This is going to be one of my shorter blog entries, because I don’t want to spend a lot of time dwelling on 2022 (or 2021 or 2020 or any of the past 18 years) or over-hyping what may be another year in a long line of really bad years.
If you roll back in my blog to December 2019 you’ll see how much I looked forward to the 2020s beginning and the miserable 2010s finally coming to an end. Not much in my life has gone well or been pleasant since around 2004, and I know most of this is due to the fact that I got home internet service in 2005, and life has gone downhill ever since.
While the first six weeks of 2020 were amazing, the second week of February brought about a lot of things I don’t like to even think about (COVID, people I had discarded returning to my life) and 2021 and 2022 would prove to be even worse.
I’m not saying they were 2010s worse, because I really don’t know how life could have been any worse than it was during the 2010s. I wouldn’t wish that decade on my worst enemy, and I’m hopeful things will never be that bad again.
The main difference between standing in 2019 and looking toward 2020 and standing in 2022 and looking into 2023 is at least I had a plan for 2020. It may have crashed spectacularly in a mere month and a half, but I still had a plan in place.
I have no plan for 2023. I have some contingencies in place, in case whatever I do decide to do doesn’t work out. For example, my baseball burnout is so extreme I’ve been trying to decide what to do when it finally engulfs me. I am 99% sure at that point I’ll begin following either UCLA or West Virginia University sports.
As everyone knows, I love my White Sox and I’m trying as hard as I can to focus myself on it but things that have happened this offseason have hampered that, not the least of which was my loss of my MLB The Show 22 roster files I had been working on for seven weeks. I have since restarted my work using my previous year’s files from MLB The Show 21, which I preferred far more than the 2022 version anyway.
I want to do all the things I wanted to do in 2020. And 2021 and 2022. And while I did a few of them (specifically my two trips to Chicago in 2021 to see the White Sox in person) I have yet to “turn the corner” with my life. All I’ve done is waste it. And feeling the way I do (lack of sleep, lack of eating right, lack of exercise, etc) has done nothing but cause me more issues than I had before. Things have got to change.
And while I know there’s nothing special about another trip around the sun I do still want to improve my situation. I’m 45 years old and have a number of contemporaries who have passed away due to heart attacks and other issues I could be just as susceptible to at my age. If that happens, so be it. But I want to be better than that.
It’s time to leave all the trash in the past. Not just the trash of 2022, but all the trash since 2005. And there has been a landfill full of it. I just want to be happy. For the first time in almost 20 years, I just want to have an extended period of happy
This is a blog I’ve been thinking of doing for a long time, and something I’ve touched on in previous blog entries stretching back to 2018. This may draw the ire of the Chicago White Sox fan boys, who think this team can do no wrong regardless of what they do, but the fact of the matter is, this rebuild has not gone to plan in spite of the back to back playoff appearances in 2020 and 2021. While the original trades that set off the rebuild were universally praised, I think they need to be revisited, as well as the free agent signings and pursuits that have taken place since the rebuild was instituted following the 2016 season.
I want to take a look at the rebuild in a season-by-season view:
2016
This is where it all began. In December 2016, the White Sox made three moves that would have a profound effect on the organization, two trades and one Rule 5 Draft pick.
– On December 6, the White Sox traded LHP Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox for IF Yoan Moncada (at the time the #1 prospect in baseball), RHP Michael Kopech, OF Luis Alexander Basabe and RHP Victor Diaz.
– On December 7, the White Sox traded OF Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals for RHP’s Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning.
– And on December 8, the White Sox selected RHP Dylan Covey in the Rule 5 Draft from the Oakland A’s.
This was also the year the White Sox hired career loser Rick Renteria to be their manager, once again sniffing fumes from the Chicago Cubs, who had hired Renteria four years earlier to handle their rebuild on-field.
2017
Now fully into the rebuild, not much was expected in terms of free agent signings or trades, as the Sox had little left with which to deal (though they still made a major deal before the trade deadline).
– On May 27, the White Sox signed OF Luis Robert as an international free agent from Cuba.
– On July 13, the White Sox traded LHP Jose Quintana to the Chicago Cubs for RHP Dylan Cease, OF Eloy Jimenez, 1B Matt Rose and IF Bryant Flete.
– On July 19, the White Sox traded 3B Todd Frazier, RHP David Robertson and RHP Tommy Kahnle to the New York Yankees for RHP Tyler Clippard, OF Blake Rutherford, OF Tito Polo and LHP Ian Clarkin.
In the first season of the rebuild, the Sox finished the 2017 season with a 67-95 record.
2018
The worst season of the rebuild, by far. The Sox finished with a record of 62-100.
– On November 23, 2017, the White Sox signed OF Daniel Palka off waivers from the Minnesota Twins.
– On December 1, 2017, the White Sox signed C Wellington Castillo to a two-year deal with an option to lock down the catcher position that had been in flux since A.J. Pierzynski was let go.
– On December 22, 2017, the White Sox signed RHP Jose Ruiz off waivers from the San Diego Padres.
The Wellington Castillo deal was one of the first ones to implode on this team, as Castillo was suspended 80 games for violating the league’s performance-enhancing drug policy on May 24, 2018. Unaware of it at the time, this was going to be an omen of things to come, not in terms of drug policy violations but in terms of poor free agent signings and a poor performance in free agency, in general.
2019
This is where the rebuild really started to go south. Prior to the season, the White Sox were considered one of the front runners to sign free agents Manny Machado or Bryce Harper. In fact, some media outlets said there was a chance the White Sox could sign both. Instead, their offseason acquisitions amounted to:
– On December 15, 2018, the White Sox traded minor league OF Alex Call to the Cleveland Indians for 1B/DH Yonder Alonso.
– On December 19, 2018, the White Sox signed C James McCann as a free agent from the Detroit Tigers.
– On January 10, the White Sox signed OF Jon Jay as a free agent from the Arizona Diamondbacks.
– On March 22, the White Sox signed OF Eloy Jimenez to a six-year, $43 million extension.
The Chicago press pointed out that Alonso and Jay were offseason workout buddies of Machado, while the Sox front office did everything they could to downplay the connection publicly.
While the Chicago media circled the wagons around the franchise, the rest of the country was laughing at the White Sox over the attempt to sign Machado. After announcing they had made an eight-year, $250 million offer, and Machado had signed a 10-year, $300 million offer, White Sox team president Kenny Williams was left to try to justify that the offer could have reached 10 years and $350 million if all options were exercised and all criteria were met in on-field performance. In the same breath, he said the White Sox just couldn’t afford to go to $300 million guaranteed. I feel like this was lost on most people, saying “we can’t afford to pay you $300 million, but we can afford to pay you $350 million.” The White Sox were the laughingstock of baseball outside of the city of Chicago (and were publicly laughed at during Machado’s press conference announcing his signing with the Padres) and the Sox finished the season with a 72-89 record, a 10-game improvement from hitting rock bottom the previous year with a 100-loss season.
2020
The window of contention begins to open. And the White Sox struck hard and fast.
– On November 21, 2019, the White Sox signed C Yasmani Grandal to the largest contract in team history, four years and $73 million.
– On December 10, 2019, in an attempt to shore up right field for the contention window, they traded OF Steele Walker to the Texas Rangers for OF Nomar Mazara.
– On December 30, 2019, in an attempt to shore up the rotation, they signed free agent LHP Dallas Keuchel.
– On January 2, the White Sox signed minor league OF Luis Robert to a six-year contract worth $50 million with options that could push the deal to $88 million.
– On January 9, the White Sox signed Edwin Encarnacion as a free agent to plug a hole at DH.
The White Sox were rumored for months to be in the market for RHP Zack Wheeler, who signed with the Phillies for less money than the White Sox offered (no monetary information was ever released but the significant facts were never disputed by the White Sox or Wheeler) and for the second straight offseason the Sox were left with egg on their faces, and as I’ll address later, I think this was the end of the big market free agent pursuits by the White Sox. Whether they were scared or just figured it wasn’t worth it, I don’t know.
In the season shortened to 60 games due to COVID-19, the White Sox finished with a 35-25 record.
2021
The White Sox entered 2021 as legitimate World Series contenders, according to the press. They fortified the roster with the following moves:
– On October 29, 2020, the White Sox hired Tony La Russa as manager, replacing Renteria.
– On December 7, 2020, the White Sox traded Dane Dunning to the Texas Rangers for Lance Lynn.
– On December 10, 2020, after failing to acquire Joc Pederson for the third consecutive offseason and releasing Nomar Mazara after he fell flat on his face as the everyday right fielder, the White Sox signed Adam Eaton as a free agent from the Washington Nationals.
And while I can’t find the exact date, at some point during this period, the White Sox signed 3B Yoan Moncada to a five-year, $70 million extension.
– On January 15, the White Sox had a big day. They signed Liam Hendriks and signed international free agents Yoelqui Cespedes and Norge Vera.
The White Sox let C James McCann go, and he signed a $40 million deal with the New York Mets, a little more than half what Yasmani Grandal would make in the same four years.
The Chicago media was all in, thinking the White Sox would acquire everyone from Trevor Bauer to Michael Brantley to George Springer to Kris Bryant. The Chicago fan boys were picturing a $400 million payroll. What the White Sox got was a 93-69 record, an AL Central Division title, and a first-round loss in the playoffs.
2022
Again, the idea that the White Sox were going to break the bank hung over the team as free agency started in November, 2021. Such arrogant statements as “we’re going to sign Marcus Semien but in case we don’t, Eduardo Escobar is our backup plan.” (Escobar signed with the New York Mets before Semien signed with the Texas Rangers and the White Sox were clearly never in on either of them). Another embarrassing situation revolved around OF Michael Conforto, whose name was bandied about for months until it was revealed he wouldn’t be playing in 2022 due to shoulder surgery. (Prior to this announcement, a White Sox “news” site had posted a column saying that the Sox had a massive offer on the table for Conforto, but because he wasn’t vaccinated the team wouldn’t sign the deal. Every bit of that was subsequently proven to be completely fabricated in someone’s brain).
