The 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, WELL, WELL.
So a full-month of goofy-time exhibition ball has not proven Micah Johnson to be verifiable whole wins better than Carlos Sanchez, and 40-man roster space has become a concern. Wonder if a self-aggrandizing blogger predicted such chaos. He'd be a billionaire about now...
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 MoreThere are two extreme poles at work here. One is this extreme outlay of money (Reportedly over $40whatever, not mine) and years of commitment for a reliever, even super-high leverage reliever. The other pole is how utterly hopeless the Sox were looking for a strikeout at the end of games last season, and their lack of immediate options to fix that problems:
Read MoreJose Quintana now has the longest run of consecutive 200-inning seasons on the team with two. Individual benchmarks in a lost season, especially ones marking a large workload, are typically for the birds, but Quintana's new identity as a workhorse is especially cool. He spent 2012 being waited on to reveal himself as a fluke, but now is one of the most reliable sources of value the Sox have.
Read MoreThe White Sox bullpen numbers certainly look like someone was applying a theory and wondering where it took them.
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 MoreI'm firmly of the belief that Hawk Harrelson is mostly harmless, probably helpful and informative more often than not. The misinformation and confusing tangents are distracting and certainly coming at a higher percentage than most, but what's the point of taking time out to cover his every offense when everyone else is already offering theirs?
Read MoreWell, you can't face Justin Verlander every night.
One night after rudely banishing the old lion of the Central into further ignominy, the White Sox offense...well, didn't do enough to fill out a sentence. To talk about the bottom half of the innings Thursday night, besides to wonder if the producers had time to breath before throwing it to commercial, is to talk about Max Scherzer, since he was one doing the work.
Read MoreWhite Sox fans expecting a healthy dose of Chris Sale in his second start back from injury saw their dreams cut short on Tuesday night as more than two hours of rain delays forced the ace out after just three innings.
But Scott Carroll, of all people, came to the rescue, scattering five hits over the next three innings and the offense did just enough in a 2-1 win over the Indians in a game that lasted until well after midnight.
Read MoreMatt Lindstrom as the White Sox closer was always artificially installed. He never read as the best pitcher in the bullpen, nor was he expected to develop into it by season's end, nor did his stuff project to play well in the role. Once the season started, he struggled immediately and mightily, yet the Sox weathered his troubles even though his potential didn't justify it.
Read MoreNotorious White Sox nemesis Jeremy Guthrie is the last hurdle between the White Sox and A) a sweep of the Royals, and B) getting back to .500 after sitting between one and three games below during each of the last 11 days when the two teams meet in Wednesday's series finale at Kaufmann Stadium at 7:05 p.m.
Read MoreWith the month of Abreu — sorry, the month of April — officially in the books, James Fegan, Collin Whitchurch, Nick Schaefer, Matt Adams and Rob Flot sat down and discussed what we've seen out of the White Sox so far. Among the topics we broached were Jose Abreu, the pitching staff, Adam Dunn, Alexei Ramirez, trades and attendance. Feel free to join in on the conversation in the comments below.
Read MoreTwo victories bookended the White Sox's first significant losing streak of the season in a week that further highlighted the team's pitching woes.
Read MoreA day after the atrocity that is the White Sox bullpen used up every last pitch in its arsenal in a 6-4, 14-inning loss to the Red Sox, Chris Sale takes the mound in hopes of avoiding the shenanigans that led to that embarrassing conclusion.
Leury Garcia is starting at second base and will likely be unavailable in relief for tonight's 7:10 rubber match against Jon Lester and the Boston Red Sox, but one can rightly assume Daniel Webb, fresh off of a gutsy, 59-pitch performance as the only actual arm left in the bullpen, won't be.
Read MoreOver 5 hours of walks, occasional run scoring, and a position player pitching ultimately resulted in the White Sox dropping a 14-inning affair by the score of 6-4 to the Red Sox. Pitching started out surprisingly effective before winding up familiarly awful, and a barrage of walks was too much to overcome as the series evens up at a game a piece.
Read MoreAlexei Ramirez punctuated an up-and-down second week of the season for the White Sox with his two-run, walk-off home run on Sunday against the Cleveland Indians. The victory gave the White Sox a 4-3 record for the week and raised their record against the American League Central to 6-4 at this very early point in the season, and the 3-1 series win over the Indians helped them exorcise some of the demons that haunted them after going 2-17 against the Tribe a year ago.
Read MoreThe brightest spot in the White Sox's 3-3 start to the season was an offense that looked nothing like the massive black hole we saw in 2013.
Unfortunately for an already unimpressive Felipe Paulino, Monday's 8-1 loss to the Colorado Rockies showcased the fact that, no, the White Sox's offense isn't going to be able to keep them in every game.
Read MoreWe saw the bullpen strain pretty hard to get through Wednesday and Thursday - although I suppose allowing five runs in three innings in the Thursday loss doesn't necessarily count as "getting through." Part of the problem is that Felipe Paulino only managed 5.1 innings on Wednesday. They were good innings, but between Ventura playing cutesy lefty-righty matchups, Nate Jones' struggles, and Scott Downs walking Mauer and then being pulled, two relievers were used to get zero outs, and there were only six innings in the books at that point.
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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