TCS Morning 5: The White Sox are too deep, obviously
/Well, so much for that.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Dingers are blessing no matter the time
/The White Sox hit 12 home runs in April of 2015. That came over 19 games, where they scored 64 runs total, and slugged .352, worst in the AL. They finished last in the AL in slugging for the year, it was not an aberration.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Austin Jackson afterglow
/Waiting for Austin Jackson to slide down to one-year, $5 million deal, while torturously late and removed from the major moves of this offseason, fits in line with the larger theme of seek small financial commitments that do not go beyond 2016. It doesn't look like Baseball Reference has added Jackson's $5 million to their Opening Day estimates for the Sox salary.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Mostly stuff about Austin Jackson
/1. We went over a good chunk of why the signing of Austin Jackson is important in Sunday’s post, but it’s worth talking about in more detail.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: The games have started
/The White Sox played something resembling a baseball game against another professional team Thursday for the first time in 2016, and got righteously tuned up by the Dodgers 6-1, in a game that would have seemed especially lifeless if it wasn't, you know, the first Spring Training game of the year.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Employers giving out raises to be nice is probably not a trend
/In a rare moment of vaguely normal treatment of employees, the Kansas City Royals rewarded Salvador Perez for playing a vital role in their company's unparalleled success and tore up the rest of the absurd five-year, $7 million contract they inked him to before he had any real service time or any standing to pass on a guaranteed fortune, and gave him a huge five-year, $52.5 million extension.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: It's the morning, here are five White Sox things
/White Sox co-owner Eddie Einhorn died Tuesday night at 80 years of age due to complications from a stroke. Those same complications had kept him out of the public eye and away from day-to-day team operations for the last few years, but was formerly the Chief Operating Officer and club president throughout the 1980's. An original partner with Jerry Reinsdorf when the team was bought in 1981, Einhorn also served on the Bulls board of directors.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Will we live to see the White Sox add an outfielder?
/In the distant future, the effect of climate change have become an unavoidable amount of daily life, MLB players dread road trips to the seceded Republic of Texas and the bizarre and hard-to-acquire documentation needed to go out to the clubs in Houston after the game, the International Draft was instituted and it sucked.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: The 2016 White Sox are in Arizona
/Despite the satisfaction of the final moves to shore up a competitive roster never coming along, the White Sox are looking disturbingly like a team that is actually getting ready for the season.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: [Another headline about waiting]
/There is an actual, living and breathing competitor for signing Dexter Fowler identified now in the Baltimore Orioles, who are actually reportedly interested in Fowler, rather than simply being in need of an outfielder during a time when Fowler is the best available. On that alone, I would bet on the Orioles signing Fowler, or at least not the Sox, who have been staring at him indifferently for all of 2016. Perhaps more disqualifying is that the Sox have yet to make a significant, or even multi-year free agent outlay this offseason and it's February so, maybe they're more devoted to the trade market.
Read MoreTCS Morning 7: Possibly, maybe Ian Desmond, probably not
/As we enter Year 36 of the 2015-16 MLB offseason, and the White Sox draw ever closer to beginning Spring Training with three--a third of the lineup!--regular members of the potential Opening Day lineup coming off seasons with a .675 OPS or lower, we began to see some testing of whether Sox fans can talk themselves into any potential improvement.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: The White Sox very affordable offseason
/The last four guys probably are not particularly rosterable, but including Turner's guaranteed money, that's slightly more than $25 million for six guys likely to break camp with the big club. And since Frazier and Lawrie could just be non-tendered after 2016, that is total sum of the commitments they have made overall this offseason, relative to $13.3 million that cleared off the books.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: So, Mat Latos, then?
/The White Sox are still in a holding pattern as far as addressing their HUGE UNDENIABLE PROBLEM IN THE OUTFIELD, but made a decisive move to address their source of mere nagging doubt at the back of the starting rotation.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Your favorite lost White Sox seasons
/Proving that trolling can be productive, my completely unhelpful interruption of Nick--who was not talking about the White Sox--got me headed down a path.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5 - Plausible explanations
/The White Sox reportedly tried looking in on acquiring Yasiel Puig at what it can only be hoped is the nadir of his value, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. They were promptly rebuffed and re-routed to Andre Etheir, a potential improvement but a very clunky one, and Carl Crawford, whose all-around skill set is less charming now that he's 34, declining and lacks a useful specialty.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: At least these rumors are new
/Post-Sox Fest rumors of Andre Ethier, Dexter Fowler, and ruminations on Carson Fulmer's future.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Staring pensively at Dexter Fowler's market
/As we press on through month 71 of the most inexplicable MLB offseason of our lives, the White Sox have a glaring need for a outfielder/designated hitter addition, have been reduced to one clear superior remaining free agent option for almost a week, and...nothing.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: The attendance is not going to turn around overnight
/The 2005 White Sox were an absolute death machine from the moment the season opened. They won their first four series of the year, and then ripped off an eight-game winning streak. After April 29, they were never less than 10 games over .500 again, and were wire-to-wire division champs. Every galvanizing indicator of "THIS TEAM IS REALLY GOOD" burned bright all season, which wound up being a strong contender for the best season in franchise history.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Profits > Winning
/Anyone who knows anything about me knows that my favorite baseball article on the internet Monday was Jack Moore's chronicle of Minnesota owner Carl Pohlad's prolonged efforts to cry poor, mischaracterize the Twins as a small market club, and with the assistance of MLB Commissioner Bud Selig--who tried to use their phony crisis to compete as a means to conjure a cost-reducing salary cap--eventually got a spanking new Minnesota taxpayer-funded stadium in exchange for all their public showings of grief.
Read MoreTCS Morning 5: Matt Albers is ours and you can't have him
/Thursday was...not a good day for Cespedes to the White Sox optimism. The suddenly aggressive Nationals bid for Yoenis' talents (where were they the first two months of this damned war of attrition??) took up the mantle of the team that would egregiously outbid the Mets, and the Mets continued to be a sentimental pick for some reason.
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