White Sox Trade Adam Dunn To Oakland

/

Well, that didn't take long. The only guy who wasn't going to be around on his current contract with the White Sox next season was traded at the absolute last minute for them to do so. Adam Dunn's contract didn't work out the way the team hoped it would, and he was overpaid over the four years, but that doesn't mean he was terrible. After his historically terrible 2011, Dunn managed an OPS+ of 111 over the next three years. Not great, but playable. Now he goes to Oakland to help revitalize their stuttering offense, and hopefully will succeed with them.

Read More

White Sox Trade Alejandro de Aza To Baltimore

/

During Game 2 of the double header last night, Twitter started buzzing about the fact that AAA 1B/DH Andy Wilkins was getting hugs and congratulations, indicating a potential call-up. Which would mean, someone had been cleared off of the major league roster. Given the position Wilkins plays, speculation was that it would be Adam Dunn, but it turned out that Alejandro de Aza had been sent to Baltimore for two minor league pitchers. As I write this, rumors are percolating up to a boil that Adam Dunn will be sent to Oakland, but one thing at a time.

Read More

Chris Bassitt To Start Game 2 of Doubleheader Today

/

The White Sox will play two against the Detroit Tigers today. If the White Sox were competing for the division, my focus today would be Game 1 - the duel of two aces, Scherzer and Sale. And while great pitching is great pitching, the White Sox are rebuilding, and so I am much more focused on Game 2, which will be the major league debut of starting pitcher Chris Bassitt.

Read More

What are we seeing from Jose Abreu?

/

Jose Abreu's been off his game in August. He's slugging .452 for the month through Wednesday despite maintaining a season figure that's floated in the .600 territory all year. He currently has two home runs for the month, where he's previously never hit less than five in a month. It's clearly been a cold stretch for power production for him.


He's also been awesome.

Read More

A big pile of White Sox notes

/

Just give Alexei Ramirez the Gold Glove already. I don't say this because he did anything specifically tremendous defensively Tuesday night, but because I presume these awards are won with surprisingly angry campaigns that startle voters into hastily checking the error totals, then complying out of fear.

Read More

Gordon Beckham and other top White Sox prospects of recent memory

/

The end of the Gordon Beckham era brought with it a little bit of nostalgia around these parts. After all, Beckham was supposed to be The Next Big Thing.

Read More

September call-ups preview

/

Who is coming to make this more watchable?

The White Sox have lost six games in a row, and have the sixth-worst run differential and baseball. We knew they would be bad this year...and they're bad! So, what's next? Rosters are expanding, there's still no left-hander on the roster and Dayan Viciedo made a somewhat justified start on Sunday. Let's see what we can do here.

Read More

Where Did The Offense Go?

/

After a 10-8 victory over the Twins on August 1st, the White Sox pulled their record to 54-56. Since then they have gone 5-13 while scoring 3.17 runs per game during that time. Take out an 11-run outburst against the Toronto Blue Jays and they have managed 2.71 runs on average in the other 17 games. Offense is certainly down league-wide this year, but that kind of production just isn't good enough. For reference, the 99-loss 2013 White Sox averaged 3.69 runs per game. So what's going on? Isn't the cliché that bats heat up in the hotter summer months?

Read More

Carlos Sanchez's big chance

/

To have written about the White Sox in the past five years is to have mulled what's up with Gordon Beckham, what's happened to Gordon Beckham, what went wrong with Gordon Beckham, and whether it has become time to get rid of Gordon Beckham. He just stayed and stayed and kept staying, begging you to weigh in on his status. Nick gave in just earlier this week. His verdict: Good gosh, get rid of Gordon Beckham already.

Read More

Gordon Beckham traded for unspecified things, persons or household goods

/

There was probably no getting anything huge in return for Beckham this season. Then he went and removed the "probably." When it's cash considerations or a player to be named later, the player usually winds up being someone fans care about as much as they care about the team getting paid a couple hundred thousand dollars.

Read More

What if the 2004 White Sox stayed healthy?

/

It's What If week at the mothership, prompting a lot of wondering of what kind of wonderful and interesting things could have happened if ideal conditions had held up for just a bit longer. What if the 1994 strike hadn't happened? is a fun one for White Sox fans. Here, we'll even do that one for free real quick right now: The Sox would have won the 'effin World Series. That's what would have happened.

Read More

Gordon Beckham Should Not Be Back Next Year

/

I bought on Gordon Beckham. Hard. In 2008, the White Sox had their highest draft pick since Alex Fernandez in 1990 on the heels of their awful 2007 season. I was as invested in the draft as I'd ever been, and I was really, really excited. I was even more excited when they got the player I hoped they would, and the pundits felt the same way. His first year of pro ball he annihilated the minors and less than one year after being drafted, he changed positions, burst into the majors and just kept hitting. Beckham had a short, quick, simple swing that generated tons of opposite field power. In the back of your head you were thinking, "This is a guy who will hit 50 doubles and could play shortstop." Then everything went wrong.

Read More

Conor Gillaspie--You wouldn't dare get rid of this guy

/

Some narratives turn like the Titanic.

Conor Gillaspie, who we mostly hoped could play well enough to be traded for someone playable by mid-June, is garnering articles of praise. Not effusive praise, but more acknowledgement that he's earned his keep and should probably enter the next season as a presumed starter.