The 2022 MLB lockout lasted from December to March, and the White Sox made two moves prior to the beginning of the lockout (during which MLB transactions were not allowed):
– On November 30, 2021, the White Sox signed RHP Kendall Graveman as a free agent.
– On December 1, 2021, the White Sox resigned IF/OF Leury Garcia.
Following the lockout, and with most of the top-flight talent off the board, the White Sox made the following transactions:
– On March 14, the White Sox signed RHP Joe Kelly as a free agent.
– On March 15, the White Sox signed IF Josh Harrison as a free agent.
– On April 1, the White Sox traded RHP Craig Kimbrel to the Los Angeles Dodgers for OF A.J. Pollock.
– On April 3, the White Sox traded C Zack Collins to the Toronto Blue Jays for C Reese McGuire.
– On April 5, the White Sox signed RHP Johnny Cueto as a free agent.
At the trade deadline, the White Sox sent McGuire to the Boston Red Sox for LHP Jake Diekman.
Not mentioned in the transactions (as I made those strictly important acquisitions) was LHP Dallas Keuchel was designated for assignment on May 28.
Now, I went through all of those transactions so we can look on a case-by-case basis how the rebuilt roster looks and how the players who were acquired for and during the rebuild have fared. I’m going to list the most relevant statistics to each player listed above in bold and these numbers are the stats the player accumulated as a member of the White Sox ONLY. And I’ll start at the beginning:
Yoan Moncada: In six seasons with the White Sox, Moncada has compiled a 13.2 WAR and a .254/.337/.425 stat line. His 2019 season is an outlier, with a 5.2 WAR and .315/.367/.548 line and 25 home runs. A consistent stolen base threat in the minor leagues, he’s stolen 3 bases in 5 attempts since the beginning of the 2020 season.
Michael Kopech: Kopech missed the 2019 season with Tommy John surgery and the 2020 season with “personal problems” as best as I can describe them. He seems to finally be putting it together in 2022, but has compiled a 9-12 career record and a 4.1 WAR (four of those victories and 2.6 WAR coming in 2022). Hopefully his best years are ahead of him because he seems to really be perfecting his craft.
Lucas Giolito: This was the guy I thought would be the centerpiece of the rebuild. Like Moncada, he’s had one very good season and a lot of average-to-below-average seasons around that. In 2019, Gio made the All Star team and finished with 14 wins, a 3.41 ERA, a 134 ERA+ and a 5.5 WAR, all career highs. His 2022 season has been poor, with eight wins, a 4.91 ERA, an 81 ERA+ and a 0.1 WAR.
Reynaldo Lopez: Like Kopech, Lopez has really hit his stride this season, but not as a starter, as a high-leverage reliever. A failed starter (in 2019, Lopez compiled a 10-15 record with a 5.38 ERA in 33 starts, with an 85 ERA+ and 0.3 WAR). In 2022, after corrective eye surgery and a move to the bullpen, Lopez is 5-2 with a 2.84 ERA, 141 ERA+ and 1.0 WAR.
Dylan Covey: My choice for the worst player acquisition during the rebuild (and everyone knows my feelings about Adam Eaton). In three seasons with the White Sox, Dylan Covey compiled a 6-29 record, a 6.54 ERA, a 66 ERA+ and a -3.0 WAR. I don’t know who saw what in this guy, he is literally one of the worst pitchers I have ever seen in 30+ years of watching baseball. Absolutely pathetic. Thankfully he was let go in 2019.
Luis Robert: This is a guy that I can honestly say, the numbers don’t tell the story. Robert has a career .297/.342/.488 line with an OPS+ of 128 and an 8.0 WAR in three seasons. The problem is, he’s played in 206 of 335 games (as of the time of this writing), which means he has missed roughly 40% of the Sox games he’s been eligible to play up to this point. The talent is definitely there. But if you can’t play the game, those “five tools” are completely worthless.
Dylan Cease: The real gem of the rebuild, Dylan has compiled a 34-23 record with a 3.66 ERA, 118 ERA+ and 7.3 WAR since 2019. His 2021 season was excellent, featuring 13 wins and leading the league in starts with 32, to go along with 226 strikeouts in 165.2 innings. His 2022 season has been transcendent, with 12 wins, a 1.96 ERA, 204 ERA+, a 4.4 WAR and 174 strikeouts in 128.2 innings. There is either a Cy Young award or a massive free agent deal with a better team in his future. Or maybe both.
Eloy Jimenez: Being honest, Eloy is my second favorite player on the White Sox after Jose Abreu. But he suffers from the same issue as Luis Robert: An inability to stay healthy. Eloy has played 271 games for the White Sox over the past four seasons, out of 497 possible. That’s roughly 55%. Just a little more than half of the games he could have played in. While his stat line is certainly solid (.273/.319/.498 with an .817 OPS and 118 OPS+), it doesn’t really matter if you can’t stay in the lineup.
Blake Rutherford: Blake was going to be the third outfielder with Robert and Eloy. He was highly-touted coming from the Yankees. However, in his six-year minor league career, he has compiled a .250/.286/.404 stat line with an OPS of .731. Those numbers wouldn’t cut it at the MLB level, let alone the MiLB level, and he was designated for assignment before being brought back off the 40 man roster.
Jose Ruiz: It’s amazing to think this guy is in his fifth season on the south side. Ruiz looked like he had turned a corner in 2021 (3.05 ERA, 144 ERA+, 1.1 WAR) but he has quickly fallen back to earth in 2022 (4.03 ERA, 99 ERA+, 0.5 WAR). Good stuff but nothing more than a spare arm that should never see a high-leverage situation.
James McCann: Even though he’s no longer on the team, I just wanted to point out that McCann signed a four-year, $40 million deal with the Mets the year after Yasmani Grandal signed a four-year, $73 million deal with the White Sox. Considering both of their numbers with those teams, I can’t imagine anyone would want four years of Grandal at $33 million more than McCann. Neither can hit a beach ball but McCann is certainly more mobile behind the plate. For the record, McCann’s stat line with the Mets (.223/.285/.335) compared with Grandal’s line with the Sox (.225/.368/.408 and Grandal’s OBP is out of whack due to his insane 2021 season and .420 OBP). Nothing will ever convince me that Grandal is $33 million better than McCann.
Yasmani Grandal: See above. I don’t know if the Sox thought they were getting Carlton Fisk 2.0 but they didn’t. Grandal was on the wrong side of 30 and was coming off a 2019 season with the Milwaukee Brewers in which he hit a career-high 28 home runs and drove in a career-high 77. He’s come nowhere near those numbers since while making $18 million a year. His 2022 batting line (.203/.307/.264) will be the worst of his career by far and he still has another season to go at $18 million. I know it’s unpopular to say, especially among the fan boys, but that was a truly poor signing.
Nomar Mazara: This deal made me angry because I really started to notice the Sox had decided to take the cheap way out in their future acquisitions. The Chicago press presented him as untapped potential, even though he had over 2,000 plate appearances at the MLB level. I heard numbers thrown about like “35 home runs and 100 RBI” from a guy who had never hit more than 20. I told everyone who would listen it was a bad signing. Come to find out, it was a bad signing. Mazara hit .228/.295/.294 with 3 home runs in 42 games and was not brought back after the season.
Dallas Keuchel: Another deal I didn’t like. Not that I didn’t like the signing at the time but the contract was insane from my perspective. Clearly on the downside of his career, Keuchel got a three-year deal from the White Sox for $55.5 million. This was nothing more than a way for the White Sox to save face after Zack Wheeler signed with the Philadelphia Phillies for less money, embarrassing the White Sox organization in the process. So what did the White Sox get for that $55.5 million? A 17-16 record, a 4.79 ERA, a 91 ERA+ and a 0.9 WAR. Also $18 million wasted that they have to pay him after he was DFA’d.
Edwin Encarnacion: Not much to say here, his contract wasn’t that outlandish (one year for $12 million) but in typical form, he was a free agent signing that woefully under performed. In 44 games, Encarnacion put up a .157/.250/.377 stat line with a 70 OPS+ with 10 home runs and 19 RBI. He topped off what is, in retrospect, and absolutely horrible offseason that was celebrated at the time.
Lance Lynn: I like Lance Lynn, and he’s been relatively successful in his White Sox tenure, but I would have stopped short of giving him the two-year, $38 million extension he received. While his first year was certainly acceptable (2.69 ERA, 163 ERA+, 5.3 WAR), he’s not looking like he’s worth the money in 2022 (5.88 ERA, 68 ERA+, -0.7 WAR). A starting pitcher could be found somewhere to put up better numbers than that at half the price.
Adam Eaton: This is just covering his second round with the White Sox. Eaton was signed to a $7 million deal after perennial target Joc Pederson refused to sign and instead took less money to play across town for the Cubs. Eaton’s return engagement was not quite as productive as his first, as he compiled a .201/.298/.344 stat line with a 75 OPS+ and 0 WAR. The hole in right field that Mazara was supposed to fill ate up Eaton as well. He was designated for assignment after 58 games.
Liam Hendriks: Another sore spot with me. The numbers didn’t tell the story with this guy, either. A failed starter who then became a failed middle reliever somehow caught lightning in a bottle and became a very good closer for a year and a half before the White Sox dumped a three-year, $54 million deal in his lap. Hendriks is a low-leverage closer who does his best work starting a clean inning with a three-run lead. Anything less than that and I’m on the edge of my seat waiting for him to blow it.
Kendall Graveman: A good signing (though a bit expensive for a set-up man at three years and $24 million) who has pitched very well and looks like a good investment so far, with a 2.59 ERA, 155 ERA+ and 1.1 WAR so far in 2022.
Leury Garcia: Longest-tenured White Sox player, been with the team for a full decade. And in that full decade, he has put up a .253/.294/.353 stat line with an OPS+ of 77 (remember, 100 is average and this is over the entire 10 years he’s played for the White Sox) and a WAR, over 10 years, of 4.5. And signed a three-year, $16.5 million contract prior to the 2022 season. I don’t care if he can play every position on the field, pop the corn and clean the toilets, you can pick up utility players every day that would make half that amount and put up superior statistics. No one will ever be able to explain this to me to my satisfaction.
