Ahhh, spring training: the sunshine . . . the green grass . . . the games that have so little to do with what will happen in the first month of the regular season. That is especially the case back home in Chicago, of course, where chilly weather baseball is a little different than desert diamond doings. But still, there have been plenty of promising storylines playing out over the past month with the White Sox and the Cubs. And then there is that World Baseball Classic thing. The U.S. apparently stayed alive with a 9-3 victory over noted baseball power the Netherlands last night. USA! US . . .
I think I’ll head on back to Arizona now, where we find that:
The teams on both sides of town appear to have all sorts of pitching depth. Again, beware drawing conclusions based on spring training siren songs, but Jose Contreras stepped up with four strikeouts in two innings yesterday for the Sox and fellow veteran reclamation project Bartolo Colon, who has displayed impressive pop (the sound that a lively fastball makes as it slams into a catcher’s glove) in recent side sessions, goes today. The Sox’ top three starters, Mark Buehrle, Gavin Floyd and John Danks, have all been solid, and youngsters Clayton Richard and Jeff Marquez continue to impress (although Marquez gave up some runs in relief on Sunday).
As for the Cubs, who knows whether Ted Lilly’s stint with the national team at the aforementioned WBC will translate into regular season success, but his consistency the last few years is reassuring. It is clear that aces Carlos Zambrano and Ryan Dempster are raring to go, and Rich Harden, who gave up a few runs Sunday, has a very good shot to be very good, for at least a few starts anyway, before his shoulder starts aching again. But if he goes down, the Cubs have flame-throwers Jeff Samardzija and Aaron Heilman lined up behind projected fifth-starter Sean Marshall. Is there a team in the National League that wouldn’t trade pitching staffs with the Cubs? Maybe the Diamondbacks and, OK, probably the Phillies just because it would be bad form to trade your pitching staff right after it won you the World Series. But that’s it.
Cubs left-handed hitters Mike Fontenot and especially Micah Hoffpauir have had great springs. Maybe the inevitable Milt Bradley injury will be a good thing because it will give Hoffpauir the chance to go to work in right field. His outfield defense is a big question mark of course but his bat (another home run on Sunday) is not. And Fontenot, who has piled up impressive stats the past two seasons (on-base percentages near .400 . . . off the charts on-base-plus-slugging) is now your starting second baseman.
The White Sox have a ridiculous number of grade A prospects. Of course that means it is time to trade them. The longer you keep guys like infield wunderkinds Gordon Beckham or Dayan Viciedo, the longer opposing teams have to figure them out and take them down. Remember the trade offers for Felix Pie back before he was shown to have far too long a swing to sustain success in the Bigs? I know the Sox won’t really trade their $10 million dollar man from Cuba (Viciedo) or their top draft pick from last year, but there’s a great chance their value will never be higher.
Tourney Trash Talk
Do people who take even a little bit of time to look at the ever-growing ridiculousness that is major college sports really get excited about the tournament any more? We all remember that just about all of the coaches are mercenaries at best, right? That they are always ready to move on to a higher-prestige, higher-paying job? That the naive players receive sub-standard educations and no other compensation for starring in this billion-dollar show?
The highlight of the final few weeks of the regular season for me was tuning into an ESPN broadcast of the Louisville-West Virgina Big East pre-conference-tournament finale and listening to Dickie V singing the praises of odious Mountaineer coach Bob Huggins. Huggins was the guy who flirted with zero percent graduation rates during long portions of his extended tenure at the helm of Cincinnati basketball. He was finally run out of town but was given another chance at Kansas State. He repaid receiving that opportunity by jumping to West Virginia for more money the first chance he got. But his Mountaineers went on a strong run through the Big East tournament, baby, and they’ll have plenty of momentum heading into the Big Dance! They’ve got a bunch of diaper dandies! Make sure you put them in your Sweet 16.
I know guys like Dick Vitale can never stray from the script dictated by the cult of the coach in order to justify their ridiculous positions in life (making hundreds of thousands of dollars yammering about minor-league sports). Surely late at night, though, the thought has to occur to them that they are nothing but cheerleaders for a fundamentally corrupt enterprise.
Hawkville
Trouble in Hawks-land: the local hockey franchise is now firmly ensconced in “the doldrums,” as analyst Steve Konroyd put it during the third period of the team’s 4-2 loss to the Islanders Sunday. Rookie goalie Pete Mannino (40 saves) stood on his head for sizable portions of the first two periods for the visiting victors but the Hawks also were far from their best. That was especially the case in the first half of the third period, when they couldn’t even muster a shot despite a two-goal deficit.
The good news is, the team, which is 4-6-2 in its last 12 home games, now heads out on the road. The Hawks travel to New Jersey to face the Devils on Tuesday starting at 6 p.m.
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Jim Coffman brings you the city’s best weekend sports roundup every Monday. Comments are welcome.
Posted on March 16, 2009