The first half is over; are the Sox reaching their goals? Part I

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No longer is the populace--and media--scanning for a sign of life after the horrid reckoning that was 2013, they've moved on to viewing what this team is lacking to be a playoff contender in the here and now. With all that's happened so far, that could be the new mindset going for 2015 for fans and management alike, but it still takes away from what we were aiming for coming in.

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A.J. Pierzynski and the Boston Narrative Sox

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One of the earliest things you learn as a baseball fan growing up in Chicago is the power of narrative. Not so much for the White Sox, who seemed to appropriately blame bad seasons on either bad players or the team playing poorly. No, this was more of a Cubs thing. They were destined to fail because their storied past said so, never mind poor roster development or overpaying for underperforming.

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Is Jose Abreu getting better?

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Jose Abreu struck out twice Thursday. True to his form, he had one come on a slider low and away and well out of the zone, a bouncer that he looked positively foolish waving at, the type of pitch someone overmatched or completely unable to pick up the ball is caught swinging at.

It was also his first multi-strikeout game in 19 games, his longest streak of the season. In that stretch, his strikeout rate has dropped from 26.5% to 23.7% and his batting average is up from .268 to .287.

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Credit Where Credit Is Due

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We are awfully hard on Dayan Viciedo round these parts, and I castigate him as frequently as anybody.  It would be cowardly of me, then, to ignore him when he is doing well. Over the past 20 games, Viciedo has hit .290/.338/.609 to raise his OPS on the season from .679 to .738.* Although even after that hot streak he is still only at an OPS+ of 103, and none of this has any bearing on the fact that he is one of the worst defensive outfielders in the majors, it always seemed more realistic that if he was going to succeed he would do it by bashing a ton of home runs, not by becoming a complete player. What has been scary is that his power had been strangely absent while it looked like he tooled around, unsuccessfully, with a more patient approach. Then Monday night saw him crush an 0-2 pitch to right-center for a 3-run dinger, his 5th in 10 games. It's not a perfect approach, but that seems more in line with who he is. Way to play to your strengths, Dayan!

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The White Sox are not a bullpen away from being contenders

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I'm firmly of the belief that Hawk Harrelson is mostly harmless, probably helpful and informative more often than not. The misinformation and confusing tangents are distracting and certainly coming at a higher percentage than most, but what's the point of taking time out to cover his every offense when everyone else is already offering theirs?

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White Sox Have Obvious All-Star Choices

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Voting for this year's All-Star game in Minneapolis ended Thursday and on Sunday the rosters will be announced. Hopefully you have your typing fingers in good shape so that when Random Good Player X is left off the roster for Slightly Worse Player Y, you can decry the entire process on social media.

Luckily, for the White Sox, there shouldn't be a whole lot of drama regarding who does and does not make the team. Let's take a look at the obvious candidates.

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This would be a good year to figure out how to handle Adam Eaton

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Adam Eaton was really on a bit of a roll before he left Thursday's game in the first inning with umpteenth leg injury flare-up of the season. For the month of June, Eaton is hitting .322/.401/.478 with 12 walks and five triples in 102 plate appearances.

Thanks to the hot streak, his season-to-date could be broken down into three distinct periods.

Pre-DL stint: .276/.363/.378, 9.7 BB% in 113 PAs.

Post-DL stint in May: .232/.232/.250, 0.0 BB% in 56 PAs.

June: .322/.401/.478, 11.8 BB% in 102 PAs.

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Minor League Deep Cuts

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The White Sox have just snapped a losing streak, although they still sit in the AL Central basement, and they are waiting to see what happens in the negotiations with Carlos Rodon. Some of the prospects that you've heard quite a bit about - Courtney Hawkins, Tim Anderson, Micah Johnson, Carlos Sanchez, etc. - have progressed in promising fashion. Others that you have heard a lot about have taken very troubling steps in their development - Trayce Thompson, Erik Johnson, Keenyn Walker, Jared Mitchell, and Matt Davidson to name a few. But I thought I would take a moment to poke around in the minors and find the sleepers or surprise performers that might inspire some extra hope on the South Side. 

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Would the Home Run Derby Ruin Jose Abreu?