Joe Kelly: “Let’s throw money at the bullpen” seemed to be the mantra of the White Sox front office during the 2021-22 offseason. Joe Kelly was not really a needed asset, and his multiple injuries in 2022 to go along with his 5.84 ERA and -0.4 WAR show this wasn’t a great investment. Yes, his numbers are skewed by his poor start to the season, but this is supposed to be a team that’s contending for a World Series, not nursing guys back to health that shouldn’t have been signed in the first place.
Josh Harrison: I like Josh Harrison, but I didn’t like this signing other than it would have been perfect as a replacement for Leury Garcia. Harrison’s days of being an everyday second baseman should have ended around 2017 in Pittsburgh, and he should be a full time utility player, a role I believe he would excel in. He started extremely poorly in 2022 but has since ramped up his stats to an acceptable level (.245/.312/.381 with a 96 OPS+ and 1.7 WAR) for a utility player, far better than Garcia is producing.
A.J. Pollock: I wanted to see the Sox acquire Pollock in 2019, when he left the Arizona Diamondbacks for the Los Angeles Dodgers as a free agent. That version of Pollock was coming off a 21 home run season, a .257/.316/.484 stat line with an OPS+ of 108 and a 2.2 WAR. The A.J. Pollock the White Sox got is hitting .236/.287/.351 with five home runs and a -0.1 WAR.
Johnny Cueto: After all those acquisitions that failed to pan out or even come close to what was expected, Johnny Cueto was a Godsend. A 2.91 ERA, 137 ERA+ and 2.9 WAR in 15 starts is outstanding, and I’d have to think there’s nothing less than a 100% chance he’ll get a free agent deal this offseason that prices him right out of the White Sox plans. In fact, to put it into perspective, Cueto is making roughly half what Lucas Giolito is making and about about ¼ what Lance Lynn is making.
If we look at this rebuild academically, with our minds instead of our hearts or fandom, it’s clear it’s been a massive failure pretty much across the board. This team, as it is built now, has no chance whatsoever of getting to the World Series. The offense is worse than any I’ve ever seen, regardless of how poor the opposing pitcher is. Pitchers with ERA’s above 5.00 routinely shut down the White Sox offense.
I’m worried about where we go from here. The concept of just saying “well, let’s just take the same group into next season and hope it’s better” isn’t going to do anything for anyone, and I’m sure Jerry Reinsdorf doesn’t want to spend another $200 million on a .500 team. But those long-term contracts that Eloy Jimenez and Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert signed, along with the overpays for Liam Hendriks and Leury Garcia and Kendall Graveman and Lance Lynn have the Sox in a precarious position, there isn’t going to be a lot of roster turnover (Cueto and Jose Abreu and Josh Harrison are the only pending free agents) unless the White Sox can somehow convince another team to take one of those overstuffed contracts off the books.
That’s not gonna be easy because I can’t picture anyone saying “sure, I’ll take two years of Yoan Moncada at $41 million and I’ll give you a nice prospect package or a serviceable veteran at a lower pay rate in return.” The long-term deals didn’t quite work out the way the deals for Chris Sale, Adam Eaton and Jose Quintana did. Those were the building blocks of the rebuild. This team is in a purgatory where they can’t really move those contracts to rebuild because the players attached to them are not worth the money they’re being paid, pretty much across the board (with the exception being Johnny Cueto). This is basically what happened to the Chicago Cubs, who priced their players right out of their payroll. But at least they got a World Series ring out of the deal. The only White Sox players with rings in their future will be getting wedding rings.
If I were running this organization, this offseason I would trade Tim Anderson and Lucas Giolito (both of whom I don’t expect to be around long term and both of whom are at the height of their value as trade pieces), I would see if Jake Burger is a legitimate full-season third base option and if I can’t trade Moncada, I’d DFA him after next season (it would be easier to accept blowing $20 million than $40 million for absolutely nothing). I’d also DFA Leury Garcia. The Sox were willing to do so with Dallas Keuchel and the money would be less if Garcia were DFA’d next season. The problem is I just don’t see the Sox being willing to either eat that much money in DFA’s or be willing to admit that chances that extreme need to be made. But the Sox managed to get rid of Chris Sale, who had far more success than Lucas Giolito (who is guaranteed gone as a free agent after the 2023 season anyway). The bottom line is, changes need to be made.
If you took the time to read this entire presentation, I thank you. I’ve worked on this for the better part of three days because I’m tired of arguing with people about the state of this franchise. It’s in a bad way right now. The Sox aren’t suddenly going to “get hot” and just mow through the rest of the season and the playoffs and win the World Series. Those things just don’t happen. Or don’t happen often. Everyone uses the 2021 Atlanta Braves as an example but what are the chances of that happening two years in a row?
I sincerely believe the Cleveland Guardians will win the AL Central in 2022, with the White Sox finishing second and the Minnesota Twins finishing third. The Sox will also fall short of the Wild Card. At that point, hopefully changes will be made. Or they’ll stand pat and say “if it wasn’t for all the injuries…”
You don’t have to scroll too far back in my blog to see what high hopes I held for 2020. The beginning of a new decade, and putting an end to the worst decade of my life. It felt like the right time and the stars were aligning to make 2020 a real direction-changer for me. It was going to be the beginning of something special.
Well, we all know 2020 wasn’t exactly the “best year ever.”
However, I’m also going to be the first to admit it was far from being the “worst year ever.” Yes, there were challenges and things didn’t always work to plan. But 2020 was still a far cry better than, for instance, 2018. And it was perfection when compared to any year between 2010 and 2017. So I’m not here to bury 2020, just to remember it.
I will say the first six weeks of the year were as close to perfect as they could have been. I was so happy. I was working on my MLB The Show rosters because I wanted to kick off MLB Spring Training on the actual date and play a full season on the game in franchise mode, so when the offseason hit I could make the transactions as I saw fit.
And this plan worked up until COVID-19 shut down baseball for almost five months.
At some point in mid-February it felt like everything changed. Where as everything had been so perfect those first six weeks, there was a negative connotation to everything and when we went on lockdown, it felt like everything had fallen apart. My new year/new decade triumph wasn’t a loss, but it was shaping up to be far from what I had anticipated, which I am sure was the case for everyone on earth, not just me.
One of the highlights of February and March was getting Doom Eternal for my PlayStation 4, as I was a huge fan of the original Doom games dating back to the Super Nintendo in 1996. And I was so happy with Doom Eternal that I also bought the Doom Slayer’s Collection, which covered several of the games for the newer consoles I hadn’t played before.
March, April and May were enjoyable because I played Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption II all the way through to completion, back to back. But I played II before I because I wanted to play the games in chronological order in regard to the timeline of the games. I also was neck-deep in watching old western shows and movies.
Looking back, I wish I had taken that time to play my baseball season on MLB The Show and saved the Red Dead Redemption games for winter.
June and July are a complete blur. I have no idea what I was doing during that time. Clearly nothing constructive. I wasn’t even taking time to smoke cigars or watch Star Trek or do any of the other things I wanted to do even before baseball had been rescheduled. The very idea that I just threw time away like that annoys me to no end.
August brought “MLB Training Camp” and a sixty-game season. So I got a couple of months of baseball and that was enough to whet my appetite for MLB The Show, so when the season ended I downloaded the latest roster and began making all the real transactions (and a few of my own with the White Sox that weren’t made in reality but that I wanted to do) so that when Spring Training 2021 comes, I can do what I wanted last year.
I was also concerned when the season ended about what direction I was going to go in terms of entertaining myself for the winter. I used to play one of the Grand Theft Auto games to completion back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, and in 2015 began a yearly tradition of playing a Batman Arkham game as soon as baseball season ended.
This year I thought about immersing myself in Spider-Man games, shows and movies. I bought several Spider-Man video games, as well as the early 1980s cartoon series and the 1994 cartoon series, as well as the original movie trilogy on Blu-ray.
Then, by a complete fluke, I happened onto the show Chicago Fire. And I realized I had my winter all sewn up. So I bought eight seasons of Chicago Fire, seven seasons of Chicago P.D., five seasons of Chicago Med and one season of Chicago Justice on DVD. I started watching them in chronological order, along with the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit crossover episodes. As of today (December 18), I am 111 episodes into a 448 episode marathon, with new episodes set to begin in January 2021.
Enjoying these new shows has definitely been the highlight of the year for me, because I haven’t watched a “current” show since Family Guy debuted in 1999.
So, as 2020 comes to a close, I can’t say I’m altogether thrilled its over, like a lot of people can, but all the same I’m ready for a new year. I’m also ready to do the things I neglected to do in 2020, like working on my White Sox franchise on MLB The Show, smoking cigars and just enjoying life. And working myself back into good physical shape.
In closing, on a scale of one to ten, I’d give 2020 a six. I can’t really complain but I did miss out on a lot of opportunities I’d hoped to take advantage of. The major positives (finishing both Red Dead Redemption games and beginning my fandom with the Chicago shows) definitely outweighed the negatives this year. And I guarantee no one on earth is looking at 2020 ending the way they had anticipated or wanted. Hopefully 2021 will remedy that situation and everyone can move forward with their hopes and dreams.
This wasn’t really something I wanted to do, but the more people I see posting about the results of the 2020 Election, the more I feel like I need to be the voice of reason and explain some things that may have passed some people by.
First, I am a Trump voter and supporter, I voted for him in 2016 and again in 2020. In fact, I voted a full Republican ticket and will continue to do so in the future. While I’m not thrilled with the results of the Presidential election, I will offer my congratulations to Joe Biden on his win, out of respect for the office of the Presidency.
I am, however, thrilled with my home state of West Virginia which is growing more red by the day. We now have a Republican Governor with Republican majorities in the House and Senate. This pleases me. I am very proud of my state.
Now, to address those who are going overboard following the results.
I’ll begin with my fellow Republicans who think the sky is falling. It’s not. While the far left of the Democrat party has gone full-on socialist/communist, that’s not where Joe Biden has spent his near 50 years in politics. There’s a reason people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wanted Bernie Sanders in the White House as opposed to Joe Biden.
