Category: Major League Baseball

Big Hurt Feelings

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, Sports2 Comments

During my teenage years, my room was plastered with posters and memorabilia of mainly two different Chicago athletes: Michael Jordan and Frank Thomas.  During much of the 1990s, it wasn’t that far-fetched to believe that Thomas and his contemporary Ken Griffey Jr. would redefine baseball for a generation in the same way that Jordan redefined basketball.

Indeed, Frank Thomas put up a ridiculous array of across-the-board offensive numbers at the plate for the first decade of his career with a rare combination of power and patience at the plate that could only be compared to Ted Williams.  In the 105-year history of the Chicago White Sox, Thomas holds the club career records for home runs, RBI, runs scored, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, walks, doubles, and total bases (along with the highest career batting average of any Sox player who played after 1950).

Even if he didn’t end up redefining baseball, judging by his statistics and physical dominance at the plate during the 1990s, Frank Thomas is the best player in White Sox history.  No other player in the American League in 2005 had been with the same team longer than him.  Yet, Sox fans seem to be more relieved than in angst over Thomas’ recent signing with the Oakland A’s.  It was as if what felt like a drawn-out divorce finally came to its conclusion.

From a team blueprint standpoint, not re-signing Thomas was the correct decision.  He had been injury-prone for the past several seasons and it would have been difficult for Kenny Williams to depend on the designated hitter coming back, particularly when the Sox clearly needed take steps to improve their lineup.  Jim Thome is the better risk in terms of being able to come back from a serious injury.

I don’t feel good, however, about two things.  First, as delirious as I’ve been about the White Sox world championship, it was tough to not see Frank Thomas as an integral part of that team.  Imagine if the ’85 Bears had gone through their romp to the championship but Walter Payton was injured on the sidelines the whole season (of course, the next worst thing actually did happen when the Fridge got a rushing touchdown in Super Bowl XX while Payton didn’t).  This is essentially what happened with Frank Thomas and the Sox last season.  It would have been nice to see if Thomas could be a major contributor to the White Sox bid to repeat in 2006.

Second, Jerry Reinsdorf has parted ways with yet another star athlete on negative terms.  Thomas said yesterday that he was most hurt by the fact that Reinsdorf never called him once in the offseason to let him know the direction the Sox were heading.  The City of Chicago could create a veritable hall of fame stocked with players that have had messy breakups with the Bulls and White Sox during the Reinsdorf era: Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Carlton Fisk, Jack McDowell, Robin Ventura, and Ozzie Guillen to name a few.  The only saving grace is that most of those guys have ended up mending their relationships with Reinsdorf over time (and in the cases of Pippen and Guillen, they actually returned to their teams as a player and a manager respectively).  I just wish Reinsdorf could find a better way not to have an acrimonious relationship with almost every talented player he’s ever had on his two teams.

As for the Big Hurt, there might be no place in baseball that he’ll be more appreciated than in Oakland.  Frank Thomas is the perfect portrait of the “Moneyball” player that A’s GM Billy Beane lusts for – a guy with a high on-base percentage that draws a lot of walks and hits for a lot of power.  Beane is the one person in the majors that truly doesn’t care whatsoever that Thomas has no speed and can’t play defense.  The A’s GM has finally been able to sign a player who arguably fits his Moneyball profile better than anyone in the history of baseball, much less just the players that are active today.  Beane has got to be ecstatic to have Frank Thomas, so at the very least the slugger will get some love from his new organization.

Hopefully, Frank Thomas will be able to return to Chicago within the next five to ten years and be able to look back positively on the greatest career in White Sox history.  On a personal level, he was my favorite baseball player for most of my life and it will be disheartening to see him in another uniform.  Mentally, I’ve blocked out the fact that Michael Jordan ever played for a team other than the Bulls (from my perspective, the NBA didn’t exist from 2001 to 2003).  I’m going to have to do the same for Frank Thomas – he’ll always be a member of the White Sox to me.

Hot Stove League Review #2 – Cubs

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago Cubs, Major League Baseball, Sports1 Comment

If you can’t tell already, I’m a White Sox fan without reservation, but I don’t really take any joy in the tepid review of the Cubs’ offseason moves that I’m about to provide.  Maybe a World Series victory has made taken the harshness out of my Sox Pride, but it really would be nice to see both Chicago clubs playing at the same time in October for once.

