Chicago Baseball Blues

 

July 9, 2022

The White Sox (39-42) are in third place and trail first place Minnesota by six games. I haven’t seen anything to convince me they will win the division. The Sox were supposed to run away and easily win the division. So what happened?

The Sox didn’t start hitting until June. They then started putting up runs in bunches, but this didn’t translate into wins. The problem is they have no power. Home runs exponentially increase the chance of winning games. Jose Abreu leads the team with a mere 10 home runs. One nice thing is Josh Harrison has started hitting, which keeps Leury Garcia out of the line-up. Catchers, Reese McGuire and Seby Zavala, are much better than Yasmani Grandal. Knowing Tony LaRussa, Grandal will be in the line-up when he comes off the IL. They should trade Grandal. As P.T. Barnum said, there is a sucker born every minute. 

Dylan Cease has become an elite starter and is worth the price of admission. The other starters have been woefully inconsistent. However, Johnny Cueto is a big upgrade from Dallas Keuchel.

The Sox have also had major injuries but none have hurt as much as injuries in the bullpen. Things seemed to be going smoothly until Aaron Bummer went on the disabled list for the second time and they lost closer Liam Hendriks. The Sox lost two games scoring nine runs and coughed up late leads big and small.

The biggest problem is this is the worst defensive team in baseball. Physical errors, double plays not turned, miscommunication in the outfield and pop-ups dropping between three players. Players are often playing out of position, especially right with two first basemen and Garcia. Dylan Cease had a start where he gave up 6 runs, all unearned.

Tony LaRussa continues to make bad moves leading to Sox losses. The most egregious was his walking Trea Turner with 1-2 count. This move went national and not one person thought this was a good move. When a reporter asked about the move LaRussa’s arrogance came out. His response was, “Are you really asking me that question?” He then went on a rant spewing inaccuracies about what Turner hits with two strikes. The number he should have known is that lefties were hitting .364 against Bennett Sousa. Left handed Max Muncy followed with a three run homer. LaRussa should be fired but like his team, both are going nowhere.

The Cubs (34-48) are playing worse than their low expectations. Despite that, they are seventh in average attendance with the second highest ticket prices. It costs a family of four over $329.00 to attend a game. With the assets surrounding Wrigley, the Ricketts family is making tons of money. With all that money it’s time to loosen up the purse strings and let Jed Hoyer go to work on prime free agents.

Hoyer’s plans to flip players on one year contracts has flopped. Only closer David Robertson has any value to other teams. Because he is 37 years old he'll probably be traded. Also likely to be traded is their best offensive player, catcher, Willson Contreras. The Cubs offense has been crippled by injuries. Nico Hoerner came back and is hitting .304. Nick Madrigal was projected to be the second baseman but he has been on the IL most of the year and was bad when he did play. The Cubs called up Christopher Morel who can play multiple positions which helps when looking for free agents. The other key loss was key free-agent signee Seiya Suzuki.  He has shown some flashes but lost at bats could cripple his development. In the remaining games he can get invaluable experience and put it all together next year.

If there is a positive it is the future of a promising starting rotation. Justin Steele and Keegan Thompson as rookie starters have their ups and downs and should be even better next year.  Caleb Kilian had a couple of starts and showed he has major league stuff. Add a healthy Marcus Stroman and you have a nice starting four.  I also think it’s time to move on regarding Kyle Hendricks. You can probably get a nice return. Then you get a quality free-agent starter.