Biden’s not a socialist. His views haven’t changed. He may pretend that he’s “woke” or whatever in order to pander to the far left, but that’s not where he stands. He’s not going to walk into the White House on Inauguration Day and sign an executive order outlawing capitalism and installing communism. It just doesn’t work like that.
Yes, I expect much of the same that we had under Obama, higher taxes, higher gas prices, stagnant economy, etc. Democrats are clear about the fact that they don’t care about the stock market, and it shows in their economic plans and results. This is just something we’re going to have to live with for the next four years. But it’s not the end of the world.
This same thing applies to my liberal friends/readers. If you’re expecting a socialist utopia to pop up in January, I would recommend you don’t hold your breath. It’s not coming. Basically, the next two years, at minimum, will be gridlock. The GOP will remain in the majority in the US Senate and not much of anything is going to happen.
Naturally, Biden will never see the end of his term, as he will eventually be deemed unfit for office and this will allow Kamala Harris to take over. This will be a very smooth move by the Democrat party, because there is no way she would have, or ever will, will an election for the office. She couldn’t get through one Democrat primary in 2020 before dropping out. Elizabeth Warren would have a far better chance of winning the Presidency.
Yes, I think there was some chicanery in this election, but I’m not going to spend the next four years posting #NotMyPresident or calling for a special counsel to investigate Chinese meddling or watching for articles of impeachment. I don’t care that much.
I’ll never hate anyone for casting their ballots the way they see fit. However, I do take issue with people who hate on others, to the point of bullying or harassing them over their voting decisions. I also find a post that was floating around the past few week to be particularly disgusting, which I’ll share now and then I’ll explain my thoughts on it:
People who post something like this clearly do not understand that it would not behoove me to vote against my interests. I need to vote for myself, not for someone else and not for someone else’s values or ideas. That completely goes against the whole concept of a free and open society, and anyone who believes this or posts is should be ashamed of themselves.
At this point, I’m finished with politics and ready to begin focusing 100% on baseball again. My enjoyment of politics ended a long time ago. I can remember a day when I could spend hours discussing anything of a political nature with friends who had different viewpoints and while we likely agreed to disagree, it was never mean-spirited or hateful.
That’s all changed. In the past 15 years or so the Democrat party has been overrun with the most hateful, vile, anger-spewing pieces of human filth that I’ve ever seen. So I get no enjoyment out of discussing anything of a political nature. Or even looking at those people. That you can hate so strongly over a political viewpoint shows me a legitimate mental condition.
So, I’m done. I’ll check back in come 2024, when Donald Trump is forgotten and the GOP has a new candidate for the left to hate with the fire of a thousand suns, be it Ted Cruz or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis or South Carolina senator Tim Scott, I can’t wait to see the left completely lose their mind with hatred over a political candidate. Again.
Every year the Sox Machine blog posts a template for what is known as the “offseason plan project,” where anyone can give their thoughts on what they would like the White Sox to do in the offseason, in terms of whether to tender or non-tender eligible players, sign or not sign pending free agents, propose trades and things like that.
Rather than filling it out and posting on their blog I just decided to pinch their template and fill it out myself, which will make my offseason plans blog a lot easier to follow along with. I don’t want this to end up being 5,000 words like my last entry. And I need to point out, this isn’t what I think the team is going to do, this is what I would do.
So, here we go.
PREAMBLE
I have no question whatsoever that this team is a World Series contender. The Sox need depth more than they need any front-line players, so I will be using that as a guide through this exercise.
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
The first number after the player name is his 2020 salary and the second is what MLB Trade Rumors projects the player will receive in arbitration.
Nomar Mazara: $5.6M | $5.9M – Tender. I can’t believe I’m saying that under the circumstances, but since he’s under team control for one more year, let him be in a legit platoon with Adam Engel. When I get to free agency, I’ll expand on this decision.
Carlos Rodon: $4.5M | $4.5M – Non-tender. It’s almost funny that a team with starting pitching depth problems would non-tender a former #3 overall pick but this guy has never made 30 starts at the MLB level (and was called up in 2015). Let him be someone else’s problem.
Lucas Giolito: $2.5M | $5.3M – Tender. That’s a no-brainer. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not going to rush in with a contract extension offer just yet. I want to see how he reacts to not having James McCann carrying him through a game.
Reynaldo Lopez: $1.7M | $2.2M – Tender. But I’m moving him to a long-reliever/spot starter swingman role. I think if he’s asked to do less than go five innings, he may be a lot better at his job.
Evan Marshall: $1.3M | $1.9M – Tender. That’s getting a little expensive for a middle relief type, but the guy’s been pretty much lights-out the past two years (2.49 ERA in 2019 and 2.38 ERA in 2020).
Adam Engel: $1M | $1.4M – Tender. See Nomar Mazara. Engel has improved every year and is absolutely worthy of a chance to get some legitimate playing time again, even if it is in a platoon. And sometimes platoons just work themselves out and one guy separates himself while the other flounders.
Jace Fry: $800K | $1M – Non-tender. Dude had a career-low ERA in 2020, but it was still 3.66. That’s the first time since his 2017 call-up he’s had an ERA below 4.00. A million dollars is a little steep for that kind of production. And in spite of the ERA drop, he walked 12 in 19.2 innings. No, thanks.
Yolmer Sanchez: Uncertain – Non-tender. Anyone who knows me knows what I think of Yolmer. While he was more subdued and professional in 2020, I just don’t think he is of any real value. Danny Mendick can do his job just as well, just with more speed and more power (but admittedly less glove).
CLUB OPTIONS
Write “pick up” or “decline” or “rework” after the option.
Edwin Encarnacion: $12M – Decline. A .157 batting average and 19 RBI in 44 games? He gone. Now hand the everyday DH job to Andrew Vaughn, because he was drafted for his bat, not his glove.
Gio Gonzalez: $7M ($500K buyout) – Decline. A 4.83 ERA and declining stats over the past several years says this was likely Gio’s last hurrah. At least he finally got to pitch for the White Sox. It wasn’t worth the wait.
Leury Garcia: $3.5M ($250K buyout) – Pick Up. My main reason is to have a buffer in case Nick Madrigal has issues post-surgery or if he gets injured again. Leury can play all over the diamond (except 1B, C and P) and that kind of versatility is valuable.
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
Try to retain, or let go?
Alex Colome (Made $10,532,500 in 2020) – I would do everything I could to hold onto Colome. Outstanding closers are not as easy to find as some people think, and I would definitely NOT hand the job to Cody Heuer or Matt Foster, or even Aaron Bummer just yet. Yes, I know the White Sox caught lightning in a bottle in 2005 with Bobby Jenks but let’s not tempt fate twice. Better to have an experienced, successful closer.
James McCann (Made $5.4M in 2020) – I was one of the few people who were stoked when the Sox signed McCann prior to the 2019 season, because I knew he would be a massive upgrade behind the plate. The offense came out of nowhere. In a perfect world, the Sox would have given him an extension last offseason and used the money they spent on Yasmani Grandal to acquire more pitching. Now, I let McCann walk and get a starting job (which he deserves) and the payday that comes with it (which he deserves) and let the trio of Zack Collins, Yermin Mercedes and Seby Zavala compete for the backup job.
Jarrod Dyson (Made $2M in 2020) – Absolutely no reason to hold onto Dyson.
COACHING STAFF
Here’s a first: Pick your manager and pitching coach, with any elaboration.
Manager: A.J. Hinch. No-brainer. How often do you get a chance to hire a successful manager who’s not even 50 years old and has won a World Series in the past few years? Cheating scandal aside, there’s no question he’s the best option available.
Pitching coach:Matt Zaleski. May not be Hinch’s first choice, but Zaleski has gotten rave reviews from all of the pitchers he’s worked with as the pitching coach with AAA Charlotte. He’s also young enough to mesh well with the MLB staff.
FREE AGENTS
List three free-agent targets you’d pursue during the offseason, with a reasonable contract.
Marcus Stroman – Immediately steps in as the number three starter and improves the rotation. I’m sure he and Tim Anderson can mend fences when it comes to winning a World Series together. Four years, $68 million.
Jose Quintana – Immediately steps in as the number four starter improves the rotation. He’s clearly on the downside of his career (even though he’s only 31) but I still would say he’s a lot more dependable than Dylan Cease, Dane Dunning or Michael Kopech at this point in time. These two moves should allow Cease to take over as the fifth starter and let Kopech and Dunning head to Charlotte to increase their workload and build arm strength. One year, $5 million.
T.J. McFarland – Here is your replacement for Jace Fry. Put up less-impressive numbers overall than Fry in 2020 but limits the walks (in his last full season, he walked 20 in 56 innings in 2019) and that’s more important than anything else. One year, $2 million.
TRADES
Propose trades that you think sound reasonable for both sides, and the rationale behind them.
I really don’t see any trades that would make sense unless the White Sox decide to move on from Nomar Mazara and don’t think Adam Engel is the answer and no one on the free agent market is worth a flier. This team is solid top to bottom and only need a few tweaks here and there (mostly depth moves).
SUMMARY
My lineup will consist of Grandal at catcher, Abreu at first, Madrigal at second, Anderson at shortstop and Moncada at third, with Jimenez in left, Robert in center and Engel/Mazara in right. Vaughn will be the everyday DH. The bench will consist of Zack Collins, Danny Mendick, Leury Garcia and a couple of current minor leaguers as depth pieces.
My rotation would consist of Giolito, Keuchel, Stroman, Quintana and Cease. Colome will close, with Foster and Bummer serving as set-up men. Lopez will serve as a swingman. The rest of the bullpen would consist of Heuer, Marshall, Crochet, Jimmy Cordero and McFarland.
I wanted to make this post much more in-depth, as I had last year but at the moment that was impossible due to a personal situation. I’m showing multiple symptoms of COVID-19 and not knowing what the future may hold if I do, in fact, have the virus, I wanted to at least have something up for the post-season in case I don’t have a chance to actually experience it. Thank you for reading. Peace.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS – JULY 16: Manager Rick Renteria of the Chicago White Sox watches during Summer Workouts at Guaranteed Rate Field on July 16, 2020 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
All I can say is “wow.”