The thing is that the Cubs aren’t holding up their end of the bargain.  While Kenny Williams has been aggressively and impressively improving on a team that has already won the whole shebang on the South Side, Jim Hendry’s performance over the past couple of months on the North Side has been spotty at best.  He’s made one great trade, a few solid moves, and a number of questionable transactions so far this offseason.  Here’s my review:

1) Re-signing Ryan Dempster and Glendon Rusch – Solid keepers for the Cubs, particularly the durable Rusch.  I still have reservations as to whether Dempster can be a viable closer long-term, but I’d drag Rod “the Shooter” Beck back out of his trailer before touching LaTroy Hawkins ever again.

2) Re-signing Neifi Perez – Bleh!

3) Signing Scott Eyre and Bobby Howry – These were two good moves to shore up the awful Cubs bullpen.  Howry, in particular, was unstoppable for the Indians during the second half of 2005.  As for Eyre, any player whose ESPN.com scouting report for 2005 begins with how he resurrected his career after being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder gets a vote of confidence from me.

4) Trading for Juan Pierre – This was the biggest and best move that Jim Hendry has pulled the trigger on this offseason.  The Cubs’ inability to get their lead-off man on base over the last couple of years has caused the team to waste countless opportunities to blow open games early, especially with the pounding potential of Derrick Lee and Aramis Ramirez in the 3 and 4 spots in the batting order.  I’m so confident that Pierre will alleviate this problem that Vegas ought to be setting lines on whether Lee will win the Triple Crown in 2006 – if he came close last year, imagine what he could do when Pierre is consistently in scoring position during Lee’s at-bats.  This may be sacrilegious for me to say as a Sox fan, but I would take Pierre over Scott Podsednik in the lead-off spot any day of the week.  I love this move for the Cubs.

5) Signing Jacque Jones – On the heels of making a great move to improve the Cubs outfield, Jim Hendry made one of the worst transactions in all of baseball this offseason by signing Jacque Jones to a three-year contract.  First of all, as the Chicagoist pointed out, it makes no sense to sign an outfielder whose stats mirror the steep downward trend of Cubbie outcast Corey Patterson coupled with the exact same penchant to try to unsuccessfully jack homeruns as opposed to using his natural speed to get on base.  Second of all, the Cubs didn’t even bother calling Jeromy Burnitz to see if he wanted to come back, yet they signed Jones to a longer contract for more money even though Jones’ production over the last few seasons has been worse than Burnitz’s performance.  So, the Cubs essentially are locked into a downgrade in rightfield for three seasons and are paying more for it.  By May, you can count on Jones being the latest recipient of the boo-birds at Wrigley in the tradition of Patterson, LaTroy Hawkins, and Todd Hundley.  I can’t tell you how awful this move is for the Cubs.

6) Trading Corey Patterson – One hand is telling me that Corey is all of the sudden going to have a breakout season with the Orioles to fulfill the sky-high potential we’ve been hearing about for years.  On the other hand, not even this Sox fan could take another season of watching this guy in Wrigley.  The fact that Jim Hendry was able to trade Patterson for a six-pack of Natty Light ought to be sufficient.

Despite the relatively large quantity of moves by the Cubs, there are quite a few open holes that the team still needs to fill (and I’m not sure if those holes are going to be filled by Opening Day, if ever).  At this point, it looks Ronny Cedeno is going to be at shortstop, Jason Dubois will be in leftfield, and Neifi Perez (bleh!) is playing second base.  It would be one thing if the Cubs, who have the most financial resources in baseball after the Yankees and Red Sox, were starting just one of those players as a fill-in, but it’s unacceptable having one-third of the batting order going into the season as unproven question marks (or in the case of Perez, a proven black hole at the plate).

At the same time, I was surprised that the Cubs didn’t put out any feelers for A.J. Burnett or Kevin Millwood.  Ever since the Cubs were essentially proclaimed to have the greatest pitching staff ever on the cover of the 2004 Sports Illustrated baseball preview, we’ve seen the same cycle: Kerry Wood gets hurt in spring training, Mark Prior starts feeling something wrong in May and the club has to “shut him down” by June, and Greg Maddux continues to get slower and older.  Meanwhile, their previously unheralded South Side rivals were the ones who rode a great starting pitching staff to a world championship.  The Cubs can no longer use the excuse of how much better they would be if their starting pitchers were all healthy.  Their current starting pitchers will NEVER all be healthy at the same time, so the Cubs should have brought in someone else.  Jeez, the White Sox brought in Javier Vasquez as a SIXTH starting pitcher on a defending world championship team, yet the Cubs continue to stand pat with their underachieving pitching staff.

All in all, the Cubs have dramatically improved in the leadoff spot with Juan Pierre and have a stronger bullpen, but I’m really not impressed with their lack of moves with the starting pitchers and middle of the infield (plus Jacque Jones is going to be awful – I guarantee it).  The Cardinals are on a downward slope and Astros are not going to be a contender without Roger Clemens.  Unfortunately, as it currently stands, the Cubs won’t be able to take advantage of what will be a weaker NL Central in 2006.

