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That’s A Bummer

The tear down of the disappointing 2023 White Sox continued late last night, when Chris Getz pulled the trigger on his first trade, sending Aaron Bummer to the Braves for Mike Soroka, Jared Shuster, Nicky Lopez, Braden Shewmake, and Riley Gowens.  Bummer, selected by the White Sox in the 19th round of the 2014 draft, debuted with the team in July of 2017.  Since then, he has been a steady presence in the bullpen, appearing in 289 games over the past seven seasons.  He struggled in 2023, posting a career-worst 6.79 ERA.

Mike Soroka, 26, went 2-2 with a 6.40 ERA in seven games for the Braves in 2023 while working his way back from injury.  He suffered a torn Achilles tendon in a 2020 start and then re-tore it again in 2021 while rehabbing from the initial injury, causing him to miss the entire 2022 season as well.

Jared Shuster, a left-handed pitcher, made his major league debut for the Braves in 2023.  He made eleven starts with the big-league club, going 4-3 with a 5.81 ERA.  Nicky Lopez, a local product who attended Naperville Central high school, spent parts of five seasons with the Royals (of course!) before being traded to the Braves last July at the trade deadline.  He is a career .249 hitter with 6 home runs.

Braden Shewmake, a 25-year-old shortstop, was the 15th ranked prospect in the Braves organization.  He made two appearances for the Braves in May during a brief call-up.  Riley Gowens is another local product, a 24-year-old pitcher from Libertyville who played college ball at Illinois.  He made five appearances in the Braves system after being selected in the 2023 draft.

Bummer’s numbers in a White Sox uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:

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Heading To Vegas

Earlier today, MLB owners, in a unanimous vote, approved the relocation of the A’s from Oakland to Las Vegas.  Earlier this year, the team signed a binding agreement to purchase 49 acres of land off the strip in Las Vegas, where they now hope to have a stadium built by and ready by the 2028 season.

However, that puts the team in a bit of a bind for the 2025-2027 seasons.  The team’s current lease in Oakland expires after next season.  Nothing has been decided as of yet, but rumors have them splitting time between the existing Triple A stadium in Las Vegas and/or Sacramento, across the bay at Oracle Park, and the Coliseum.  The city of Oakland says they are open to the team continuing to play at the Coliseum, as long as certain conditions are met.  What those conditions are remain to be seen, but, in the past, the mayor has asked that that A’s team name and history remain in Oakland for a future expansion team.

Assuming the team name remains the same, the A’s will become the first franchise to have played in four different municipalities while using the same name, starting in Philadelphia before moving to Kansas City, Oakland, and now Las Vegas.  On a personal note, removing Oakland Coliseum from my active stadium count means I would now have eleven parks to get to in order to finish off the set.  I’ve made two trips to the stadium once known as Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum, first in 1999 and again in 2008, seeing the Tigers and Orioles respectively.

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Book 50 (of 52) – Innocent

Innocent – Scott Turow

Twenty years ago, Rusty Sabich was acquitted of murdering a woman with which he was having an affair.  Now, when his wife dies under somewhat mysterious circumstances, Sabich, who has become the chief appellate judge and is running for the state Supreme Court, again faces trial, facing the same PA who went after him all those years before.  Can he beat a second murder rap?

Scott Turow introduced the characters of Rusty Sabich, Sandy Stern, and company back in 1987, when his first novel, Presumed Innocent, was published.  In Innocent, the sequel, Turow revisits the same characters in his eighth novel, released in 2010.  While it has been quite a while since I read the first one, this still felt like a retread.  Even if I didn’t recall the events of the first case, the characters did, which made the journey not as satisfying.  I’m sure the next one will pick back up again.

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Fitbit IX – Week 42

After taking October off, this week brought college football back to my routine, which helped keep me on the right side of the 30,000-step plateau.  The week got off to a decent start on Sunday, finishing just 32 steps away from 4400 thanks in part to last week’s Saturday night extending into the early hours of Sunday.  Things were even better on Monday, coming 29 steps short of 4600.  A slight decrease on Tuesday pushed me back down to 4300 steps.  Despite a trip up north for a work lunch, Wednesday was the low point of the week, needing an additional 5 steps just to get to 3100.  Another work outing on Thursday, to Topgolf in Schaumburg, pushed my back up to 4200 steps.  Friday was a little better, going up to 4400 steps.  A trip down to West Lafayette on Saturday to see Danny and Purdue battling Minnesota led to the week’s best day, finishing with 7800 steps.

Total steps: 32,871

Daily average: 4695.9

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Prolific Authors – 7 Books

Way back in December of 2011 (and again every other December since), we’ve taken a look at the authors I have read the most, dating back to high school. Since I’ve far surpassed my “normal” reading output the last three years, I thought it would be nice to once again take a deeper dive into those books I’ve read through the start of October. Since our last check-in, I’ve read an additional 118 books, so there could be some movement over the past two years, but it’s time to take another look and see if my “favorite” authors have changed much in that time span.  We continue today with the five authors I’ve read seven times, up five since 2021.

