever bouncing back or getting back on track or looking to [fill in the blank].  And then we have the “ask the beat reporter” feature, which ought to include the disclaimer “100-percent approved by the front office.”

 

I just read a question about the Sox starting pitching woes, and Mr. Beat Reporter brought up the name of Dylan Cease, only to note the front office “won’t rush a prospect because of what’s happening” with the parent club.  Well, that’s one side.  Isn’t there another?

 

But offering it would risk rocking the boat, and MLB won’t allow that.  Instead, they allow a story that argues the All-Star bona fides of Chris Davis, who started the season 0 for 38 and is currently batting .188 with five homeruns and seventeen RBIs.   In comparison, Jose Abreu is hitting .268 with 10 homers and 36 RBIs.  But the All-Star Game doesn’t count for anything anymore, so this joke of a story runs.

 

Trust me, if home-field advantage still depended on the outcome of the All-Star Game, crap like that never would have seen the light of day.

Weather and Company

Well, you couldn’t have asked for better weather or company yesterday afternoon for the White Sox-Indians’ game.  I had my wife and daughter with me, and we were all rooting for a win to draw the Sox to within one game of .500.  Close, but no cigar with Cleveland winning a close one by a score of 9-0.

 

I wasn’t happy going in knowing the Sox would be starting Manny Banuelos, not that he lasted long.  Banuelos went four-plus innings giving up three homeruns and five earned runs before leaving with a sore left shoulder.  Words fail me.  Whatever will Rick Hahn do if Banuelos goes on the IL?  We can’t rush Dylan Cease, now can we?

 

Just like we wouldn’t want to wear down third baseman Yoan Moncada.  A day after Moncada clubs two homers, manager Rick Renteria decides to sit him.  Thanks, Rick.  I can never get enough of Jose Rondon at third.  I keep forgetting it’s not about wins at this stage of the rebuild, it’s about process.  So what if today is an off-day that Moncada could have rested up on?  Process, it is.

 

A quick note on prices: don’t go to Guaranteed Rate Whatever if you’re hungry or thirsty, but, if you insist on eating and drinking, bring a wad of cash along.  Beer ranges between $9.25/$10.25 while fresh lemonade is a relative bargain at $8 a container.  Popcorn goes for $5 a bag and hot dogs $6.50, bun included.  I split a diet Coke, in case you’re wondering.  Michele paid for it, so I can’t tell you the price, but I’m guessing outrageous.  And I brought along my own scorecard so as not to have to pay for an oversized program.

 

One other thing I noticed is how cluttered the mall is with advertising, on the walls, the scoreboard, the fence.  What, they’re not making enough off of concessions?

Is There a Doctor in the House?

For all of you in the audience keeping score, the White Sox announced yesterday that pitcher Carlos Rodon will have Tommy John surgery while reliever Nate Jones and top-thirty prospect outfielder Micker Adolfo—both of whom already have had Tommy John—also will miss the rest of the season after arm surgery.  Oh, and did I mention pitching prospects Michael Kopech and Dane Dunning, last year’s Tommy John recipient and this year’s, respectively?  Silly me.

 

For years, Hawk Harrelson bragged about how good Sox trainer Herm Schneider was at keeping players off the DL; well, things have changed.  Either that was all a lie, or we live in different times.  I’m going with door No. 2 here.  Instead of being like every other MLB team, the Sox should skip the analytics and go straight to anatomy.  Therein lies the future.

 

Would a state-of-the-art brace or a sleeve on the elbow reduce strain on otherwise vulnerable ligaments?  Are certain pitching styles invitations to injury?  (Unfortunately, with Jones, just stepping onto the mound seems to be the problem.  This is his fourth surgery.)  Can deliveries be altered before surgery becomes necessary, or should a team avoid drafting any pitcher with injury-inviting mechanics?  If muscles can be exercised, can ligaments, to the point of reducing the chance of injury?  Was Steve Carlton onto something when he worked his pitching hand in a bucketl full of rice?

 

These are some of the questions the White Sox and other teams need to start asking.   

Head-scratcher

I am a White Sox fan desperate to see the glass half full, which is hard to do when manager Rick Renteria tells the Sun-Times, as he did today, “Our goal or our view of where we’re at as an organization and as a club continues to be looking forward.”  Tell me, Rick, how many organizations look backwards?

