Any Takers?

Wow, White Sox reliever Jordan Leasure gave up a walk-off, two-run homerun to Luis Urias with one out in the bottom of the tenth inning for a 3-2 A’s win. Who’d have thought that was possible, I mean, other than me? Not Sox manager Will Venable, that’s for sure. If I’m Venable (perish the thought), I’d take note of what Leasure said after the game: “At the end of the day, if I could go back in time, I’d probably make the same exact pitch and do it again. He [Urias] just be me that time, and sometimes that happens.” [quote from online story in today’s Tribune] Only with Leasure pitching, that’s going to be the result more often than not. Not to be cruel (but maybe a tad masochistic), look at Leasure’s stats, 0-4 with a 5.88 ERA over two seasons. So far this year, in just over a month, he’s appeared twelve times and given up runs four times. That translates into a 0-2 record with two saves and a 4.50 ERA. Any takers on that ERA going up in the not too distant future? Any takers on Tim Elko putting in an appearance at first base before long? Elko is an unheralded if large—as in 6’3”, 250 pounds—at Triple-A Charlotte. Picked in the tenth round of the 2022 draft, the 26-year old righthanded hitter has amassed 60 homeruns and 215 RBIs to go with a .292 BA in his three-plus seasons in the Sox system. Elko isn’t a top-30 prospect, but— It's getting hard to ignore the numbers he’s putting up and the numbers Andrew Vaughn isn’t. Yesterday, Elko hit two homers, giving him nine on the season, good for four RBIs, and twenty total, along with a .354 BA. Like I said, hard to ignore. And then there’s Vaughn. As we head into May this week, the Sox starting first baseman is hitting an anemic .157 with three homers and eleven RBIs. Yesterday, he went 1-for-5, a single. He also grounded out three times, including the tenth inning when he hit into a double play with runners on the corners and one out. A hit meant a run at least and would’ve extended the Sox lead until maybe it was Leasure-proof. A 26-year old rookie can establish himself; the odds are on the long side, but it happens. And with Vaughn going the way he is, we may soon find out what Tim Elko has to offer.

Say What?

We live in strange times. It used to be April meant baseball, and plenty of it. Now, football has bullied its way onto the calendar with its annual draft. For reasons beyond me, a whole bunch of people out there appear to care about who takes whom in the seventh round. I say this after having watched a clip of a zoom call the Bears’ seventh-round pick had with WGN Sports. If only I could find a baseball story that made sense. Instead, the Tribune ran one today straight out of the “Twilight Zone,” where major-league teams employ a “director of hitting” and a “biomechanist.” The White Sox pay Ryan Fuller to be their director and to talk about third baseman Miguel Vargas (.189 BA) like this: Being able to have where his hands could go to with his first move stay a little bit higher to cover the top part of the zone when they were going high to low; his barrel was underneath. He crushed the bottom part of the zone but a pretty good hole in the middle, top part where he was getting attacked swinging to find a solution for that part of the zone.” Got that? Maybe the gibber makes sense to a hitter tuned in; Vargas is, I admit, starting to hit, batting .308 (8-for-26) over his last seven games. But here’s a thought—what if he’s just a good low-ball hitter? Can the biomechanist really increase his hot zones? The Sox are tied with the Bluejays for 26th place in runs scored (93) and rank dead last in team batting average at.209; their on-base percentage (.284) put them at 28th. The figures don’t lie. It’s the people doing the talking I wonder about.