I had planned on doing a season-ending critique of the 2020 Chicago White Sox, much as I had last year, but had planned on waiting until after the World Series. Today’s situation, however, made me move my timeline up a bit.
October 12, 2020: The Chicago White Sox announced they were “parting ways” with manager Rick Renteria and pitching coach Don Cooper, and that the rest of the staff was basically waiting to see if the new manager would retain them. This really came out of left field, as it was pretty much set in stone all season that Renteria and his staff would return until he decided it was time to move on.
Of course, maybe he did. The whole “parting ways” thing really doesn’t give us much insight into who made the decision and what exactly went down. The White Sox are becoming notorious for playing things close to the vest, as Renteria received a contract extension that was not mentioned until months after it had been signed, and no information about length or amount was ever discussed openly.
So first, I’ll touch on the 2020 season and then I’ll move into my top five picks to replace Ricky Renteria, with an “honorable mention” dark horse candidate that most people probably would never even consider.
When I think of the 2020 season, looking back a year or a decade from now, I’ll always think of this team winning in spite of it’s manager. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before. This team is so talented that the worst tactical manager I’ve seen in 32 years of watching baseball couldn’t derail this team from a playoff birth. With the exception of DH, third base and right field, this team was exceptional.
Third base should fix itself, once Yoan Moncada recovers fully from COVID, assuming that people do fully recover. Since we don’t know what the long-term effects of the virus are, we can’t really say he’ll immediately bounce back to his 2019 form (.315/25/79). While he only missed eight games in 2020, his numbers took a nosedive (.225/6/24, which would project out to .225/19/75 over a 162 game season).
Moncada clearly looked like he was fighting every day to make contact. If he is able to recapture his health, there’s no reason he can’t bounce back.
Designated hitter and right field are a different matter. I was stoked when the White Sox signed Edwin Encarnacion, I figured there was no reason he couldn’t come in and drive in 45 runs and be the best DH the Sox have had since Jim Thome left town. Instead we got a .157 batting average and 19 RBI in 44 games. A total waste.
Right field was even worse. While I was really happy about the Encarnacion signing, I hated the acquisition of Nomar Mazara from the day it was announced. I saw Mazara for what he is, a worse version of Jason Heyward, a guy who looks like he should be a .300/40/120 hitter who, for whatever reason, just isn’t. In a full season, Mazara is a .260/20/70 guy. He has a track record. There is no “untapped potential,” he’s been the guy he’s going to be for the past five years. There’s nothing hidden in his ability.
I will admit I was impressed with his glove, as I was under the impression he was not much of an outfielder but he played reasonably well, displaying a soft glove and a strong arm. But as much as his defense improved, his hitting tanked.
This was the first spot where I started to ask myself “why does Renteria insist on playing this guy so much when there’s a better option on the bench?” Adam Engel hit .295 in limited time, has a far better glove (even taking into account Mazara’s improvement) and showed himself to be at least a borderline option to start in 2021.
I had figured all season the Sox would retain Mazara because he’s eligible for arbitration and would surely not be so foolish as to take his case to a hearing, considering his .228/.295/295 slash line. However, after the Renteria firing, I now am not so sure this team won’t just cut it’s losses and non-tender him. Which just makes the whole acquisition that much more ridiculous because they could have Steele Walker in the system and instead may end up with absolutely nothing. Those are loser moves.
The rest of the team, from Jose Abreu’s incredible MVP-caliber season to Tim Anderson’s chase of a second batting title that ran out of gas to James McCann’s excellent second-showing to Eloy Jimenez continuing to improve to the solid debut seasons of Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal, this team is really solid top to bottom.
That said, Madrigal will improve on his base running and defense and Robert will improve on his strike zone judgment; neither is a finished product.
The pitching was amazing considering the shortcomings. The Sox had only two legit starters and a collection of maybe’s to fill in the other three slots. But they were able to overcome that with a lights-out bullpen that may be the best I’ve ever seen. My hope is that if they can’t sign closer Alex Colome they’ll at least make him a Qualifying Offer, which would give the team an experienced closer again in 2021 and give Colome a nice raise ($18.9 million) for the outstanding season he had. But works needs to be done.
Rick Hahn has been vocal about the faith he has in his young pitchers, mentioning Dylan Cease, Michael Kopech, Dane Dunning and Garrett Crochet in particular. I have faith in Cease and Dunning and Crochet, but am not really sure what Kopech will bring to the table, assuming he ever makes it to the table to begin with. He needs to learn that there’s more to life than women and get his head screwed on straight.
So if I were serving as general manager of the White Sox heading into the 2021 season, there are a few obvious areas of need. One, maybe two starting pitchers. A decision to make at closer. A bullpen arm or two to compete with the likes of Jimmy Cordero and Jose Ruiz. A decision about James McCann. And Nomar Mazara. And what to do with the DH spot and whether or not to exercise the option on Edwin Encarnacion.
I’ll begin with the pitching situation. The obvious #1 option on everyone’s board is Trevor Bauer, and no question he would be an incredible addition to the White Sox rotation. However, if his goal is to be a vagabond for the rest of his career, and sign only one-year contracts, I’m going to pass. The White Sox are more than one player away from a World Series-contending team, so signing a guy who is a “final piece” doesn’t make sense if you only get one round into the playoffs and then he leaves.
I’m OK with the names I hear most often after Bauer: Jose Quintana and Marcus Stroman. Yeah, they’re not the biggest names in the world but since we already have Ace 1 and Ace 1-A, we don’t really need to go out looking for a top of the rotation starter. The Sox need back of the rotation production and these guys are both viable options. Neither will be particularly expensive and could be easily jettisoned if one of the younger options (Cease or Kopech or Dunning or even Jonathan Stiever) locks down a spot.
As much as I like James McCann, it’s also time to let him walk. He’s earned an opportunity to be a #1 starting catcher somewhere. Had I been running the team last season there is NO WAY I would have given that massive contract to Yasmani Grandal, I would have given McCann an extension and used what was left over to bolster the pitching staff. Grandal was a luxury this team really didn’t need under the circumstances.
But now that he’s here, we’re stuck with him and hopefully there won’t be a massive decline in his skills as he’ll turn 32 in November.
Since I would also not even consider exercising Encarnacion’s option, my roster would consist of Grandal and Zack Collins at catcher and a platoon of Jose Abreu and Andrew Vaughn at first base and designated hitter. I don’t see the need to add anyone to this mix, though if Collins fails as the backup catcher, bring up Yermin Mercedes or Seby Zavala and give them a fair shake. There’s lots of depth at the position.
As for right field, my plan there would be the same as it was a year ago. Sign Yasiel Puig. He could probably be had for next to nothing and chances are he’ll give you .265/25/80 and steal 15 bases, far better production than the team has gotten at the position in several years. Worst case scenario, just hand the job to Adam Engel.
This team has proven it is talented enough to win in spite of these holes, but there’s no need to have them when upgrades are available and cheap.
Now, to move on to the managerial vacancy and what I see ahead.
First, I’ll give my top five options as I see them and my darkhorse candidate and I’ll explain who I think will actually get the job and why I see it that way.
DARKHORSE CANDIDATE:
CLINT HURDLE
Yes, this will probably be eye-rolled over but hear me out.
You want someone whose been a winner recently? This guy lead the Pittsburgh Pirates to the playoffs three years in a row, a team that hadn’t been there in 21 years. He also has a World Series appearance on his resume with the Colorado Rockies.
I would imagine his age (63) would be the biggest obstacle to his hiring but he’s known as a player’s manager and his resume is excellent. Definitely worth a look.
CANDIDATE #5
JOE McEWING
I think Super Joe is more than qualified to be a Major League manager, and it has shown itself when he’s stepped in for Renteria. The team plays hard for him and he seems to have a plan. He also likes to use the running game, which for some reason Renteria never did, even though this team is loaded with speed and could dominate teams with it, as the old St. Louis Cardinals teams of the 1980s did during their run of success.
But I think Joe may have the same stench of losing on him that Renteria does, not because he’s a loser but because he’s so closely identified with this team during the rebuild, first as third base coach and then as bench coach under Renteria.
CANDIDATE #4
JOEY CORA
A former White Sox player, Joey Cora has done it all in his career except manage at the MLB level. He’s been a minor league manager, MLB coach (including serving as Ozzie Guillen’s bench coach in 2005) and has even served as a broadcaster for MLB Network during the 2013 World Baseball Classic. For whatever reason, he’s never gotten a shot at managing an MLB club and currently serves as third base coach of the Pirates.
Cora should have gotten an MLB managerial job a decade ago, especially coming off serving as bench coach for a World Series team. Not sure what the problem is.
CANDIDATE #3
ALEX CORA
The pluses and minuses here are obvious, as the younger brother of Joey Cora has excelled as a coach and manager, winning two World Series in two years, as a coach with the Houston Astros in 2017 and as manager of the Boston Red Sox in 2018.
Then there’s the sign stealing scandal that caused him to lose his job with the Red Sox heading into 2020. That’s likely to follow him wherever he goes and be a detriment to the team that hires him. Honestly, considering the firing of Ron Roenicke, I think the Red Sox will bring Cora back into the big chair again and move forward with him.
CANDIDATE #2
SANDY ALOMAR, JR.
Much like Joey Cora, I think Sandy Alomar, Jr. should have had a MLB managerial job a decade ago. A former catcher (which is always considered a plus for a manager since they’re basically an on-field manager and handler of a pitching staff), I can’t for the life of me understand why he hasn’t been hired as a manager. It was rumored that the White Sox wanted to hire Alomar to serve as bench coach under Robin Ventura (a job which subsequently fell to Rick Renteria) but Alomar didn’t want Ventura to be feeling the heat if the team played poorly and his replacement was right there.