 

So, when an honest-to-goodness bit of good news happens, like yesterday’s 5-1 win over the Blue Jays with Lucas Giolito picking up the victory, I want to read all about it.  Giolito is now 4-1 on the season and looks to have figured things out on the mound.  Thank you, Sun-Times, for sending a beat reporter all the way to Toronto to follow the Sox.  I trust she crossed back over the border safely.

 

As for the World’s Greatest Newspaper, aka the Tribune, beat coverage of the Sox stops at 35^th and Shields; any game on the road and it’s all AP coverage.  Yesterday, at least the wire story was longer than the piece on the suburban high school sophomore quarterback who committed to Michigan.  (Note: My daughter used to feast on this school’s pitching.)  Today, AP coverage of Giolito looked to be a little shorter than the story on Frank Vogel.  Who’s he?  New head coach of the Lakers.  Where do the Lakers play?  Los Angeles.  And why would anyone in Chicago care who the Lakers pick as their coach?

 

My guess is the Trib got the story free or on the cheap.  Until recently, they and the L.A. Times were owned by the same entity.  Other than that, I haven’t a clue.  

Seamless Transition

Last Sunday, Clare stopped by long enough to watch both the White Sox and Northwestern softball.  The next day (or night, actually), she went to Wrigley Field for the Cubs-Marlins’ game, and got on the field for the visitors’ batting practice.  It pays to work for NU when they have a day (or night) at the ballpark.

 

Anyhow, who should walk by but the pride of the south suburbs and UIC baseball, Curtis Granderson.  That child of mine immediately walked up to Granderson, shook hands and asked for a picture.  Then she told him how much she admired the philanthropic work he does, up to and including Granderson Field at UIC, his alma mater (and a place I have long contended neither Chicago team could locate if the fate of the world depended on it). 

 

Said child is anything but a baseball Annie.  She brings badly-needed skills to a game that’s hardly interested.

State of the Rebuild

If pitching counts, here’s forty percent of the White Sox starting staff: Manny Banuelos, 2-2 with a 6.67 ERA and 1.88 WHIP; Dylan Covey, 0-2, 5.91 ERA and 1.89 WHIP.  In other words, these two stalwarts are averaging nearly two baserunners per inning.  Take last night (please).  After a double play gave Covey two out and nobody on in the bottom of the first against the Blue Jays, he walked the next two batters, then gave up the homerun.  That’ll add to the old WHIP.

 

Maybe there’s help down on the farm?  Maybe not.  The top-ranked prospect not named Dylan Cease and not recovering from Tommy John surgery is reliever Ian Hamilton, he of the 12.24 ERA.  Alec Hansen has looked good enough at high-A Winston-Salem to earn a promotion to Double-A Birmingham, but Hansen is already 24, for gosh sake.  And then we have the position players.

 

Here are the batting averages for the top six prospects: .390; .266; .196; .205; .170; and .220.  And guess which one GM Rick Hahn has all but guaranteed won’t be coming up this year?  That’s right, outfielder Luis Robert with that .390 BA from high-A and Double A combined.

 

So, the Sox don’t want to win now so they can amass prospects likely to get injured or underperform, unless they’re so good they can’t be rushed to the parent club.  You can’t make this stuff up, I swear.    

Not If, But When

Karma’s a bitch, or so they say, and the Cubs would certainly seem to be proof of that.  Or maybe the Ricketts’ family made a deal with a crossroads’ demon, and it’s come do.  Either way, I say team president Theo Epstein will be gone sooner than later.

 

Epstein is East Coast, and the Ricketts aren’t even Midwest, not unless you consider Nebraska the Midwest.  (Sorry, it’s part of the Great Plains.)  Epstein strikes me left of center politically while old man Joe Ricketts exists somewhere on the far side of the 18^th century and two of his sons are pretty much card-carrying Trump Republicans.  Daughter Laura Ricketts is a Democrat, but in the Chicago primary elections this February she went after Wrigleyville alderman Tom Tunney with all the finesse of a mob boss.  Of particular interest is that Epstein was not mentioned as being among those members of the Cubs’ front office who contributed to the aldermanic campaigns of Tunney primary opponents.

 

So, already this year Epstein has had to endure the email dump that showed just how reactionary Joe Ricketts is (and how reluctant Cubs’ chairman and son Tom is to criticize the man who bankrolled the family’s purchase of the team in 2009.)  Now comes an incident Tuesday night against the Marlins at Wrigley Field, a place not exactly beloved by African-American players.

