It is nearly the deadline for activating club options, also known as the long-awaited decision day on Alexei Ramirez's future with the White Sox. Or, is better said, it's the deadline for determining whether their desire to purge $9 million from the 2016 payroll outstrips any interest in shopping the veteran for talent in return, or any interest in just not giving 600+ plate appearances to Tyler Saladino.
Read MoreI originally started this State of the Offense "series" thinking that the offense would eventually wind up somewhere close to league average, but that after the first twenty games they were in an underperforming slump. Then after another twenty games...the offense was still terrible. As I write this, 63 games are in the books, and the White Sox just got shut out in back-to-back games, managing fewer than 4 hits in both of them. At this point it's just a matter of marveling at how bad the offense is.
Read MoreThe success or failure of teams in the MLB Draft is difficult to determine. The main reason for this is because it takes so long for most draftees to reach the majors, and players shuffle from team to team so often (whether it's by trade or otherwise) that looking at a particular team's draft class for a particular year will often only yield one or two players who actually made an impact on that team's major league roster.
Read MoreWell that was annoying, as in even more than originally anticipated.
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 MoreThis is an assumption, but an assumption I'm pretty confident in making after Monday's less-than-inspiring 10-1 loss in the season opener.
Read MoreIt was bad enough that the Braves just automatically dumped Carlos Quentin like he was empty contract, like he was friggin' Theo Ratliff, but they announced dumping him as the third entry in a roster move tweet that talks about Josh Outman and Brandon Cunniff?! Why don't they just dump his corpse into pauper's grave while they're at it?
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 MoreAs you probably know, you can gamble on just about everything under the sun nowadays. Who will be the President in 2016? Which movie will win Best Picture at the Academy Awards? How many home runs will Jose Abreu hit?
You probably have an opinion on that last one (maybe the other two, we don't know). Either way, the staff at The Catbird Seat decided to make some over/under predictions for the 2015 White Sox.
We came up with a starting point, compiled by Collin Whitchurch through a combination of looking at last year's numbers, this year's projections, and some just plain out of thin air, and each staff member predicted whether the final 2015 tally would be over or under that number. Some are fun. Some are sad. Some are ridiculous.
Enjoy, and let us know your predictions in the comments section.
Read MoreAt this point, following the machinations of public discussion of Gordon Beckham is like finishing the final seasons of Dexter. It's long since stopped being a compelling pursuit for answers, or even a foolishly idealist search for a long-term solution of what's clearly a fatal flaw. To be honest, it's just a disjointed mess at this point and has contradicted its own constructs numerous times.
Read MoreSpring Training is finally here. What this means is we can all get excited about the sight of actual major league baseball players on an actual baseball field, and then cry over the realization that we're still six weeks away from meaningful games being played.
Still, the season of optimism is upon us, so let's take a look at some of the important things to monitor during the White Sox's time in Arizona.
Read MoreThis is the both a casual, lazy diss comp and stunningly accurate with numerous parallels. I could dredge up other instances of familiar utility infielders whose roles expanded beyond initial plans because their managers' love of their reliability trumped cold assessment of their skill level and statistical production. But probably the most relatable example for this audience is current situation on the West Side, where a seemingly innocuous bench player has their role expanded until it is a blinding hindrance.
Read MoreIt's February: the most exciting and thrilling time of the baseball news cycle. Between Gordon Beckham return, Dayan Viciedo leaving, and Spring Training....coming eventually, there's so much White Sox news to t--ah screw it.
James Fegan (@JRFegan), Nick Schaefer (@Nick_TCS) and Ethan Spalding (@spaldingethan) gathered together to dish on Victor Martinez's knee injury, Tigers' depth problems, the Royals' stupid, cheap offseason, how the Indians could be scary, Mookie Betts being overrated, defensive metrics being dumb, and then, then it went off the rails.
Read MoreChicago Business' Danny Ecker's Monday article--which basically does not much more than imply that there might be a different volume of Jock Jams spinning in the U.S. Cellular Field CD changer in 2015--doubles as a character sketch of the protagonist in a 'Fish out of water who transforms his new environment' comedy.'
Read MoreWith SoxFest in the books, the only third baseman currently on the MLB Trade Rumors free agency list being Donnie Murphy and Jayson Nix, and Gordon Beckham filling out the last bit of the roster in some sort of utility/mascot role, it looks like Conor Gillaspie has survived the offseason after his breakout season without completely losing his job.
Read MoreSometime during the Viciedo retrospective, the staff of The Catbird Seat got somewhat distracted and started gabbing about Gordon Beckham returning on a one-year, $2 million deal.
Read MoreIn the wake of Dayan Viciedo’s designation for assignment and coming departure, the staff of The Catbird Seat joins together to remember...THE EXPERIENCE of Dayan.
Read MoreSo, this happened Wednesday:
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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