My review of the baseball world outside of Chicago will be posted within the next couple of weeks.  In the meantime, expect a Bears and NFL divisional playoff preview tomorrow.  Have a great day!

Hot Stove League Review #1 – White Sox

On By Frank the TankIn Chicago White Sox, Major League Baseball, Sports1 Comment

With pitchers and catchers reporting in just a little over a month from now and the White Sox and Cubs fan conventions taking place over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be posting a three-part series on the offseason moves of each of the Chicago teams and the rest of Major League Baseball. First up are the White Sox.

It’s amazing – my baseball team has not only won the World Series, but it is actually making aggressive yet shrewd moves to try to win another one. I’ve got to give Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf credit. Unlike his seeming eagerness to see Michael Jordan to walk away so that he and Jerry Krause could reconstruct the Bulls (we’re only now recuperating from that dark experiment), it looks like he’s stepping up the commitment of the White Sox organization to build upon the team’s success. At the same time, Kenny Williams has been doing a phenomenal job this offseason – he’s ripping off everyone in sight. Here’s my review of the major moves by the Sox:

Sox Wrigley Sign

1) Trading for Jim Thome – It was tough to see a great character guy (and noted Bears nut) in Aaron Rowand be traded away, but the Sox needed to get another bopper in its lineup. Despite Jim Thome’s injuries last season, he has been one of the top 10 hitters in baseball over the past decade. If the Sox hadn’t made this trade, we would be seeing Paul Konerko being walked every other at-bat a la Barry Bonds circa 2003. Instead, Konerko is going to see even better pitches to smack in the 2006 season. If Thome comes anywhere close to his 2004 production, the Sox offense might be talked about as much next October as the team’s pitching staff.

2) Re-signing Paul Konerko – A lesser Paulie would have told the Sox, “F–k you – pay me.” Instead, our Paulie turned down a bigger contract from the Angels in order to stay with the Sox, which just goes to show you how he’s a rarity among professional athletes today. Konerko’s got the physical skills and the leadership skills (not to mention the numb-chuck skills) to build a franchise around for a long time. Keeping this guy was the most important move the White Sox could have possibly made this offseason.

3) Trading for Rob Mackowiak – How Kenny Williams jacked the Pirates on this trade I’ll never know. Not only did he get rid of Damaso Marte, the biggest piece of deadweight on the roster, but the Sox also received in exchange arguably the best bench player in baseball. Mackowiak has a solid bat and can play all of the infield and outfield positions. More importantly, his versatility allows the Sox to carry a 13th pitcher on the roster instead of another position player, which means the team’s dominant pitching depth will go even deeper.

4) Trading for Javier Vasquez – Speaking of pitching depth, Kenny Williams pulled off another no-brainer with the El Duque-for-Vasquez trade. El Duque will live on forever on 2005 Sox DVD retrospectives with the miracle shutdown of the Red Sox after entering the game with the bases loaded in Game 5 of the ALDS. However, he was hardly playing at all in the second half of 2005. To receive Vasquez, a 200 innings per year guy in return for a pitcher with an unknown birth date that’s breaking down before our eyes could very well be Kenny Williams’ coup de grace. Sure, Vasquez struggled with the Yankees and Diamondbacks, but both of those clubs were trying to make him into a #1 or #2 starter. On the White Sox, he’s going to be the fourth or fifth starter! Baseball’s best rotation just got even better.

5) Re-signing Jon Garland – Locking up Garland beyond 2006 has me dreaming of a rotation primed for a multiple-season run along the lines of the Braves of the 1990s. I just hope his 2005 season wasn’t a flash in the pan and that he’s truly living up the potential everyone was talking about when he was traded over as a young prospect from the Cubs back in 1998.

Something tells me Kenny Williams isn’t finished yet. The addition of Vasquez gives the Sox six viable starting pitchers. The young Brandon McCarthy was lights out in the number five slot after the 2005 All Star break. If this were fantasy baseball, the Sox would keep McCarthy as a long reliever in the bullpen. However, I doubt they are going to essentially demote such a stud young kid after having so much success as a starter last year. Look for Williams to trade Jose Contreras (the only starting pitcher who isn’t signed past next season) for another big bat in the lineup.

Regardless of what the Sox do from now until pitchers and catchers report, they have to receive mad props for not resting on their laurels and continuing to make hungry and aggressive moves. They’re finishing off the types of deals that a team that hasn’t won anything (like the Cubs) ought to be making.

In the wake of the Corey Patterson trade, stay tuned for my Cubs offseason analysis…