 

Former Cubs’ outfielder Doug Glanville was reporting by the home dugout when some guy flashed a sign currently popular in white nationalist circles; talk about your friendly confines.  Within thirty-six hours, the team moved to slap a permanent ban on the guy, but the damage has been done, with people asking, isn’t that the kind of person at least some of the Ricketts are comfortable with?  Throw in the never-ending Addison Russell saga, and I think you have a certain team president looking to work his World Series magic for a third team, most likely one on the East Coast.

If not back East, why not on the South Side?

KISS

Whenever I hear Cubs’ infielder Addison Russell speak, he sounds like an eighth grader struggling to use the phrase “social indiscretion” in a sentence, as in “I committed a social indiscretion for which I am very sorry.”

 

Called up from Iowa, his 40-game suspension for domestic abuse over, this is Russell quoted in today’s Tribune:  “I don’t think you can fake what’s really true in your heart.  And what’s true in my heart is being a better person and continuing to get better.  And, of course, I want what’s better for my family, and I want what’s best for this team.”  Russell is also “happy I have this second opportunity.  I’m looking forward and still improving as a person.”  Lastly, this from today’s Sun-Times:  “I know that I’m making great strides.  I know it’s a long road ahead and there’s no finish line, but I’m committed to this.”

 

Committed to what, exactly?  Returning to the starting lineup?  Getting the teacher to accept his sentence with the difficult phrase in it?  You can basically drive a tank through “this.”  Russell, his media handlers and the Cubs’ front office would’ve been far better off trying to acknowledge the simple truth, no matter how awful.

 

Imagine the reaction to Russell stating pure and simple, “I physically abused my wife, and for that I’m profoundly sorry.  No human being should inflict physical or emotional pain on another, under any circumstance, but I did.”  Before saying this, Russell, his handlers and the Cubs’ front office should’ve agreed on the strongest, most accurate wording to use.  Did he “abuse” or “hit”?  To me, the latter is the more telling, damning term and, therefore, the one to use.

 

In “gotcha” journalism, there’s a classic line, “When did you stop beating your wife?”  Russell should have included an answer to that in his apology.  “I stopped abusing my wife” on such-and-such a date.  If he had spoken the simple truth instead of doing an awkward, verbal dance around what in his mind may still be an indiscretion, Addison Russell would find himself in a far better place than he is right now.

Desperate Times

Is it me, or was MLB just the other week trying to ram Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero Jr. down my throat as the next big thing?  MLB.com sure couldn’t get enough of Guerrero, at least until he started playing.

 

As it stands, the 20-year old is hitting .162 (6/37) with one RBI.  That may be why the powers that be got so excited when the Nationals brought up Carter Kieboom .  If Guerrero wasn’t ready, then Kieboom had to be.  Wrong.  The 21-year old was hitting .128 (5/39) with two homeruns and two RBIs before being sent down this week.  Kieboom had four errors in 40 chances at shortstop, for a .900 fielding average that didn’t exactly help his cause.

 

That’s leaves grizzled 22-year old Eloy Jimenez of the White Sox as the best of the bunch, at .241 (19/79) with three homers and eight RBIs.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that age, or the lack thereof, is not the main reason for any of the above struggles.  Baseball is desperate for a clickable phenom, someone who will generate attention and merchandise sales.  That’s a lot of pressure to put on a rookie, especially English is his second language, at best.

 

But, for baseball, these are desperate times.    

Fan Favorite

My favorite ballplayers are just as likely to be average as great.  For every Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko, I’ve rooted for the likes of Walt Williams and J.C. Martin.  Once they leave the White Sox, I still follow them in the box scores, which is why I now check on the Pirates to see how ex-Sox J.B. Shuck is doing.  Answer: Just sent down to the minors.

 

Speaking of Pittsburgh, the A’s visited over the weekend, with another one of my favorites, former Sox catcher Josh Phegley.  Talk about a night, Phelgley went four for five with two doubles, a homerun and eight RBIs, a franchise record for an A’s catcher. 

 

Coming up with the Sox, Phegley suffered from a condition known as idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, a serious blood disorder that necessitated the removal of his spleen; my sister Betty had something similar.  Phegley reminds me of her, which is one of the reasons I want him to have a nice, long career.