Nighty Night

It was 11 PM last nighjt and I’d had enough reading about the Battle of the Somme. After a quick check of the White Sox game, they were down 5-3 going into the bottom of the eighth against the A’s in Sacramento (!), time for bed. Daddy doesn’t stay up late anymore to catch the latest installment of the Reinsdorf Follies. Sure enough, I woke up this morning to find the (un)lovable misfits lost 6-5, in large part because of a porous bullpen and the continued atrocious play of centerfielder Luis Robert Jr., who went a whopping 1-for-4 with a walk, a run and three strikeouts. Robert is batting .143 on the season with a godawful six RBIs. Jacob Amaya, who would never be confused with a major-league hitter, has four RBIs in 46 at-bats (to Robert’s six in 84). The one thing that Robert excels at right now is striking out, 33 times so far for a 39 percent rate (throw in his fourteen walks, and it goes down to a slightly less egregious 33.7 percent). And still he bats up in the order (second last night), and still manager Will Venable calls upon his inner Mickey Mouse to offer excuses. Robert also had an error in the field that cost the Sox a run in the sixth inning. The future Mouse defended the 27-year old, telling reporters afterwards, “I'm not sure if it [either the ball or Robert’s career, at this point it’s hard to say] snaked on him or what happened as he got to it. It was unfortunate that the play went that way, but he's going out there and giving everything he's got.” No, Skipper, he isn’t, and pretending otherwise only makes it worse. [quote from today’s story on team website] A stopped clock gets the time right twice a day, or so the saying goes. Starter Shane Smith and utilityman Brooks Baldwin would be the Sox front-office equivalent of that, Smith a Rule-5 pickup by Chris Getz and Baldwin a twelfth-round draft choice by Rick Hahn (!!) in 2022. Baldwin hit a two-run homerun in the ninth last night to set up the final score of 6-5, A’s. The unheralded Baldwin has twelve RBIs in 68 at-bats. Maybe he could offer some batting tips to his teammate Robert? Continuing with the broken-clock metaphor, we also have Hahn (!!!) to thank for Edgar Quero, acquired from the Angels in exchange for Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez about a month before Hahn was shown the door in late August of 2023. Quero looks to be a keeper, and there was no way Reinsdorf was going to sign either Giolito or Lopez, who were in their walk year. Also keep an eye on the Sox possible shortstop of the future, and I don’t mean Colson Montgomery, he of the .169 BA at Triple-A. I do mean 20-year old William Bergolla, a middle-infielder at Double-A Birmingham; Getz got him last summer from the Phillies for reliever Tanner Banks. Bergolla hit .300 for two teams in High-A last season and is hitting .328 this season for Double-A Birmingham. Colson Montgomery is the anointed one at short in large part because he fits the analytics-driven profile of what a hitter should be, tall (6’3”, 230 pounds) and strong (eighteen homeruns and 21 doubles at Triple-A Charlotte last year). Too bad he only hit .214, which happens to be 45 points higher than he’s hitting right now. No doubt it’s just a problem with his mechanics that can be tweaked once his swing his analyzed with the right gizmos. The Dr. Frankensteins who control most front offices in baseball wouldn’t take a second look at Bergolla, who stands a mere 5’9”. Yeah, nice eye and some speed (27 stolen bases last year, nine already this season), but not enough hard contact. Lucky for Bergolla the White Sox organization is so dysfunctional he has a real shot at making the major-league roster by this time next year. I can dream, right?

Full Circle

On Christmas Eve 1992, I carried my thirteen-month old daughter into Grandstand Sports on the corner of 35th and Wallace. Michele was working, and I had to pick up my Christmas gift, a 1938-41 White Sox varsity jacket reissued by Mitchell and Ness. For over 30 years, I wore that jacket. It had a red, wool body and tan, leather sleeves. The logo went on the left side of the chest, a large blue S with a smaller O and X fitting inside the two loops of the S. Sox great Billy Pierce saw me wearing it once and approved. I wore and wore the jacket until the leather wore in places, with holes by the cuffs and creases that threatened to turn into rips.. On Wednesday, Maeve was over when another 1938-41 White Sox jacket arrived; it really does pay to shop on eBay. This one has virtually no signs of wear, as if it had been hanging next to the one I bought at Grandstand all those years ago. If our daughter ever had any doubt we were a White Sox family, that jacket taught her otherwise. With luck, this one will do the same with our granddaughter.

