Memories of 2005

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I never thought I would say this, but talk of 2005 evokes mixed emotions.  Obviously, 2005 itself is a pure white light of happy memories, and I could feel myself beginning to smile as I talked about it on the podcast last night.  But the "10-Year Anniversary," which we just celebrated, unfortunately also makes one think about the ten years that have transpired since.  Still, as I watched the Cubs' ascension this year, I was reminded of how fortunate we as White Sox fans were to see our favorite team actually close it out in a great season.  Until that last out is actually recorded, one cannot be sure that disaster isn't about to strike.  And once it is recorded, it can never be taken away.

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Fixing the White Sox third base situation: An impossible task that will crush our souls

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Third base is at the top of the list of priorities for the White Sox offseason, per the latest reports from CBS' Jon Heyman. Absent is any mention of corner outfield/DH options in an offseason full of great free agent options, but the Sox third base situation is awful without any reasonable in-house solutions, so by all means, go fishing in this pond first. The offseason is long, and I'm not nervous, and am in fact, never nervous.

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Hardly, Hardly, Hardly, Hardly Pay Anything

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On Wednesday, MLB Trade Rumors published a list of the largest contracts in each MLB team's history. As could probably be assumed, the list was full of face-of-franchise studs- Giancarlo Stanton, Clayton Kershaw, Troy Tulowitzki, Alex Rodriguez (twice!)- as well as a fair share of major albatross contracts- Albert Pujols' Angels deal, Vernon Wells' Blue Jays disaster, and the Twins' extension of Joe Mauer. One thing that stands out is most franchises have by now given out a mega deal, with 22 of 30 teams (including financial lightweights like the Rays and Marlins) having inked a player to a deal of at least $100 million.

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Baseball sympathy

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I don't like the Cubs.

This isn't hatred, or dislike, it's just the absence of like. I don't get into the 'root for Chicago' hubbub. They're another team, and it's taken a long time to get to this place of at least superficial indifference after being raised in a Cubs-hating household, and accumulating teenage bitterness from being a south sider who had to bus and train for an hour to the north side to where CPS hid the good high schools.

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Grading potential White Sox free agent corner outfield targets by level of emotional betrayal

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The White Sox arrive at this offseason in the same position they are at every offseason: at an impasse. They have a very good, and very cheaply signed core that says "Find the missing pieces and win now," and level of organizational depth that says many things, like "Hmmm...what's going on here?" and "Maybe build from the ground up for a while," and "Where are the hitters?"

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Carlos Quentin's moment in time

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At some point during trawling through old articles for quotes about Carlos Quentin, it occurred to me that my fascination with just how insane his career was might not be matched by the populace, at least not to the point of justifying an entire post just about him during the height of rumor and offseason planning season.

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TCS Morning 5: Has enough White Sox stuff happened to fill out a five-item list?

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Maybe the cruelest punishment of following a routine also-ran is spending October watching the Sox shuffle through moves and possibilities that might shift their 2016 record by a half-win or maybe even a whole one, while other teams have the fates of seasons and career legacies swayed by a few outs. There's no easier blog posts to write than "Courtney Hawkins' foot causing him to miss the Fall League will cost him meaningful reps, uh oh" but I've doing this long enough to know how purposeless they are.

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Go Cubs? or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Enjoy the Cubs

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When I was a young lad, around the age of six or seven and eager to devour every little bit of baseball I could find, I was a bit of a bandwagon jumper. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, but I’m pretty sure there’s home video of me somewhere declaring myself a Blue Jays fan shortly after Joe Carter’s walk-off home run ended the 1993 World Series. 

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A hateful guide to the ALDS

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Frankly, I'm a little exhausted.

Back in my day, the dread and despair of a full baseball season being brutally snuffed out as quickly as possible built up over the course of at least a work week. My dinner prep Wednesday night consisted of reheating taco meat in the microwave and dropping it in tortillas and the Pirates whole season was still screwed before I started eating.

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Searching for optimism after a season of abject misery

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The 2015 White Sox season was not good. In fact, it may be better described as bad, terrible, disappointing, sad, awful, or any combination thereof, probably best mixed with profanity.  After a 2014 season with encouraging signs abound and an offseason full of additions, a team expected to contend finished the 2015 season with a laundry list of embarrassing "accomplishments."

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A hateful guide to the AL Wild Card Game

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The MLB playoffs are the best time of the year, because every story of dominance and triumph, every celebrating fanbase, is humbled. Emphatically and publicly in emotionally traumatizing fashion, their dreams are crushed, and they must once again revert to the cautious cynicism and doubt that guides the day-to-day existence of fandom, and we can all watch as their return from their deluded perch.

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A sad look back at our preseason predictions

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Let me take you back to a simpler time. A more optimistic time.

That time is seven months ago, March of this year, when dreams of playoff races danced in our heads. There were dreams of Avisail Garcia: Future Superstar and Jeff Samardzija: Bonified Ace floating around our naive little heads as we moved slowly through the Spring and into a summer ripe with expectations of competent White Sox baseball for the first time in too many moons.

During this innocent month of our lives, the staff of The Catbird Seat tried to predict the success or failures of the White Sox using over/unders devised by yours truly. Some (OK, most) of these numbers will look foolish in hindsight. But we are nothing if not accountable for our actions. Tread lightly, and weep at the wreckage that is a look back at our 2015 White Sox Predictions.

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TCS Morning 10: Not a good season, folks!

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 The 2015 White Sox are done for the year. Thank goodness. What an atrocity, what a complete bungling, what an across-the-board disappointment, what a nihilistic disaster. I took in the finale in person because--well, a friend offered me tickets, and I got to spend time with my mother--but mostly to make sure they were dead.

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