Category / Baseball

by admin

2023 Final Pitching Leaders

Yesterday, we looked at the leaders in the 43 games I attended this year on the offensive side of the ball.  With the newly expanded Wild Card round wrapped up, it’s time to finish up our look back at the 2023 season with the pitching leaders, starting with everyone’s favorite pitching statistic:

Wins

Name Total
Drew Smyly 3
Kyle Hendricks 2
Aaron Bummer 2
Javier Assad 2
Marcus Stroman  2
Taijuan Walker 2

Losses

Name Total
Dylan Cease 3
Aaron Bummer 2
Kendall Graveman 2
Jimmy Lambert 2
Michael Kopech 2

ERA (> 6 IP)

Name Total
Jose Berrios 0.00
Mark Leiter Jr. 0.93
Luis Castillo 1.29
Michael Lorenzen 1.29
Mike Clevinger 1.73

Strikeouts

Name Total
Dylan Cease 36
Lance Lynn 29
Michael Kopech 29
Continue reading →
by admin

2023 Final Batting Leaders

Another season of baseball season is in the books, with the White Sox disappointing their fans with their worst record since 1970 while the Cubs teased their fanbase with expectations of the postseason before their September swoon.  Let’s take a look back at the offensive leaders for the 43 games that I attended this season.

Home Runs

Name Total
Luis Robert 10
Jake Burger 6
Andrew Vaughn 6
Christopher Morel 4
Dansby Sawnson 4

Hits

Name Total
Andrew Benintendi 39
Eloy Jimenez 29
Luis Robert 28
Andrew Vaughn 28
Elvis Andrus 27

Runs

Name Total
Andrew Benintendi 21
Luis Robert 19
Continue reading →
by admin

2023 Predictions Revisited

Six months ago, I made my annual predictions as to who would win what.  With the Wild Card round in full swing, it is time to revisit those predictions and see what, if anything, I got right.

American League

East: Yankees

Yeah, I didn’t see this one coming.  The Yankees missed the postseason for the first time since 2016.  Meanwhile, the upstart Orioles came out of nowhere to win the East and take the top seed in the American League.

Central: Guardians

The Guardians put up a fight, but the Twins managed to rebound and re-take the Central.

West: Astros

It came down to the last day of the season, but the Astros did manage to win the division for the third straight year and the sixth year out of the last seven.

Wild Cards: Blue Jays, Mariners, White Sox

Oh boy.  Well, the Blue Jays managed to snag the last Wild Card spot and the Mariners lasted until the final week.  The White Sox, on the other hand, lost 100 games and were out of contention in April.

AL Champion: Yankees

If I’m going to be wrong, this is the way to do it.  The Astros look to have the easiest path, but I’m going to say either the Orioles or the Rays pull this one off.

Cy Young: Alek Manoah

This might be the wrongest prediction in the history of predictions.  Manoah was so bad this year, he spent time in both the Rookie League and AA.  Gerrit Cole looks to be the likely winner.

MVP: Julio Rodriguez

Another wrong guess.  Shohei Ohtani will probably take it, despite injuries ending his season early.

National League

Continue reading →

by admin

2023 Final Standings

A disappointing season on both sides of town came to an end this weekend, leaving both Chicago teams home for October.  The Cubs looked like a lock for a Wild Card spot heading into September, and even were holding on to the last spot within the past week, but managed to squander their lead.  The White Sox, on the other hand, managed to lose 100 or more games for just the fifth time in franchise history.  Despite all this, I ended up attending 43 games, tied with 2011 for my eleventh highest total of all time.  I only managed to add one new stadium, bringing my total up to 28.  All told, I managed to see 21 of the 30 teams.

2023 Team Records

Team Name Won Loss Winning Pctg
Toronto Blue Jays 2 0 1.000
Philadelphia Phillies 2 0 1.000
San Diego Padres 2 0 1.000
Miami Marlins 1 0 1.000
Chicago Cubs 9 2 0.818
Milwaukee Brewers 2 1 0.667
Seattle Mariners 2 2 0.500
San Francisco Giants 1 1 0.500
Oakland Athletics 1 1 0.500
St. Louis Cardinals 1 1 0.500
Detroit Tigers 1 1 0.500
Cleveland Guardians 1 1 0.500
Tampa Bay Rays 1 1 0.500
Baltimore Orioles 1 1 0.500
Chicago White Sox 15 21 0.417
Arizona Diamondbacks Continue reading →
by admin

What Went Wrong Again

That fateful Saturday night in Cleveland in early August certainly wasn’t where the 2023 White Sox season went off the rails.  That happened in April, when a ten-game losing streak left them fourteen games under .500 and nine games back before the first month of the season came to an end.  Or at the trading deadline, when seven players, nearly 27% of the active roster, got sent away to other teams who still had dreams of making the playoffs.  But that Saturday night, when Tim Anderson dropped his glove like a hockey player to square up with Jose Ramirez, broke open the floodgates of showing the organizational rot that has destroyed the contention window for the latest rebuild and sent the White Sox scrambling.