Read More

Avisail returns, to right where he started

/

It wouldn't be great for the online user experience and probably not foster much "brand satisfaction," but a fair analysis of Avisail Garcia's return could be "he's healthy, so who cares?"

Avisail Garcia thirstily tried to stretch an eighth inning double into a triple Sunday. In the immediate wake of him being thrown out by several feet and slapped with a tag so casual and relaxed it actually drew a replay, there was a myriad of things to assess. He had hit the ball with extra-base authority to right field again, and the effort to third showed no hesitance from Garcia, even if it was inconclusive about whether his sluggish April speed was a permanent new condition or a week of being cold in the Midwest.

Read More

The Trajectory of Carlos Rodon

/

It's been announced that Carlos Rodon has been promoted to the Charlotte Knights of AAA and that he will be the starting pitcher for Tuesday's game. Parallels to Chris Sale will inevitably be drawn. The reasons why are obvious, generally superficial, and often misleading - but in the end it is up to Rodon to determine how accurate they are.

Read More

Important stuff from a fun-enough 7-5 rubber match win over Toronto

/

There's an identity that we want to understand the 2014 White Sox under, in which Sunday's 7-5 triumph in the rubber match against a desperate and hungry Blue Jays team fits perfectly. The White Sox flashed dizzying, game-changing offensive potential, had their lack of pitching depth exposed by both starter and reliever performance, and did just enough to keep the watching fun and not sort of tragic. Six games under .500, obviously the prototypical 2014 White Sox game would seem to be a loss, and their offense's season performance does not live up to the ideals their juggernaut April inspired, but the Sox have had less than 10 games where their young offensive core of Adam Eaton, Jose Abreu, Avisail Garcia, and yeah, Conor Gillaspie have been operating at once. They didn't build on that total Sunday, but a seven-run outburst stoked its legend all the same.

Read More

Important Stuff From 6-3 Loss To Toronto

/

This is one of those games that a rebuilding team can manage to enjoy even though the result was a loss. By far the most important thing is that Avisail Garcia returned from the DL, and in fact went 2/4 on the night. Far less important is the return of Matt Lindstrom's return from the DL. Unfortunately, he was knocked around - but there's a silver lining here as well.

Read More

Important stuff from an 11-5 Avisail Eve victory over the Blue Jays

/

The night of Avisail Eve--where Robin Ventura has said before the game that Garcia would possibly re-join the team this weekend and Garcia didn't play in Charlotte--brought wonder and mystery to every outfield substitution. Why did Moises Sierra replace Dayan Viciedo in right field the fifth? Wait, why did Leury Garcia replace Sierra in right field in the ninth? Wait, are either of these substitutions significant? They're not getting traded! Also they're both hurt, Viciedo in particular was supposedly dizzy, probably from being made to score from first base on a Conor Gillaspie double in the first inning.

There was also a late-August baseball game going on. There were tons of singles. More from the White Sox, though.

Box Score

  • This is why you want to try to miss bats kids. The Blue Jays actually did alright, whiffing 10 out of the 45 White Sox hitters who came to the plate on the night. But they went down behind a barrage of 17 hits, 14 of them singles, most of which were kind of just casually slapped into play and through a hapless Toronto infield. Jose Abreu served up three hits and managed to lower his slugging percentage. Dayan Viciedo had two hits, a walk, and two runs knocked in and didn't get a good swing on a ball all game. Jordan Danks knocked Marcus Stroman out of the game in the first inning with an RBI single that bounced four times in the infield. It was dink and dunk nightmare.
  • Stroman is a good young pitcher who shall be around for quite a while. In two starts against the White Sox, he's been pulled so his relief could immediately cough up a go-ahead home run to Viciedo, and had the Sox go 4-6 with a HBP with runners in scoring position off him. He allowed five runs in 0.2 innings and punched his glove a lot.
  • Pitching in front of his parents, Hector Noesi was either nervous or newly aware that he lacks reliable off-speed pitches. If not for Stroman, Noesi throwing nearly 50 pitches in the first two innings, and leaving the bases loaded with no one out in the sixth would have gotten more scorn. He brought the game it's only close moment by allowing a two-run bomb to Melky Caberera to bring the score to 5-4 in the second. It was about an hour into the game, so it felt more significant. He wound up gritting his teeth for five-plus innings and ate some innings with it.
  • The loopy score allowed Robin Ventura to clean out the bullpen and they pitched---really well? Javy Guerra jumped into a bases-juiced, no one out situation in the sixth and escaped with just one run on an RBI double play. Maikel Cleto pitched over two infield dribbler hits and actually got someone to chase one his sliders in the dirt, and Daniel Webb pitched a perfect ninth. It was kind of disquieting.
  • Alejandro De Aza, thrust into the spotlight at the top of the lineup as Adam Eaton sits on the bench, now has his OBP up to .315 after reaching base three more times. That .315 mark is just three points down from the league-average. 
  • Avisail could come back soon.

Team Record: 58-63

Next game is Saturday at 6:10pm CT on CSN vs. Toronto.

Follow The Catbird Seat on Twitter @TheCatbird_Seat