 

Phegley was traded to Oakland after the 2014 season as part of a package for Jeff Smardzija.  You just have to love the Sox front office (or not).  The A’s also received infielder Marcus Semien in the deal.  Semien has had his issues at shortstop, making as many as 35 errors in a season; he’s also hit as many as 27 homeruns in a season.  Right now, he’s hitting .295 with 4 homers, 18 RBIs and 21 runs scored.  Compare that to Tim Anderson at .339 with 6 homers, 20 RBIs and 21 runs scored.  Semien has 1 error in 132 chances versus 9 errors for Anderson in 129 chances.

 

It’s not so much that the White Sox can’t develop talent as not knowing what to do with it.  Phegley and Semien are both still with the A’s (along with the third player shipped to Oakland, pitcher Chris Bassitt).  What do we have to show for it?  As ever, addition through subtraction, Smardzija, not Phegley et al.      

Send in the Clowns

Tied game, top of the eighth, one out, single to left, Nicky Delmonico gets the ball in quickly to the minister of fun at short, who proceeds to throw it away trying to catch the runner rounding first base.  Jose Abreu, the rock upon which the 14-18 White Sox rest, retrieves the ball, only to throw it into left field.  The runner goes to third and eventually scores.  But, wait, there’s more.

 

The Red Sox eventually loaded the bases, which prompted the appearance of newly recalled reliever Caleb Frare, who promptly walked in a run on four pitches, the fourth hitting the back wall on the fly.  Exit Frare, enter Juan Minaya, also just recalled.  On his second offering, Minaya grooved one to Xander Bogaerts for a grand slam.  After the game, Frare was returned to the minors, to be joined by centerfielder Adam Engel.  So much for Engel tapping into his “posterior chain.”

 

This is all so pathetic it’s funny.  Send in the clowns.  No, wait….

Mad as Hell

Sorry, but a team on the upswing doesn’t follow two walk-off wins with two drubbings.  Friday’s 6-1 loss by the White Sox to Boston and a previously winless Chris Sale was bad enough, bad not nearly as bad as yesterday’s 15-2 humiliation.

 

How bad?  Consider this: White Sox starter Manny Banuelos gave up nine runs on ten hits in the third, all after two outs and nobody on.  Nothing I read or heard from manager Rick Renteria explained why he subjected Banuelos, his teammates or White Sox fans to this pummeling.  Renteria used infielder Jose Rondon to pitch an inning the night before with the Sox only five runs down.  Why not pick another position player to do it once your team is five, six, seven, eight…?

 

As for the rebuild, it sure looks shaky.  Tim Anderson, the self-proclaimed Jackie Robinson of fun, is hitting .115 over his last seven games and .233 over his last fifteen.  Yoan Moncada, who carries the burden of being one of the centerpieces in the Sale trade, is at .192 over his last seven and .254 over his last fifteen.  Carson Fulmer, a former first-round draft pick who was shifted from starting to relieving, has just walked himself back to the minors.  I see next to no leadership on the field or in the dugout.

 

All White Sox fans get is GM Rick Hahn telling them when they can and can’t expect the next wave of “talent” to arrive from the minors.  And how will they be coached once they get here, Rick? 

Wait, There's More

How is this humanly possible?  Five days after striking out 14 Tigers, White Sox starter Reynaldo Lopez looked clueless on the mound against the Red Sox, giving up six runs in five innings in a Bad Sox 6-1 win over the Good Sox.  Wait, there’s more.  Ex-Sox Chris Sale earned his first win of the year, going six shutout innings while striking out ten.  White Sox hitters, as is their wont, looked clueless in their approach to a tough pitcher.  Why doesn’t anyone go up to hitting coach Todd Steverson and ask what the plan was in facing Sale, if there was a plan?  Wait, there’s more.  

 

Lopez gave up a three-run homerun in the top of the first to Rafael Devers; how nice for a player’s first homer of the season to travel 439 feet to dead centerfield, this on a fastball down the middle.  Wait, there’s more, as in Michael Chavis taking a 79 mph slop pitch from Lopez in the sixth inning and depositing it 459 feet from the plate somewhere deep to left field.  Wait, there’s more.  A White Sox reliever walked in a run, again.

 

Wait, there’s more.  In discussing Carlos Rodon’s injury, White Sox GM Rick Hahn told the Tribune Friday, “To stem off the inevitable Dylan Cease question, no one is going to be promoted to Chicago simply because there’s a need in Chicago” unless that player is deemed ready to go.  What a load of crap.  Maybe someone should sit Hahn down and tell him the story of Wally Pipp and Lou Gehrig.  Injuries test organizations, and all the White Sox are good at is making excuses for not wanting to see what their top minor leaguers can do.