There’s another angle to the Alomar story, and that’s the health of Indians manager Terry Francona, who missed a large portion of the 2020 mini-season with health problems. If Francona is unable to return, Alomar would certainly be his replacement, I can’t think there would be any second thoughts about making that move.
CANDIDATE #1
A.J. HINCH
The obvious choice. World Series winning manager who is only 46 years old and famously has a degree in psychology from Stanford University. The only downside to Hinch is the cheating scandal with the 2017 Houston Astros and the bad blood that will follow him wherever he goes, much like Alex Cora. But I think it will be worse for Cora than it will be for Hinch, as Cora has been guilty of the charge twice.
Like Alomar, Hinch is a former catcher and one of the best bullpen managers I’ve seen, he’s basically the polar opposite of Ricky Renteria. He’s originally from Iowa and has seven years of managerial experience in spite of his age.
There’s literally no downside here. The guy has a .558 career winning percentage. He’s managed three 100-win teams in his career.
There is also the elephant in the room with Ozzie Guillen, who I think is a better choice than Hinch, because of his connection to the team and the city, the fact that he’s bilingual and the fact that he’s won here before. But Rick Hahn was quick to mention that he would not be considered for the job. At first I thought this was ridiculous, but the more I think about it, the more I understand why they made this decision.
Let’s take a recent example of how managers deal with things today. Late in the 2020 season, Renteria put pitcher Carlos Rodon into an unwinnable situation, pitching him out of the bullpen in an important game when he hadn’t worked out of the ‘pen in five years and was just coming back from injury. The move backfired badly and Ricky was quick to go to the press and say “put that one on me,” meaning the criticism.
Let’s be honest, first, Ozzie would never have made a move that ridiculous. Ozzie was an excellent bullpen manager. Second, if a guy went out and completely blew it, Ozzie wouldn’t think twice about going to the press and saying “Rodon really blew it today.” That was about accountability. That’s not really popular in today’s world.
So maybe if this team was a little older, Ozzie would be perfect. But these are still “kids” in the grand scheme of things and I don’t think they wanted Ozzie throwing them under the bus while they’re still “growing.” And I kind of understand that.
Naturally, there will be other candidates besides these and the manager may end up being someone we haven’t even considered. I’m thankful that Rick Hahn mentioned he wanted someone who had experience because that eliminates guys like A.J. Pierzynski, Jim Thome, Frank Thomas and Paul Konerko, who have no business managing a team that’s on the cusp of being a legit World Series contender for multiple seasons.
As this coming year will mark 30 years that I’ve been a fan of this franchise, I have kind of become cynical when anything happens, expecting the team to make the worst decisions but they seem to be growing out of that, so I’m not going into the offseason automatically expecting the worst. I did expect them to keep Nomar Mazara and platoon him with Adam Engel in 2021 just because they had a year of control left, now I’m not so sure. They finally seem to be at the point where they know they can contend and they’ll do the best they can to win. Today’s decision proves that point beyond dispute.
I now want to address Renteria and Cooper. I was never a fan of Renteria’s hiring, and made that clear publicly on a number of occasions immediately after his hiring as well as in the three years since. I always thought of his hiring the same way I looked at the White Sox hiring of Eddie Stanky 50 years earlier or the White Sox trade for Ron Santo in the early 1970s, it was just a way to “put one over” on the Chicago Cubs.
“We’ll take the guy you couldn’t win with and we’ll win with him.”
Naturally I don’t have any personal dislike for Renteria. He’s a good coach and seems to foster a good vibe in the clubhouse. He seems to be a good teacher. But he’s as poor of an in-game strategist as I’ve ever seen. While most managers are playing chess, he seems to be playing 52-card pick-up. Some coaches are just not cut out to be managers and yet they still get opportunities. Lloyd McClendon is a good example, as he proved to be a poor manager with the Pittsburgh Pirates but somehow has gotten opportunities since, with the Mariners and as a interim manager with the Detroit Tigers.
Ricky will be known from here on out as a guy you hire when you do a rebuild and get rid of when it’s time to compete, since it’s now happened twice. The Cubs were smart enough to get rid of him before they were ready to make the jump. The White Sox held onto him a year too long but at least they wasted little time in fixing that.
Coop is a different situation entirely. For whatever reason, the front office was always enamored of Coop even though I think his abilities were grossly overrated. When you look at the parade of guys who were either stars before he got a hold of them (Mark Buehrle was a 16-game winner the year before Coop was promoted to the MLB staff) or were legit starters that saw their careers point down with Coop (Javier Vasquez and Jeff Samardzija). The only two starters that Coop really developed who amounted to anything were Chris Sale and Jose Quintana, which isn’t much to brag about in 19 years.
We were told how great Coop was almost daily from Steve Stone and Rick Hahn and now he has a chance to go get another job and prove it. I think enough people realized that the 2005 staff was loaded with good veteran pitchers who were successful before they came to the White Sox and his recent failures (Samardzija, Reynaldo Lopez and Dylan Cease dealing with regression, Lucas Giolito going to his high school coach for help) have rightfully tarnished whatever reputation Coop had cultivated in the past.
This is a “what have you done for me lately” world we live in and Coop hasn’t done anything of note in a long time. And I’ll stick to what I’ve said throughout the mini season of 2020: This team won IN SPITE of the coaching staff, not with it.
So, in closing, this should be a really fun off-season. In a perfect world, the White Sox will hire A.J. Hinch and sign a couple of back-of-the-rotation starters, resign Alex Colome and bring in a legit right fielder who is more production than “untapped potential.” This team can be dominant for a good five or six years, so it’s time to put the pedal to the metal and go out and win. The Renteria Era is over. The Winning Era has begun.
Peace. And Go Sox. #ChangeTheGame #WhiteSox
EDIT
After writing this blog I heard that the White Sox are entertaining the idea of talking to former White Sox manager Tony LaRussa about the job.
I can’t even begin to express how ridiculous that idea is. LaRussa is 76 years old and hasn’t managed in nine years. Who in their right mind would want to take a young club and saddle them with a manager who was born during World War II?
There is no way LaRussa could interact with the baseball player of the 2020s, there’s a cultural divide there that’s unbridgeable. And there is an example of the White Sox trying that once before, with disastrous results: In 1976 the White Sox rehired former manager Paul Richards, who had managed the team from 1951 to 1954. He was 67 years old (a decade younger than LaRussa) and hadn’t managed since 1961, a layoff of 15 years. He was totally unprepared for the job and the Sox finished 64-97.
LaRussa was a great manager a generation ago. But his time has passed and the very idea of even discussing the job with him makes me cringe. Don’t do something so ridiculous when you have a great, young team that’s ready to contend.
For the past few months, I’ve found myself debating about whether or not to open my mouth about everything going on in the world today, to the point that I’ve crafted blogs in Word only to just delete them and walk away. A lot of this is due to the fact that I know what I want to say will offend most everyone, in one way or another. I know if I share my feelings through social media, I’ll end up kicked off. Because people like me, with my “white male privilege,” have no right to say what I think in the world today.
But I finally decided that I don’t care what anyone thinks about anything. Today I reached my breaking point when I realized I can’t sit down and look at TV or Facebook or Google or Twitter or Instagram or anything else without getting angry. So now, I’m going to say what I think and let everyone else get angry for a while. This is payback.
There are a lot of things I’m sick of. I’m sick of three years of endless (and baseless) Trump attacks. Yes, I’ll be voting for President Trump again in November, without question. I’m sick of Joe Biden, because he’s a God damn, blithering idiot. I’m sick of Nancy Pelosi for the same reason. But don’t misunderstand, this is not a pro-Republican or anti-Democrat post, because I hate both political parties equally. That’s where I stand.
The Democrat party makes me sick to my stomach, which is to be expected considering I’m a straight, white, employed, functioning, intact, native-born male. The Democrat party can’t do a thing for me. Now, if I were any minority of any kind, I wouldn’t be writing this, I’d be a rank-and-file Democrat. And don’t misunderstand, I have nothing at all against any minority group (well, there’s a few, we’ll get to those). But I do have a real problem with anyone telling me that my opinion doesn’t matter because I belong to the majority. My opinion is just as important as anyone else’s. That’s how it is.
The Republican party makes me sick to my stomach because it’s nothing but a bunch of gutless pricks desperately holding onto any level of power they can. They don’t have the balls to stand up to Antifa or BLM, so why should I think they would have the balls to stand up to the Chinese or the Russians if they were to attack? I always felt like no matter what happened, or who was in the White House, I could depend on my fellow Republicans to fight the good fight. I was sorely mistaken. Gutless and pathetic.
I’m sick of COVID-19, as is everyone. But I’m more sick of these God damn idiots who preach “trust the science” until the science doesn’t agree with them anymore. The fact is, 90% of what’s being pushed out there is political, because the world we live in today has made us this way. We’re not Americans, we’re split up into our little groups so the government or that wrinkled up bastard George Soros can control us, all at once.
Yes, I wear a mask. That’s a personal choice that doesn’t jive with my Republican friends who have asked me, “do you do everything the government tells you to do?” Well, I pay my taxes, I drive the speed limit, I haven’t killed anyone, I don’t steal, so yeah, I guess I do everything the government tells me to.” Give me a break. It’s a fucking mask. I wonder if the young men who stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day whined and complained because they had to wear helmets? Man up and wear your fucking mask.
I’m sick of celebrities. I don’t give a damn how popular or little known they are, I don’t care what ANY of them think or say or feel. I’m as likely to read their opinions as I am for them to read this blog, and I don’t give a damn about that, either. The fact is, most celebrities are liberals, who love the idea of socialism. Because they figure they’ve made their fortune, no one will take it away. This is the same mentality that lead to these creatures calling for open borders while living in homes with six-foot walls around the perimeters. And if you don’t see a problem with that level of hypocrisy, you’re as dumb as they are.
