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 More1. 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 MoreIn 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 MoreJames, Ethan and Matt gather together at another odd juncture in the White Sox inexplicable offseason. Spring Training is arriving, but the Sox are an addition short of being an interesting contender, and an odd mix of good, win-now pieces and black holes if they are not making any more moves.
Read MoreAs 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 MorePost-Sox Fest rumors of Andre Ethier, Dexter Fowler, and ruminations on Carson Fulmer's future.
Read MoreTuesday began with a joke.
Read MoreOther than psychic relief, there's no huge benefit to making Adam LaRoche sit under the bench for the last week, other than keeping the path clear for Trayce Thompson playing time, but you can give rest to Melky Cabrera, or possibly the hopeless Avisail Garcia for that. Unless the Sox are simply purging LaRoche, eating all the money, and not trying anything else, they have reasons for trying to see if he can do something remotely positive.
Read MoreWell, shoot, that didn't work.
Frankie Montas got his big, compromised chance to start a big league game Wednesday afternoon and for the most part got blow'd up over three disastrous, defensively challenged innings. He had absolutely no favors done for him by management or defense, but ultimately he's the only one who got tuned up for 3 IP, 6 H, 6 ER, 2 BB, 3 K, HR in a 7-4 loss.
Read MoreThe season's almost over and the White Sox are wasting away their final days, so Nick and James got together to discuss, well, mostly the offseason and how to fix this swiss cheese roster, but also what major things there are still to watch.
Read MoreAfter a rough weekend against the Cubs and four runs in three games to start this awful West Coast swing, the Sox had their periodic and overdue "the offense is breaking out!" game to avoid a sweep in Anaheim with an 8-2 victory Thursday night. Given an opportunity against rookie spot starter Nick Tropeano (pitching because the Sox off capped Matt Shoemaker's downward spiral last week) and bullpen filler Cam Bedrosian, the Sox teed off, finally hitting their 100th home run of the season at a fairly embarrassingly late date in the year and smacking four doubles.
Read MoreWhat was that? What on earth was that? What in blue damn blazes was that?!!
Read MoreNow that we've had an extra day to be lazy and not write...
Read MoreWhat the hell got into John Danks? What got into the White Sox in general? How have the Astros been winning? Danks' shutout was very him; a combination of his best control, consistent contact but avoiding the huge, deflating bomb, and a definitively weird event that kept his tab empty. In another world, Jonathan Villar's triple-that-wasn't-quite-an-inside-the-park-home-run is a lineout to center that Adam Eaton reads correctly, but let he who has not allowed the speeding bullet over his outfielder's head cast the first stone.
Read MoreMake sure it's strongly on the record that objective indicators for the Sox are still extremely bad. They have the worst run differential in the league, they dug themselves such a hole offensively that there's no point in looking at that figure for another month, and Samardzija is the only regular starter with an ERA under 5.00. They look more like a team that HAS to normalize than one that is in the process of doing so.
Read MoreThe White Sox won two series this past week, but are still dead-last in the American League in runs scored thanks to several black holes (I just watched INTERSTELLAR on a plane and just one seems like a kick in the pants) in their lineups. The people--might--demand solutions! Are there any?
Read MoreGordon Beckham has the ideal qualifications for a utility infielder, in that he was a below-average starting infielder for several years. More specifically, he was good glove, bad bat guy who was drafted as a shortstop, and spent his MLB career getting reps at second and third base. The concern was that he would be misused. Then there was some mild Spring Training concern that he was completely washed up, but mostly it was concern that he would be misused.
Read MoreThat's more like it.
A day after breaking their season opening four-game skid, the White Sox welcomed Chris Sale back with open arms and he pitched them to a 6-2 win over the Minnesota Twins, the Sox's second in a row against the presumptive AL Central bottom feeders.
Read MoreThe Royals are a pain in the White Sox's ass. If it weren't official before, I'm making it official after Wednesday's 7-5 defeat that saw beanballs, gopherballs, and a myriad of other weird stuff.
Read MoreBaseball season is finally here.
After months of speculating, the White Sox's 25-man roster is set and the starting nine will take the field this afternoon against the defending American League champion Kansas City Royals.
Now that all the roster-building questions have been answered, what can we expect out of these guys?
Let's take our best guess.
Read MoreThe Catbird Seat is a White Sox blog by White Sox fans that focuses on intelligent and humorous baseball commentary. Brought to you by ESPN's SweetSpot Network.
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