The clubhouse problems with the White Sox were kind of an open secret.  Dallas Keuchel made mention of it when he was released last year, but those complaints were waved off as the grumblings of a player who no longer had what it took to pitch at the major league level.  When Jose Abreu was interviewed prior to the season-opening series against his former team, he also spoke vaguely of feeling like he had finally joined a family.  Then, the day following the fight, an interview with former White Sox pitcher Kenyan Middleton, traded the week before, was posted on ESPN.com, claiming there were no rules, players were allowed to skip meetings and practice sessions with no repercussions, and rookies were found sleeping in the bullpen during games.  The next morning, Jesse Rogers, who wrote the ESPN article, appeared on the Score and went even further, saying Yoan Moncada is thought of as lazy and has no interest in being part of the team, Eloy Jimenez is happy-go-lucky but also considered to be extremely lazy, and Yasmani Grandal doesn’t work with the pitching staff and has lost their trust.  Later in the day, a story broke, from a Score producer, of an altercation between Tim Anderson and Grandal after Grandal wanted out of the last game prior to the All-Star Break to get an early start to his vacation.

When new manager Pedro Grifol was hired back in November, he said that, given what he had seen from the White Sox in years past, he would ensure that they came out every night with “high energy” and would be “prepared to win a baseball game.”  That didn’t turn out to be the case, as the White Sox were just as lackadaisical in their approach and their play as they were in 2022.  He was also quoted as saying “You can’t win a pennant in April and May, but you sure can lose one… you really have to be careful how easy you take it…”  This was rather prophetic, as the White Sox certainly managed to lose any chance they had at winning a pennant in April and May.  They spent exactly one day over .500, and that was following an opening day victory.  A ten-game losing streak from April 19-29 doomed them, and they’ve never been able to recover.

For once, the losing has forced change upon the organization.  A good part of the pitching staff was sold off at the trade deadline.  Executive Vice President Kenny Williams and General Manager Rick Hahn were relieved of their duties and replaced by Chris Getz.  More changes. I’m sure, will come this offseason.  Will this lead to a turn-around in 2024?  Probably not, as this year’s free agent class looks to be awfully weak, and the team has many holes to fill.  They also don’t have much in the way of trade capital, so it will be interesting to see how Getz is able to remake the team into one capable of contending.

by admin

More Of The Same

Last week, the White Sox made the long-necessary decision to move on from Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn.  As part of the announcement, the team plesdged to have a “single decision maker to lead the baseball operations department” and that they anticipate having this person in place by the end of the season.”  They said nothing about having an exhaustive search for said decision maker.

Today, Chris Getz, the assistant general manager who has spent the past seven years overseeing the team’s barren minor league operations and lack of player development, was promoted to senior vice president/general manager.  During his tenure, the White Sox have consistently been at the bottom of the rankings of minor league systems, aside from when sell-off trades at the big-league level have restocked the pantry.  Those prospects who have graduated to the major leagues have, more often than not, found themselves woefully unprepared and have seen struggles out of the gate.  To top things off, he was also responsible for hiring Omar Vizquel to manage at Double A Birmingham, where he has been accused of sexually assaulting a teenaged, autistic batboy.

The White Sox have long been an insular organization, and one that is very much in need of new ideas and viewpoints.  This was the perfect opportunity to interview the top candidates across the league, even if they wouldn’t ultimately take, or be offered, the job, and see how people outside the organization would attack the problems that have plagued it for years.  Instead, Jerry Reinsdorf has decided more of the same is the order of the day.  A disappointing end to what should have been a revitalizing process.

by admin

It Was All A Dream About Tennessee

Because they just can’t help themselves, the White Sox once again made off the field news this week when an article in Crain’s Chicago Business broke that Jerry Reinsdorf is considering selling the team and/or moving them to a new location when the lease at Guaranteed Rate Field expires in 2029.  Alternative locations mentioned in the article were elsewhere in Chicago, the suburbs, or Nashville, Tennessee.

