Important stuff from a 3-2 coming out party for Jeff Samardzija

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Jeff Samardzija had Torii Hunter struck out in the first inning, he had fooled him with a tumbling sinker that looked like it had slid under his desperate lunge, only to have it dribble out between Geovany Soto's legs and was called a foul tip. Two batters, and maybe five minutes later it was 2-0, after Samardzija had blown his two-strike count to Hunter, allowed him to score when he blew an 0-2 count to Joe Mauer for an RBI double, completely fell asleep as Mauer got a running lead and stole third, which allowed him to score on sacrifice fly.

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Gordon Beckham is helping the White Sox win

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Gordon 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.

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Your 2015 Chicago White Sox in a perfect world (or the apocalypse)

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Baseball 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.

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White Sox roster edges closer to completion

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The official White Sox 25-man Opening Day, World Series-bound roster is not to be announced until Thursday, but they're eeking ever closer to full resolution, while also completely holding off on any decision of who is getting booted off the 40-man roster. The story of the Sox roster is akin to Harry Potter, but only in the sense that it's hesitant to decisively purge any significant characters.

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A Case for J.B. Shuck

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Those of you out there who listen to our podcasts are probably used to hearing me complain about defensive metrics. In the end, my objections to defensive metrics are limited in their scope - I just think they should be approached as pieces of data, rather than definitive, precise measurements. However, that does not mean that I don't care about defense, or that I don't think it's important. For a long time, defense was so underrated that it was one of the market inefficiencies that Billy Beane tried to exploit. Picked up off the scrap heap, J.B. Shuck could provide a lot of value with his glove this year - especially given the White Sox' recent history.

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Your Ultimate 2015 White Sox Spring Training Primer

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Spring 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.

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The new J.B. Shuck/Jordan Danks reality

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Chances are, if a waiver claim player threatens your job security, you never had job security. You might not have even had the job.

This is the reality that the out-of-options Jordan Danks, whose ten-day stranglehold--again, probably not, as it turns out--on the fifth outfielder slot was rudely interrupted by the Sox claiming J.B. Shuck off waivers, a speedy, left-handed spare outfielder who is about half as tall as Danks and strikes a third as often.

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