Chicago -
By Roger Wallenstein
The White Sox returned home last week to resume their post-All-Star Game swoon, losing five of seven contests to the Miami Marlins and Minnesota Twins. Apparently the fellows can’t beat anyone these days, seeing as the Marlins have baseball’s worst record while the Twins are clinging to the American League Central Division lead with the third-best record in the AL.
However, that was only a portion of the story on the South Side.
Posted on July 29, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
If Friday night’s 9-2 pasting of the Tampa Bay Rays wasn’t enough to assuage your consternation about the White Sox’s post-All-Star Game slide, consider the following.
The two most recent successful rebuilding schemes, those of the Cubs and Astros, suffered very similar spells on their way to World Series titles in 2016 and 2017, respectively. This all happened during the 2014 season when the two future champions were at about the same stage of their development that the White Sox presently find themselves.
Posted on July 21, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
Last Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Cleveland, televised by Fox, had the lowest ratings ever, according to Nielsen. Even worse than last year, which had been the previous low-water mark.
Last season’s World Series suffered a 23 percent drop in viewership from the year before. Attendance at major league parks last season was down 4.1 percent, and it’s lagging another 1.5 percent so far this season. Since 2007, turnstiles are clicking more than 14 percent less often.
It’s all so bleak, so depressing. Kids aren’t watching. Millennials think the game is boring. Thirty- and forty-somethings are into the NFL and cage fighting. Some old people still enjoy watching baseball, but what do they know? They even watch golf on TV.
Well, not so fast.
Posted on July 15, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
He wasn’t a close friend but certainly someone I knew, an acquaintance. When he saw me walking the concourse at the ballpark, his eyes sparkled with enthusiasm.
“Have you seen this kid?” It wasn’t so much a question as a declaration. “He loves to play. He’s so much fun.”
That was 1985 when a 21-year-old Venezuelan prospect named Ozzie Guillen took over at shortstop at Comiskey Park and became a fixture for the next 13 seasons. He was an All-Star three times and, along with The Big Hurt, Black Jack and Carlton Fisk, the face of the franchise.
Posted on July 8, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
Let’s all take a deep breath and let it out gently. There. That’s better. The 15-game journey, the saga that would be a reasonable yardstick from which to measure the progress of these White Sox, closed out Sunday at a soggy Grate much like it began more than two weeks ago.
Of course, we’re talking about 15 games against five teams, including three division leaders, currently boasting a .593 winning percentage. Starting with a stirring 5-4 comeback victory against the mighty Yankees and ending Sunday with a tough 4-3 win over the Twins, Rick Renteria’s outfit gave a credible account of itself by winning seven of the 15 contests.
The season now is right at its halfway point, and the Sox, standing at 39-42, are a far different ballclub than a year ago when they were 28-53 on their way to 100 losses. Sox faithful, those days are ovah!
Posted on July 1, 2019
Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf
Guaranteed Rate Field
35th and Shields
Chicago, IL
Dear Chairman Reinsdorf:
So far this season your decisions and patience clearly are paying dividends as the White Sox are a vastly improved team. No doubt you feel a sense of accomplishment and optimism for the first time since trading away your star players for a group of prospects like Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Lucas Giolito and many others. You took risks that are beginning to bear fruit for years to come.
At Wrigley Field last Tuesday night Jimenez, who most assuredly is destined for stardom, launched his ninth-inning home run to beat the Cubs in what will occupy a prominent place in White Sox history for years to come. Being there to feel the exhilaration and excitement was a unique experience. We all know the depths to which the crosstown Cubs sunk before righting their ship through a rebuilding process much like the Sox are presently enduring.
However, aside from wins and losses and real and potential championships, the comparison of the two sides of town are as different as oatmeal and huevos rancheros. I sincerely hope that a few years from now, the differences will remain as visible as they are now.
Posted on June 23, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
So what’s up with Lucas Giolito? How did last season’s least effective starting pitcher become one of baseball’s best in less than a year?
Regardless of the answer, this has been great fun. Giolito is the first White Sox pitcher since Chris Sale who represents a legitimate chance for a win every time he takes the mound.
Posted on June 17, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
Deep within the Lubyanka Building in Central Moscow at Federal Security Service (FSB) headquarters, agents Mikhail and Ivan were biding their time last week on a particularly slow day.
(Translated from the Russian by our Beachwood interpreters, who have listening devices buried deep within the Russian intelligence agencies.)
Mikhail: I know there’s not much going on, Ivan, but get your feet off the desk and look busy.
Ivan: I’d be happy to if you can suggest something for me to do.
Mikhail: Well, we can’t interfere in an election in America for another year-and-a-half, but I’ve discovered a good way we can practice. Have you ever heard about the American game of baseball?
Posted on June 9, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
At the risk of providing legitimacy for what I regard as a mostly meaningless statistic, let’s consider run differential, an item that has become popular in the past five seasons or so.
We can start with the bright side. Unlike much of sabermetrics, run differential is extremely simple without any complicated formula. It’s not difficult to take the number of runs a team scores during the course of the season and subtract the number plated by the opposition. An understanding of positive and negative numbers is required, but that’s about it. My apologies for repeating what you already know.
One other positive aspect of this exercise is that teams from any era can be compared to one another. Doesn’t matter whether home runs are the soup du jour, as they are today, or whether the stolen base ruled major league baseball as it did in the days of Rickey Henderson and Lou Brock.
The games are played to see which team scores more runs. Therefore, good teams that win a lot of games should have a very favorable run differential. That’s not news. What would be unique is if a ballclub that wins, say, 90 games in a season scored fewer runs than the opposition.
Posted on June 3, 2019
By Roger Wallenstein
Call it a mulligan, a take-over, or a re-do. Just don’t call it a rebuild.
While the White Sox have taken one path, the Minnesota Twins – the mighty Twinkies, owners of 101 home runs in their first 50 games – have chosen a different route.
Both teams faced a similar decision after eight seasons of less than mediocre results in which neither ballclub qualified for a post-season berth. Between 2009 and 2016 when the Sox traded Jose Quintana, Chris Sale and Adam Eaton for a stable of prospects, the team finished over .500 just twice and once, in 2013, lost more than 90 games.
Meanwhile, in the eight years leading up to the present campaign, Minnesota also finished over .500 just twice, though they dropped more than 90 games five times.
Interestingly, the year before the rebuild began in 2016, the Sox were 78-84, the exact same record that the Twins posted last season.
However, unlike the White Sox, the Twins didn’t clean house with a host of trades for young prospects. Yet here they are with the best record in baseball after easily sweeping the Sox in the Twin Cities over the weekend, outscoring the local darlings 24-5.
So what happened? Can it be that the Twins have turned things around without so much as contemplating the R-word?
Posted on May 26, 2019