Now, first things first.  Reinsforf, who turns 88 next February, is unlikely to sell the team in his lifetime.  Reinsdorf made his bones as a tax attorney who was known for having detailed knowledge of the tax code and the loopholes within.  It has long been speculated that the team will not sell until after his death to shield his heirs from the capital gains tax that would be owed once the team is sold.  Reinsforf and company purchased the White Sox for $19 million back in 1981.  Conservatively, the team is worth upwards of $1 billion dollars today and would likely sell for over $2 billion.  If Reinsdorf sells, he owes taxes on the difference between the selling price and his initial $19 million investment.  If his heirs sell, they will owe tax on the difference between the value when they inherited the team and the selling price.  That’s quite a difference.

As for moving, I would be shocked if the team ended up moving out of state.  Firstly, there are still six years left on the team’s lease for the current ballpark.  A ballpark that, frankly, is in a better condition today than it was the day it opened.  The most likely outcome is that Reindorf and company is just rattling the cage in the hopes of getting concessions on a new lease agreement.  In the unlikely event the team were to move, the most obvious location would be the current Soldier Field, which the Bears are looking to abandon as they head to Arlington Heights.  Tearing down the existing structure would be costly and building something new would be costly (and what about the Fire and summertime concerts?), but could use buyout money from the Bears to cover some of that cost.  Suburban locations could also be on the table.  The teams fanbase is concentrated in the south and southwest suburbs, though last time they threatened to move they were looking to the northwest.  There is too much money to be made in Nashville as an expansion franchise for me to seriously consider that MLB would allow an existing team to relocate there.

All that said, this report will likely turn out to be much ado about nothing.  Which is exactly what you want when you’re fighting for a top draft pick in a season you were expecting to be competing for the World Series.

 

by admin

Cleaning House

In a shocking development, the White Sox announced this afternoon that executive vice president Kenny Williams and senior vice president and general manager Rick Hahn have been relieved of their duties, effective immediately.  The team, expected to be in the middle of a contention window following a rebuild at the end of the last decade, find themselves 49-76 heading into tonight’s game.

Williams first joined the White Sox as a player via the 3rd round of the 1982 draft.  He debuted with the team in 1986 and spent parts of the following two seasons with the club.  He rejoined the White Sox organization following his retirement as a scout in November of 1992 before becoming a special assistant to Jerry Reinsdorf in 1994.  The following year, he was named director of minor league operations from 1995-1996 and served as vice president of player development from 1997-2000.  Following the 2000 season, Williams was named general manager, just the third African American in baseball history to hold the position.  He was elevated to the executive vice president role following the 2012 season, the role he served until this afternoon.

Hahn joined the White Sox organization in 2002 as the assistant general manager.  He was promoted to general manager following the 2012 season.  He was responsible for convincing Jerry Reinsdorf of the need for the rebuild and did a spectacular job of tearing down the major league team to the studs, bringing in a bevy of prospects.  It was that next step, of surrounding those prospects with the right mix of free agent veterans, where Hahn failed, either of his own accord or due to meddling from his superiors.

The announcement from the White Sox says that they plan to have a “single decision maker to lead the baseball operations department” and that they anticipate having this person in place by the end of the season.  Does Jerry Reinsdorf have it in him to bring someone new into the organization?  Or will he promote from within?  We should have the answer sometime in the next six weeks.

by admin

Playoffs?

The Cubs, effectively tied for the third and final wild card spot after last night’s victory against the White Sox, have sent out post-season invoices to their season ticket holders for the first time since 2019.  Thanks to a randomly selected combination assignment, I would end up with tickets to two games in each potential round, a slight downgrade from years past.  I would maintain my normal seats through the NLCS but would end up relocated to the right field side should the team advance to the World Series.

The Cubs still have some work to do on the field to make sure all this preparation isn’t for naught.  They have been one of the hottest teams in the second half, but injuries to Marcus Stroman and inexperience may haunt them down the stretch.

by admin

A Bad Year Keeps Getting Worse

The hits keep on coming for Liam Hendriks, who underwent Tommy John surgery yesterday, ending his season and potentially his time with the White Sox.  After being diagnosed with non-Hodgkins’s lymphoma this offseason, Hendriks went through treatments and was declared cancer free.  He made his season debut in May for the White Sox, but appeared in just five games before elbow inflammation caused him to be shut down.  Surgery and rehab would likely keep him out of commission through the 2024 season.

The White Sox hold a $15 million option on Hendriks for 2024, with a $15 million buyout to be paid out at $1.5 million per year for ten years.  Given what he has meant to the franchise and the fan base during his tenure on the south side, especially this year during the cancer battle, I would be surprised if Jerry Reinsdorf and company decide not to pick up the option.