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MLB has announced their Home Run Derby captains, who are tasked with selecting the players from their league they’d like to hit homeruns alongside. It’s a relief that the league is sticking with this format if only because it lessens the impact of their oddly constructed ballot. Naturally, there’s been some interest voiced in seeing Jose Abreu be among the participants. Accompanying that interest is a section of folks that feel that Jose Abreu would be ruined immediately afterward, and should therefore steer far clear of anything that asks him to hit dingers as if it is his job to do so.

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How for real is Jose Abreu?

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This headline is a joke, of course. We know that Jose Abreu is the realest real, and that his skill and dominance is more authentic than even our love for our own families. For example, spend the next fifteen minutes declaring to everyone around you that your love for your family is false, then spend 15 minutes declaring that Abreu's production at the plate is a lie--which is more affected?

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An Acceptable Level of Failure

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In a surprise twist of fate, Tyler Flowers has not become a scrappy, high-average hitter by simply willing it. His adjustments were championed, and acknowledged even here, that I donno, something's working, when Flowers was hitting .373/.413/.440 through April 28.

The very clear warning signs were present in hilariously obvious degrees (36.3% strikeout rate, .600 BABIP), but he was doinking singles. Maybe he would keep doinking singles after the magic died.

Instead, Flowers is looking to have normalized his numbers by the All-Star break. He's hitting .165/.248/.303 since April 28, striking out over 40% of the time with a .255 BABIP. Flowers can't cover the strike zone, make consistent contact due to the hitch in his swing, and only possesses a good batting eye and enviable strength. At least he started using that a bit.

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Week In Review: One Week Closer To Selling

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Last week started out in very promising fashion. Monday saw a thriller where the Tigers kept coming back, but the White Sox had an answer every time, holding on to win 6-5. The next night the offense lit up Justin Verlander, pulling the squad back to .500 once again and back to within 2.5 games of the first place Tigers. It prompted James to question whether the team hadn't played their way into thinking that they should be buyers at the deadline in what was supposed to be a rebuilding year. Then the next four games happened.

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Re-Visiting Adam Dunn's Trade Market

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James already did a lovely assessment of the White Sox' current awkward position of "mediocre team that's kind of hanging around, and has non-crazy reasons to think it might hang around, but really should just consolidate and go for it next year." Unless the White Sox do ultimately decide that they're really going for it this year, there is one player that it is pretty much unanimous should be traded: Adam Dunn.

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You're still selling, right?

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The best revenge is living well. But perhaps an even more strategic form of revenge is living just poorly enough to lure your opponent into false notions of themselves. The Tigers probably didn't appreciate getting handed their 11th loss in 16 games Monday night, but now that they have lured the Sox within 3.5 games of the division lead.

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Ventura's Blunders Cost The White Sox Again

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Second-guessing a manager is nothing new. A lot of the time it's unfair. There are variables at play that we don't know about, information that the manager is privy to that is not known outside of the clubhouse. There's also the benefit of hindsight. Managers can make a choice that has the highest probability of success for his team and have it not work out. Or the manager can do something immensely stupid and get away with it. Baseball is like that. Life is like that. But there are mistakes where at a certain point the burden is on the manager to demonstrate that the benefits outweigh the costs, and last night Ventura made a mistake he has made many, many times, and it is extremely dangerous.

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My Rodon Reaction

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Like many drafts, the 2014 MLB draft wound up with a huge amount of conversation based on extremely limited information. The general public only gets tiny snippets of meaningful knowledge about a lot of these players. Then you factor in the rumors - many of which are deliberately skewed by front offices floating misinformation in order to disguise their true strategy. And even if we did know what the front offices did, just take a look at Top 100 prospect lists or drafts from 5-10 years ago and you'll see how accurate that information turns out to be.  After weeks and then months of prognostication and mock drafts, people had generally deduced what would happen, and then began talking themselves out of it. 

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White Sox Month in Review: May Edition

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With the month of May in the books, the White Sox still sit at .500, where they have hovered all season. On the one hand, they are the owners of a negative run differential. On the other, they have survived at .500 despite the loss of key players like Chris Sale, Jose Abreu, Avisail Garcia, Adam Eaton, and Nate Jones for varying lengths of time. Today the staff of The Catbird Seat take stock of the State of the White Sox as of the start of June.

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