Random Observations

Last night in Minnesota, the White Sox needed seven pitchers just to lose to the Twins by a score of 6-3. Speak not the name of the pitch they teach not. But I will: knuckleball. Last night, Luis Robert Jr. went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts. This afternoon, he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts in a 3-0, seven-inning 3-0 Sox win (Shane Smith’s major-league first, by the way). On the year, Robert is hitting .138 with 30 strikeouts in 80 at-bats. So, why does Will Venable insist on batting the enigmatic one second or third? At 6’3” and 225 pounds, Bobby Dalbec looks like your typical right-hand hitting first baseman. Indeed, he’s started 221 games at first since his rookie year in 2020. You do not expect to see him at shortstop, although he did start two games there during his time with Boston. Today was game #3 with the White Sox. Bobby Dalbec, Jacob Amaya (.087)—this tells you how bad Colson Montgomery is doing in Triple-A.

Scout and Draft

Where are you, Matt Davidson and Daniel Palka and Nicky Delmonico and Yolmer Sanchez and Adam Engel, when White Sox fans turn our lonely eyes to you? Gone, replaced by the likes of Jacob Amaya, Joshua Palacios and Nick Maton. This is a rebuild devoid of personality. Instead, we have a manager, Will Venable, who insists on starting Jacob Amaya at shortstop. Yes, Amaya managed his fourth RBI of the season last night in Minnesota. That goes with a.089 BA, three singles and a double in 45 at-bats. Venable also appears fond of Maton (.167) and Palacios (.182). Last night with the Sox down by three in the top of the ninth, bases loaded and nobody out, Palacios faced Twins’ closer Jhoan Duran and did pretty much what you’d expect. He struck out, which he’s done seven times in 22 at-bats. This and that happened afterward, Byron Buxton robbed Andrew Benintendi, and the Sox lost—again—by a score of 4-2. A big part of the reason this team is in this situation is a longstanding inability to scout and draft the right players. Imagine Steven Kwan batting instead of Palacios. Kwan didn’t go until the fifth round of the 2018 draft; we took pitcher Jonathan Stiever instead. Stiever has since retired. We could’ve had Alek Thomas batting instead of Palacios. The Sox front office had some idea who Thomas was because his dad Allen was the strength and conditioning coach for the Sox at the time, and the younger Thomas spent a lot of time around the team shagging flies. He also played at Mt. Carmel, just a few miles down the Dan Ryan from 35th and Shields. Instead, Thomas went to Arizona while Rick Hahan opted for Steele Walker in the second round of the 2018 draft. Walker later netted Nomar Mazara in a trade, and both are out of major league baseball. That’s sort of how a team ends up with Joshua Palacios batting in a crucial situation. Last but not least, the Sox could’ve had Corbin Carroll batting. Carroll was a first-round pick by the Diamondbacks 2019, when the Sox selected Andrew Vaughn. Carroll has a career WAR of 11.3, and this season he’s batting .323 with seven homeruns and nineteen RBIs (plus 21 runs scored because he’s fast). And Vaughn? A career WAR of 0.4 isn’t much, and neither are his stats for the year, a .145 BA with three homers and ten RBIs (plus five runs scored because he’s slow, and there’s no one to bat him in those few times he’s on base). Last night, Vaughn went 0-for-4 and grounded into a double play. Kwan went 2-for-4 with a run scored in a Guardians’ win against the Yankees while Carroll went 1-for-3 with two runs scored in a Arizona win over the Rays. But, hey, Thomas didn’t do anything, just like the Sox.

You Get What You Pay For

In sports like the rest of life, you get what you pay for, and the White Sox are nothing if not cheap. I mean player development and compensation, not prices at the ball mall. So, news that starter Martin Perez was placed on the 60-day IL shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. Perez, 34, was signed to a one-year deal, to be flipped or to flop, it didn’t matter all that much to be bottom-dwelling Sox. GM Chris Getz took a chance on Perez’s left elbow. After 1595.2 innings, Getz looks to have lost his bet. Not to worry, and not to expect any of the team’s Double-A talent to step in, not while Mike—Bad Penny—Clevinger is still around. Clevinger was DFA’d last week; cleared waivers (as in no orthwe MLB team wanted him); and assigned to Triple-A Charlotte. Apparently, the plan is for Clevinger to go to Arizona and get stretched out so he can return to starting. If all works out, he could be back on the South Side sometime this summer. Oh, fingers crossed.