 

Rick, pitchers get only so many innings a year, to say nothing of a career.  Why spend a single inning more than necessary in the minors?  Dominating Triple-A is nice, but not the same as learning how to face a major-league team like the Red Sox.  And isn’t the best pitching coach in the world sitting in the White Sox, not the Charlotte Knights’, dugout?    

 

Oh, this rebuild stuff gets old.  I can’t wait if there’s more.

The Glass Half-full

So, I could talk about how Carlos Rodon of the White Sox has been placed on the IL after his 3.2-inning start on Wednesday, with Tommy John surgery a possibility.  And I could ask if manager Rick Renteria was made to talk about a Rodon’s alleged blister problem or he came up with that all on his own.  I could also provide, on request, the phone numbers of two people (you both know who you are) I talked to on Wednesday, telling them that from his body language Rodon either didn’t want to pitch or he was hurt.  But that’s all glass half-empty stuff.

 

No, I want to talk about last night’s game against the Red Sox at Guaranteed Rate Whatever.  The weather was absolutely miserable, temperature in the 40s with a steady mist.  As a rule, White Sox fans aren’t inclined to risk their health in such conditions.  If the visitors bring their fan base along, fine.  And Red Sox Nation looked to be out in force shivering at the old ballpark, let me tell you.

 

They were also loud and obnoxious in the way of creatures who live along the Atlantic Seaboard.  In particular was this guy—my father would call him a “clown,” but I would never do that—who was shouting and pumping a fist when Jose Abreu got thrown out at the plate in the bottom of the sixth inning.  Oh, and the old guy in the Red Sox jacket who kept checking his phone.  And the people who started chanting “New York sucks” around the eighth inning.

 

Too bad Nicky Delmonico hit a three-run walk-off of a homerun.  What a depressing drive back to the hotels it must’ve been for the Nation.  As they say in Beantown, Losahs!

I Can't Believe My Eyes. Then Again, I Can

Game two of the Orioles-White Sox doubleheader yesterday included two plays I’d never seen before.  In the bottom of the second with a runner on first, Sox right fielder Ryan Cordell struck out on what was ruled a wild pitch.  What O’s catcher Austin Wynns should’ve done after retrieving the ball was throw it to first.  Instead, Wynns threw to second, where no one happened to be.  The runner went to third and the Sox ended up scoring a run.  Two innings later, Jose Abreu hit a three-run single.  No, Abreu didn’t fall down on his way to second.  All the Sox baserunners hustled with two out while the Oriole defense was caught napping.

 

Too bad game one of the doubleheader featured something more familiar, Carlos Rodon in full struggle mode.  Staked to a four-run lead, Rodon couldn’t get out of the fourth inning and needed 89 pitches to go 3 and 2/3.  After the game, Sox manager Rick Renteria told the Tribune’s semi-beat writer that a “little blister develops on” one of the fingers on his pitching hand.  “Every single outing he has it,” added Renteria.

 

Really?  Just this year or throughout Rodon’s career?  However will super-agent Scott Boras get his client a humongous deal if the guy keeps getting blisters?   

Good News, Really

Good news, Bulls’ fans.  TV ratings are out for your NBA stalwarts, and guess what?  They’re down a whopping 24 percent, for the worst numbers in thirteen years.  Why, you may ask, is that good news?

 

Because it hurts ownership in the pocketbook, which is the only sure-fire way to usher in change; whether or not coach Jim Boylen should be the face of that change is a question for another day.  But fear not.  Jerry and Michael Reinsdorf feel the pinch, more so that attendance at the United Center has declined for the third year in a row, this according to yesterday’s Sun-Times.

 

One of the many reasons I hated building a publicly funded home for the White Sox is that it cushioned Reinsdorf senior from the consequences of bad decision-making, as did a sweetheart lease.  But the United Center cost Chicago taxpayers nothing, or as close to nothing as a major urban construction project in the nation’s third-largest city can get.  This is capitalism as it’s supposed to work, just like they teach it at the University of Chicago.

 

As a rule, rich people hate losing money.  So, either the Bulls start winning, which is how you make money in sports, or the owners sell.  Now, that’s what you call a win-win.