It's cliche, but the NBA and NHL season wrapping really has thrown the full attention of the Chicago sports media engine toward why the Cubs offseason promise has borne fruit and the White Sox are an even bigger disaster than previously remembered. And oh, wow, just as more attention comes to the Sox, they're on a seven-game skid and hurtling out of even the faintest notion of playoff contention at breathtaking speed.
Read MoreAfter Adam LaRoche read the riot act on the White Sox offense Sunday, calling their performance "embarrassing" and acknowledging that they had been making "good pitchers look great," the White Sox squared off with the Blue Jays and....really showed everyone what he was talking about.
Read MoreIf Hector Noesi being available out of the bullpen on consecutive days wasn't enough of a clue, the White Sox cemented that Carlos Rodon will become a member of the starting rotation Tuesday, where he will presumably extend his commanding 1-0 lead in quality starts over Noesi.
Read MoreAfter Carlos Rodon struck out Marlon Byrd to end the fifth inning of his debut as a starter with the White Sox on Saturday night, the TV broadcast showed a brief exchange between the young lefty and pitching coach Don Cooper that appeared to be as simple as Cooper saying "how are you feeling?"
Read MoreAfter the way the last two nights went, the White Sox decided to turn away from this "entering the game with a massive starting pitching advantage" business and play some real ball with Hector Noesi vs. Ricky Nolasco. Things went marginally better in the sense that you could count several moral victories the same way you would be tabulating tiny triumphs for a newly-formed youth soccer team trying to keep their composure after getting annihilated every Saturday.
Read MoreShort of injuries, this has been about as frustrating a start to the season as you can get. Losing to the Royals brings its own frustration, but coming off the World Series appearance you can at least understand how they beat you. The Twins were coming off of a humiliating opening set against Detroit wherein they didn't score a run until late in the third game. Tommy Milone was on the mound, and the Royals' terrifying bullpen wasn't lying in wait. And the White Sox got shut out anyway.
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 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 MoreSince the minute Carlos Rodon signed to a $6,582,000 bonus, the largest in the 2014 draft and White Sox draft history, it’s been clear he’s on the fast track to the big leagues. Though that promotion did not come to fruition in 2014, Rodon has already reached Triple-A, and has stuff that in short bursts was entirely overwhelming to hitters there despite lackluster command.
Read MoreThe White Sox are planning to compete for a playoff spot in 2015; this much is clear. There is intense optimism around the team, culminating in a SoxFest that seemed, aside from being a celebration of the 2005 team, a love fest for the moves Rick Hahn & Co. have made this offseason.
This is cool. It’s been a while since the Sox were a contending team, and even longer since they made the playoffs.
Read MoreThe season of unabashed optimism is at hand! In the immediate wake of SoxFest, Collin Whitchurch, Nick Schaefer, Ethan Spalding and James Fegan got together to talk White Sox. Agenda items include:
--Avisail has lost some weight
--They're winning the whole thing!
--Hector Noesi is here to stay
--Much, much more!
Read MoreIt’s pitching depth week at The Catbird Seat! In consecutive days you’ve had Ethan and Nick explaining the problem that is the White Sox rotational depth. To keep with the trend, let’s continue addressing, but let’s also use a different approach. Though the Sox rotation is certainly not strong front to back, it is not ill equipped to enter a season representing a playoff hopeful team.
Read MoreIn 2013, the White Sox were really, really bad. There were seemingly very few bright spots. Surprising as it me be, however, the White Sox were second in MLB in pitching (Baseball-Reference) WAR (which goes to show how incredibly bad they were offensively and defensively, seeing as they finished with the third-worst record in baseball). After the loss of Jake Peavy and Hector Santiago, however, the back end of the White Sox pitching staff sputtered, and the team fell to 20th in MLB in pitching bWAR, despite their top two starters combining for the third best bWAR for any pair of rotation-mates in baseball. As it turns out, the combination of John Danks, Hector Noesi, Scott Carroll, and the worst bullpen in baseball do not combine for a good pitching staff.
Read MoreIn an ideal world. Chris Bassitt enjoys a journeyman career. Bouncing around to various organizations, filling in for relief and providing spot starts as needed, performing admirably in spite of clear limitations, and never strike out anyone besides Alex Avila.
Read MoreThis is a false question, since Danks is signed for two more expensive seasons and Hector Noesi could be dropped at a moment's notice. Yet they've had similar seasons and promise future utility going forward, which is to say they don't offer much.
Read MoreApparently quieting compiling monster stats on an unworldly hot streak wasn't enough for Flowers to fully launch the narrative of switching to glasses--FROM CONTACTS HE ALREADY WORE--unlocking some offensive monster, he had to go and beat the Texas Rangers all by himself. The Rangers are a pretty sad major league product these days, but still, one man. Flowers got a two-run third inning started with a one-out triple that bounced on the edge of the right field wall, slammed out a game-tying home run to lead off the fifth, threw out Jim Adduci trying to steal second to end the sixth, and poked the go-ahead two-run single in the bottom half of the inning, saving a scoring opportunity the Sox looked primed to blow after Gordon Beckham and Alejandro struck out.
Read MoreClassic Noesi! He completely demolished any notion of a competitive game after seven batters, then wind up sopping up six innings and still earning plaudits for perseverance in the end. It was his Sox career in a nutshell. He was bad and didn't give the team a good chance to win, but saved them stress they couldn't afford by not forcing them to find a replacement. When the opposition scores six runs in the first seven batters, you start telling the utility infielders to get their arms warm, but it didn't happen! It didn't happen. We're so blessed.
Read MoreWhat can I say about tonight's Hector Noesi start in Minnesota that's more telling than this: it prompted a discussion about Zach Stewart's near-perfect game against the Twins in 2011. Noesi retired the first 11 batters he faced, and took a one-hit shutout into the eighth. He did this mostly via flyouts. Long flyouts, medium-length flyouts, not so many short flyouts, and one swinging strikeout, which came against Danny Salazar, who later blasted an enormous two-run homer off Noesi in the eighth, his only runs allowed. You have to throw strikes to do this kind of work, and Noesi did that, which beats the pants off the time he walked seven people in under five innings.
Read MoreSurely back-to-back nights of the bullpen clinging to one-run leads over multiple innings to prop up average or worse contributions from the offense will be prominently featured in the best-seller "How an Awful Bullpen Derailed the 2014 White Sox Juggernaut."
Read MoreThe secret worst thing about crummy pitchers isn't that they get lit up, it's that they get lit up and then leave work lying around for others. Allowing seven runs in two innings loses a single game, but it also leaves seven innings to pitch. Hector Noesi has been a statistically bad pitcher, but he's been a present one; sopping up goo-gobs of innings in mediocre fashion and saving a weary bullpen.
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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