Michael Crichton

The prolific author, who died in 2008, first entered my bookshelf in 1989, when I was assigned to read The Andromeda Strain as part of my high school Biology class.  He continued to be a big part of my 90s reading, but has only added a single title, Airframe, in this century.

John Grisham

The former attorney, who I first read in 1993 with his smash hit The Firm, returned to my attention after a nine-year absence in 2022 thanks to The Judge’s List.

Jennifer McMahon

After feeling unimpressed after finishing my first of her works, Dismantled, in 2010, I eventually gave her another try and she has been a consistent presence ever since.

Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows – J.K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling

All seven entries in the Harry Potter series, which I read in 2016, make up Rowling’s total.  She continues to write under a pen name, so she may, one day, end up on this list twice.

Riley Sager

One of my newer favorites, I’ve read all of his novels as they’ve been released annually since 2017’s Final Girls through this year’s The Only One Left.

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You’ve Gotta Be Bleepin’ Me

Just when you think things can’t get any worse in White Sox Nation, the Tigers announced yesterday that they were poaching play-by-play man Jason Benetti, signing the announcer to a multi-year deal.  Benetti, 40, started with the White Sox in 2016, splitting time with Ken Harrelson until 2019 when he took over full time.

Benetti’s frustration with the White Sox organization has seemingly been growing for some time.  In 2021, he was a loud voice in favor of returning to broadcasting from the road instead of in studio following the pandemic shutdowns of 2020.  Things got testy again this past offseason, when he left ESPN for FOX and took on more national responsibilities, which irked some in the White Sox front office.  To add fuel to that fire, the White Sox refused to negotiate with Benetti’s agent, preferring instead to deal directly with Benetti, which is, frankly, odd behavior.

Whoever replaces Benetti in the broadcast booth will have very large shoes to fill.  They will also need to win over a fan base that has been repeatedly poked in the eye by the ownership and front office of their favorite team for the last two years.

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Fitbit IX – Week 41

After four weeks, I managed to get back on the other side of the 30,000-step plateau.  The week got off to a decent start on Sunday, finishing with 5200 steps thanks in part to an early morning trip to Logan to fly home from Boston.  A day off on Monday, including a car wash and a trip to the mall for lunch, led to 5400 steps.  Heading back to work on Tuesday followed by an afternoon waiting for trick or treaters who mostly never came left me 15 steps shy of 3200.  Wednesday saw a nice increase, going up to 3800 steps.  Another increase on Thursday pushed me up to 4100 steps.  A big drop-off came on Friday, dropping down to 2600 steps.  A trip to the city on Saturday night for dinner and drinking led to my best day of the week, finishing with 6500 steps.

Total steps: 30,944

Daily average: 4420.6

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2023 BBWAA Award Predictions

The Baseball Writers of America have announced the finalists for their awards for the just completed baseball season, which will be announced next week.  It is a good bet that few of my original predictions for the winners will be accurate.  Hopefully, these new predictions will be slightly better, especially since I’ll have a 33% chance of being right.

American League

Most Valuable Player: Shohei Ohtani, Corey Seager, Marcus Semien

Shohei Ohtani should run away and hide with this award.  But, an early end to his season and perhaps some burnout from voters picking the same name every year may open the door a bit.  That said, these awards were voted on prior to the post-season, so the Rangers World Series win won’t move the needle at all, so I’m going to guess Ohtani still gets it.

Cy Young Award: Gerrit Cole, Kevin Gausman, Sonny Gray

Gerrit Cole seems the obvious choice here.  He leads the three finalists in nearly every category and managed a WHIP below one in over 200 innings.

Manager of the Year: Bruce Bochy, Kevin Cash, Brandon Hyde

As usual, I didn’t make any predictions for this award prior to the season.  If voting took place after the World Series, then Bochy would be a shoo-in.  However, since the early playoff exits of the Orioles and the Rays don’t get taken into account, Brandon Hyde should win this award after leading the Orioles to an AL East title.

Rookie of the Year: Tanner Bibee, Triston Casas, Gunnar Henderson

Another award I didn’t predict prior to the season.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say Gunnar Henderson will win, since he in the only one of these three that I have heard of previously.

National League

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A Shakeup In Wrigleyville

Just over nine years ago, the Cubs stunned the world by hiring Joe Maddon to manage the team while still employing Rick Renteria in the same role.  Since that worked out so well, Jed Hoyer and company decided to do it again, shocking everyone by announcing they were hiring Craig Counsell to become the new manager of the Cubs while simultaneously firing David Ross.  Counsell, 53, becomes the highest paid manager in MLB history with a five-year, $40 million contract after leading the Brewers to four NL Central titles in his nine seasons with the club.

In what was supposed to be a rebuilding year, the Cubs were primed to sneak into the playoffs before a September swoon knocked them out of contention.  That swoon likely cost David Ross his job, even if it wasn’t necessarily his fault.  Now Counsell will try to lead the upstart Cubs, and their new core of young talent expected to graduate to the big leagues in the next year or two, past his old club and back to the post-season for the first time since 2020.

Ross finishes his tenure with a 262-284 record in four seasons, with the one division title in 2020.  I imagine he will get another shot at the manager gig someday.