I’m sick of hearing about George Floyd, because I don’t give a fuck about George Floyd. George Floyd was an ex-con, a garden-variety criminal. He is being portrayed as a martyr. If that’s the case, you got a piss poor concept of what a martyr is. He was being arrested for passing counterfeit bills, and the media was quick to try to hide his criminal past because it didn’t fit their fucking sickening narrative. If you truly wanted a martyr, Breonna Taylor was that martyr. My heart grieves for her and her family, because if anyone ever deserved martyrdom on ANY level, she did. That should have been the ultimate case against crooked cops and innocent blacks being killed, but the media and the idiots decided a failed rapper with a rap sheet was worthy? Fuck you, George Floyd. Fuck you.
I’m sick of hearing about the officers involved in Floyd’s death as well. They are the scum of the earth. It doesn’t matter that George Floyd was a worthless ex-con, the police as an entity doesn’t have the right to serve as judge/jury/executioner. Derek Chauvin, who committed the actual murder (and until someone can prove Floyd died from literally anything else, I’ll call it murder), deserves to die. Yes, an eye for an eye. Because both of them are equally worthless. Fuck you, Derek Chauvin. Fuck you. The other officers should be charged with something in line with accessories before and after the fact, since they did nothing to alleviate the situation. If nothing else, their abject stupidity makes them guilty in my eyes.
I’m sick of hearing about the KKK, BLM, Antifa, ISIS and every other TERRORIST ORGANIZATION on the planet. They all belong under one umbrella. You just pick the color of your skin or the political movement you want to get behind and there’s a terrorist organization right there waiting for you. If you belong to any of those organizations, I have nothing but disdain for you, regardless of who you are. Period.
I’m sick of the government, or the “deep state,” or whoever is doing it making a push to split us into “factions.” We’re Americans, and we all deserve to be treated for who we are, not what color we are or what religion we are or where our ancestors came from. If you’re a murderer, you’re a piece of shit regardless of whether you’re white, black, Latino or any other race. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, it was about the content of one’s character, not the color of their skin. But that idea went out the window a long time ago because “uncle Tom” King and his teachings don’t fit the narrative of current times.
I’m sick of the media. I don’t care if it’s CNN or Fox or ABC or CBS or NBC or the Washington Post or the New York Times or The Blaze or anything else. If it’s a media outlet, there’s an agenda and it’s been proven that they’ll manipulate anything they can to push their agenda. American media is a cesspool that makes used car salesmen look like upstanding citizens. I find myself now avoiding the news altogether and what little news I do get comes from my local radio station, which I turn off when the national news comes on.
I’m sick of mother fuckers who shove their opinions in each others faces on social media, regardless of whether you are a conservative, liberal or independent. No one has ever changed anyone’s mind by berating them on Facebook. If you think you can do that, you’re a fucking moron. But I’m not one of these people who can post that “no matter what you believe, I’ll never unfriend you.” I’ve unfriended a LOT of people this year because I got sick and tired of their political posting. And I don’t have one regret about it.
I’m sick of Cancel Culture. You little bastards. Who the hell do you think you are? You think you can dictate to everyone else what is and is not acceptable in the world? You can tear down or deface statues or monuments and you think that’s OK because of your beliefs? I don’t give a fuck about your beliefs. They are worthless. Just like you are. When I saw a well-known (at least among those of us who are intelligent enough to know our American history) monument in Boston depicting the 54th Massachusetts regiment, the FIRST ALL-BLACK VOLUNTEER REGIMENT IN THE CIVIL WAR. But I guarantee that 100% of those “brilliant, learned college grads” who decided to destroy it knew nothing about that. Because you’re STUPID. Most of you can barely read, let alone comprehend.
I’m sick of social networking. I’m sick of the kind of people who use it and what they use it for. I started using Facebook in 2007 to network with other White Sox fans. I didn’t give a fuck about their backgrounds, we had one thing uniting us all, and that was our love for our ballclub. And for 13 years I never unfriended or unfollowed a fellow White Sox fan for any reason, until 2020 came and suddenly everyone had more important things to argue about. So I eliminated the problem and I’ve been happier since, in a minuscule way. But I find myself wishing for the early 2000s every day, before social networking existed.
And finally, I’m sick of feeling the way I do. I’m sick of the negativity that eats at me day in and day out. I never asked for much out of life, at this point I just want to enjoy a baseball game, grill, drink a Coke, smoke a cigar, talk baseball with the guys, go for a drive, share memes and get a decent night’s sleep. But it seems like I can’t do any of that anymore. While baseball may be coming back, I’ll have to get pissed when I see posers kneel during the National Anthem. I can’t grill much due to the insane heat, as it reaches 90 degrees almost every day. It’s too humid to smoke a cigar. I can’t take a drive and listen to the radio because it pisses me off to hear the news. I have to watch my memes because some dickhead might get his panties in a bunch and I’ll end up back in Facebook jail. And I can’t sleep for all of the above reasons. And I’m really, really sick of it.
At this point, I’m not sure that I’m going to blog again after this, or that I’m going to keep any of my social networking accounts. I’ve tried to fight the good fight, I’ve tried to let everyone do their thing and tried to be supportive of protesters, police, blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, you name it. I don’t hate anyone (except Antifa, Marxists, communists and extreme left-wing and right-wing lunatics). But I just don’t think I have it in me anymore. You want to elect a God damn, stupid jagoff like Joe Biden? Go ahead. You want to get a Marxist VP so you can put him out to pasture the day after he’s inaugurated? Go ahead. I just don’t care anymore. I don’t want to hear about it.
I just don’t care about any of it anymore. I’m laying down my sword.
I’m done.
PS – As I mentioned, I always share my blogs on social media as they usually involve sports or electronics or something that I know my friends and followers would enjoy. I’ll not be sharing today’s post in any way, not because I’m ashamed of one word I said, but because I’m not taking the chance that I’m going to end up in Facebook jail again. That would be the ultimate ending to my social networking career because when that day comes, I’m closing the accounts for good and walking away. And I may end up down that road anyway.
This summer, I celebrated the 15th anniversary of my own personal participation in social media. This began in June 2005, with my Yahoo 360 profile. In September 2005, I created my first MySpace account. Today I’m going to look over my own personal experiences with social media, how I looked at the concept then versus how I look at it now, and the downward spiral that has followed.
Yahoo 360 was not much more than a glorified AOL account page, it told your name, relationship status, likes, photos, a blog and your Yahoo handle. But there was also an option to add links, which I did with my first blog, the only entry of which (long gone) was talking about the 2005 Chicago White Sox, who eventually won the World Series. I was pushed to further my inclusion on social media due to the fact I had no one to celebrate the Series win with; stuck in the middle of West Virginia with people who don’t like baseball to begin with. It was at that point I realized I could network with other White Sox fans.
MySpace was incredible when I first started using it. I added a White Sox background to my profile page and changed my profile pic to include myself wearing a White Sox hat (amazingly, prior to that, my profile pic featured a Dallas Cowboys hat, a nod to my younger days). I began adding other Sox friends I could find, but it would turn out there wasn’t much to celebrate over the coming years other than a 2008 American League Central Division title.
I got my first Facebook account in the summer of 2007. Immediately I preferred it to MySpace because it had a more “mature” feel, even though at the time MySpace was by far the more popular platform. By 2008, Yahoo 360 had been abandoned and Twitter would soon rise. I got my first Twitter account during the 2009 World Series after seeing it mentioned during the broadcast.
I have closed and opened several accounts since then. I closed my MySpace account in the summer of 2010 due to a steep decline in usage. At the same time I also closed my Twitter and Facebook accounts and opened new ones, as I had a habit of opening new accounts every time my life needed a reboot.
My current Facebook and Twitter accounts were opened in December, 2012. I opened an Instagram account in 2016 and a Pinterest account shortly after that. I’m not a huge fan of either, though I do use IG daily and don’t use Pinterest at all. But whereas I share White Sox stories, information and photos on Twitter and Facebook, IG has become nothing more than a repository for the memes that I also post on Facebook. It really serves no other purpose than that.
From 2010 to 2017 my friends list dwindled to less than 200, not because I wanted it that way but because people who were involved in my life wanted it that way and I was told I really didn’t need any friends, even online friends. But luckily that changed and my online footprint expanded dramatically in 2018 and my FB friends list swelled to nearly 2,000. Then the backlash began.
Come to find out, maybe the persons who said too many wasn’t good was right all along. So every six months or so I’ll “prune” my friends list. Or at least, that was the process up until all of the civil unrest began and Facebook became a cesspool of nothing but politics, racial strife, arguments and nonsense.
At this point, I’ve come to hate social networking and I find myself longing, daily, for the era before I even had internet access or a smart phone (or a cell phone in any way). I wake up every morning wishing it was 2004 or 2002 or 2000 or 1997 again. I had to admit to myself that the happiest days of my life were post-college and pre-internet. Not to say that pre-college days were bad, I had a great childhood and my teens years were great as well. I wouldn’t trade that time for the world. And my time spent in college was extremely happy as well.
But the truth of the matter is, when I first got internet service in the spring of 2005, things began to change. And as soon as social networking, and the women on social networking entered the picture, it went downhill, and fast.
The truth is, the first 28 years of my life were pure bliss with a few small potholes along the way, but nothing I would even consider “bad,” just “unfortunate.” The 15 years that have followed have been nothing but misery with the occasional happy moment, fleeting as they may have been. And the internet, specifically social media, has been at the forefront of all of my unhappiness.
Now, don’t misunderstand; I’m not saying social media as a platform is a bad thing. Most of my problems have been self-induced anyway, with social media as the means to introduce those problems. I used to enjoy discussions of sports, politics, religion and everything under the sun with everyone who was willing to join in. Now, it just takes one post to rub me the wrong way and I’ll hit that unfriend or unfollow button faster than you can say “quick.”
Adding to this is the lack of baseball (with more to come considering the current COVID-19 situation in MLB summer camp) and I have little to post or talk about. As far as religion, I’m a Christian, if you don’t like it, I don’t care anymore. I have no desire to talk about it and you’re free to leave or, if you wish to argue about it, you’ll just be deleted and forgotten. As far as politics, I’m a Trump supporter and I’ll vote Trump in 2020, if you don’t like it, I don’t care anymore. Leave or be deleted and forgotten. I don’t post about either of these things anymore because I know how I feel having to read other people’s opinions I don’t care about. I’m not being heartless or ruthless, I just am past the point of caring.
Which basically brings me back to 2005, when I first started social networking. I’m here to post about White Sox baseball and network with White Sox fans. Nothing more. I’m not here to meet girls or talk politics or tell jokes or anything else (except memes, of course). And with that lack of White Sox baseball to talk about, social networking, and the internet in general, just isn’t enjoyable.
When the 2020 baseball season is canceled (and I’m 99.99% sure it will be) I’m strongly considering deactivating my Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts and getting my NCAA Football, NCAA Basketball and NCAA Baseball games out of the attic and rolling the clock back to my pre-internet days and doing things I used to enjoy, that I let go of when the internet revolution changed my life. I dream about this daily. Some days it’s all I really have to hold on to.
There’s a point at which things stop being fun and start being monotonous and grating and that’s where I am right now with social media. The fun is gone, the enjoyment is gone, not that there was a whole lot to begin with but at least I had something to hang my hat on. Now I have nothing but aggravation.
So, until I have a solid footing and know what’s going on, I’ll maintain the status quo, only going on social networks when it’s time for meme posting or White Sox news posting and the rest of the time, just avoid it. I’ve found that to be far more satisfying than spending hours blocking people who annoy me.
It’s amazing to think it’s been 15 years, that’s more time than I spent in public education and more time than I’ve spent in my three longest relationships combined. But maybe it’s finally time for a break of ultimate dimension.
I have been a fan of the MLB The Show series since it’s inception in 2006. In fact, I’ve owned a copy of every season’s game, including a few years when I owned two copies; one for my PlayStation 3 and one for my PlayStation Vita. I could play a game at work on my Vita when I had a chance and save it and be able to access that save from my PS3 later and continue my season. I think that was a very underutilized option.
But that’s neither here nor there.
I pre-ordered MLB The Show 20 from Walmart on December 19, 2019. And I selected the MVP Edition due to the option of getting it three days earlier than it would be available on store shelves. It was only $20 more and I had regularly bought the MVP Edition in the past, just because I liked the steelbook case. But this year, it was all about the early release.
This was also my first experience pre-ordering from Walmart. I have pre-ordered a number of items from Amazon over the years, but Amazon isn’t one of the “preferred” distributors for The Show, which has become Best Buy, Walmart, Target and GameStop.
I decided on home delivery rather than a trip to one of my local stores for in-store pickup because it’s a 20 to 30 minute drive to a store and a 10 minute round trip to the post office. So I was all set, $84 and change with a delivery date of March 13, 2020.
… and then this happened:
“The product manufacturer controls the release date for this product…” Yes. Yes, they do. And it was known all along that pre-orders were to be fulfilled on March 13. That was literally my ONLY reason for pre-ordering in the first place. But Walmart is attempting to pass the buck off on Sony. Like it’s somehow Sony’s fault that I didn’t get my game.
Except that a number of friends on Facebook have already received their games, having ordered from Best Buy and GameStop. So that instantly takes the blame out of the hands of Sony (where it never belonged in the first place) and puts it SQUARE in the hands of Walmart. The game should have shipped two days ago so it would have been in my hands on March 13. That is a common-sense kind of thing that any idiot could figure.
But it gets better. The game finally shipped today (you know, the day I should have RECEIVED it) and it shipped to me, in West Virginia, from Lake Forest, California. Now, I’ve done enough purchasing and shipping (I run a thriving Amazon store myself) and I know it takes a minimum of two days and usually three for an item from here to reach California, and vice versa. There are at least three mail hubs between California and my house, one in Pittsburgh (though some mail is routed through Ohio), one in Bridgeport, WV and finally, my local post office. So that’s a 2,500 mile trip along with two stops.
And that’s not all:
It’s going to arrive “by the end of the day” on Saturday, March 14. Yeah, that’s cute. My post office closes at 12:30 on Saturday and isn’t open on Sunday. So even if it somehow made that 2,500 mile trip with two stops on the way in 24 hours, it would sit somewhere until at least Monday morning (March 16). It is far more likely it will be available for me to pick up on Tuesday, March 17. Which just so happens to be the same day it is available on store shelves and any schmuck can go out and buy a copy.
So, let me lay this whole situation out as clearly as I possibly can.
I ordered MLB The Show 20 on December 16, 2019, and selected the MVP Edition because I could get it three days earlier than those who didn’t pre-order that version or the online version. I paid $79.99 plus tax, as opposed to $59.99 plus tax for the “regular” edition for no other reason than to get the three day early release.
Now, rather than getting my game three days early, I will get it on the same day everyone else does, and could have just walked into Walmart on Tuesday and picked up the “regular” edition for $59.99 and been in exactly the same place in life I am right now.
The way I see it, Walmart owes me $20 for wasting my time. And while I’m sure they don’t see it that way (since it’s Sony’s fault, somehow) I figure I’ll take my $20 back another way, if I can keep just one person who reads this from pre-ordering anything from Walmart again, I figure we’re even. I know I will never pre-order another item from Walmart again, if it’s not available from Amazon I’ll find it somewhere else but Walmart is out of the loop from now on. I’ll just consider this to be a learning experience and move on.
So, a word to the wise, don’t pre-order from Walmart. Especially if time is of the essence, because in my case, it truly was. The only positive to come out of this little exercise (if you can call it that) is the fact that the Opening Day of baseball season was pushed back due to the Coronavirus situation, so even if I don’t get my game for another four days, it’s not relevant in the grand scheme of things.
But it’s still my right and duty as an American taxpayer to complain when the rules are not followed. And as Walter Sobchak said in The Big Lebowski, “am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules?”
I realize it’s been a long time since I’ve blogged and that was by design, as I wanted to let the new decade fully begin before I gave my thoughts on it. I wanted to do a little random “blurb” to give my thoughts on the lay of the land in the 2020s.
First, let me say that this month has been everything I had hoped the 2020s would be. I haven’t been this happy in probably 15 years, maybe more. Admittedly, I take to the single life like a fish to water (yes, I know it’s correct to say “like a duck to water” but a fish takes to water because it’s life depends on it, I think that’s more appropriate for me). So that was a great first step and really helped me to focus on myself.
More so, that allowed me to sit back and watch people who spend all their time on social media complaining and whining about how they were treated by an ex, and how uncouth it all is. We’ve all been mistreated by exes. I’ve been kicked to the curb, ghosted, mislead, lied to, stolen from, cheated on, used for leverage and had fake charges filed against me with the county sheriff’s office, and that’s only the past two years!
Everyone has had bad experiences (in my case I’ve had 100% bad experiences) but that doesn’t mean it needs to be beaten to death on social media. Yes, I have a very anti-relationship stance, and I do occasionally post memes in that vein, but I also love women and I celebrate them on social media as well. I found a middle ground between being ridiculous in any direction. And I feel good about myself for it.
This is why 2020 is being spent focusing on me, because no one else is going to. I have learned the hard way that everyone is out for themselves, and now it is my turn. I am putting myself and my happiness ahead of anything or anyone else. There’s an old saying about the fact that you can’t love someone else if you don’t love yourself first, and that’s very true. You need to be at peace with yourself and your situation before you should get involved with anyone else. I have my own problems, I don’t need yours. Get your problems taken care of and then we can see where things go.
On a happier note, I am continuing to update my MLB 19 The Show rosters and have done the best job I have done to date on offseason updates, dating back as far as 2014. Usually I try to do as much of the major transactions as I can and let the minor league stuff sit, especially the Class A rosters. But this year I have spent hours every day making sure everything is as it should be. I hope to start playing my franchise on February 22, which coincides with the first Spring Training game the White Sox play.
This will be the 16th consecutive year I have bought Sony’s MLB offering for a PlayStation console, dating back to MLB 2005 for the original PlayStation. I also bought MVP Baseball 2005 that year and have bought a new game every year since. Prior to 2005, I made due with MLB 2000 on the PlayStation and MVP Baseball 2005 on the PS2.
One of the biggest negatives of 2019 was the six stints I spent in Facebook jail. But the silver lining in that cloud was that it allowed me to diversify my social media presence and I have been much more active on Twitter and Instagram, for better or worse, I suppose. While Facebook remains my base of operations, Instagram has become a repository for my daily meme posts and Twitter is a great haven for Chicago White Sox news.
I have worked myself into a very good daily and weekly schedule but that’s all due to change as soon as baseball season begins, and then I’ll have to do a life reboot and change a lot of the things I do to make time for baseball games five or six days a week. That’s definitely not a complaint, it’s just a fact that things will be changing soon.
I continue to feel positive about everything. My decision making has taken a major step in the right direction, I’m not making bad decisions on a daily basis like I used to, in fact, I haven’t made a poor decision yet in 2020. I’m also learning to be less off the cuff and ill-prepared for things, I have a habit of running into burning buildings (metaphorically speaking) without thinking about the consequences and that has been a lifelong issue for me, my attitude has always been “let’s do it and worry about the consequences later” and that has a 0% success rate with me. Now I am learning to do my research and think things over before I act, and not just act on impulse and screw everything up.
I’m the luckiest man in the world. I am financially secure, I have everything I want (that money can buy, that is), I have great friends and their support means the world to me because without them, I would no doubt be in a bad situation somewhere, and the only thing I lack in life is a partner to share it with, and if that’s as bad as its going to get, I’ll take it. I can get by on my own with ease, I’ve done it before (proudly single for nine years between 1996 and 2005) so if a second go-around of that is in the works, I’ll take it and make the best of it. That era was the happiest time of my life, by far.
Which brings me to the fact that I should be living my best life right now, but I am still having to work my mind into accepting the fact that it’s OK to be happy.
So, in closing, I put a lot of pressure on the 2020s, and so far it’s has been everything I had hoped it would be. I came in well-prepared and so far, so good. I just hope it continues to chug along nicely, and that spring and summer offer me the opportunity to catch up on my cigar smoking that has been neglected all winter, and of course I am looking forward to the first winning White Sox season since 2012.
The Jason J. Connor Experience 