1. Rick Hahn sat down with Brett Ballantini for a Q&A about the White Sox offseason for MLB Trade Rumors, and reaffirmed a lot of the dominant themes of the offseason.
- He insisted that the Sox were “in” on major free agent targets but alluded to “not economic-based” reasons why they did not land in Chicago. There’s no doubt those were present, but it goes without saying that an out-of-town suitor has to try to overwhelm those factors with their offer. Sam Mellinger’s profile of the Alex Gordon signing revealed he indeed had a strong preference to return to Kansas City, but the wheels only got moving after months of tepid pushes from interested teams dropped the price range to the Royals territory.
- Hahn more or less acknowledged that rushing through the minors wrecked Gordon Beckham, but it’s clear Tim Anderson has the ability this season to undo plans for a one year/one level development plan.
- He doesn’t come out and say “we can teach framing to Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro” — in fact, he explicitly leaves it out while touting their defensive attributes — but Hahn says “we see a fair amount of upside in the combination of Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro behind the plate,” which is an odd thing to say about a weathered 29 year old and a 32-year-old career backup.
- When pressed, Hahn defended the idea of the White Sox paying attention to where they are with their win cycle and trying to compete with their current core. But that kind of talk only makes it harder to know what it means when he says the full rebuild was on the table this offseason. Does he just mean all options were considered, or did they really consider tearing down with a chance to have the best rotation top-3 in baseball and the primes of Jose Abreu and Adam Eaton?
- There’s plenty more nuggets within, so read the whole thing.
2. Jerry Reinsdorf is throwing his weight behind a smokeless tobacco ban at Chicago sporting events, even drafting a letter to the city council offering his cooperation. It doesn’t get much more old school Chicago power than drafting a letter to the city with the blessing of Ed Burke and the former Mayor Daley’s nephew.
The ban reads like a mild upgrade on MLB rules that don’t allow players to carry containers on their person in publicly visible situations, and ban use during TV interviews, and between Robin Ventura shrugging about enforcement, and Eaton and Abreu caught between saying the right things about “it’s a bad habit,” and revealing how players already work around current rules, the immediate impact on the league could be symbolic. But given that keeping out of the public eye could prevent it from being a romanticized and recognizable element of life as a ballplayer, symbolism could be the goal.
3. Where does Spring optimism end and measurable swagger begin? There should be a job in baseball for someone who can discern between the type of confidence portrayed in Bob Nightengale’s column about the 2016 clubhouse:
Welcome to the South Side, where you walk into the White Sox clubhouse, hear the laughter, see the swagger, and feel the confidence.
It may be only spring training, but there’s a completely different vibe around these White Sox, not seen in years.
“The energy, the personalities, even the coaching staff,’’ Sale said, “everybody seems to have just a notch more of something. I don’t know exactly what it is, or what you want to call it, but we have it. It’s something. And it’s something good.’’
Call it personality.
…and Jonah Keri’s depiction of the 2015 clubhouse in Spring.
Yet not a single soul at White Sox camp is sweating their staff ace’s injury: a combination avulsion fracture/sprained ankle. Rick Hahn, the general manager, talks hopefully of Sale missing no more than a start or two. Manager Robin Ventura reports that Sale is in good spirits. And the lanky lefty himself can be seen smiling and joking with teammates. Even by the optimistic, every-team-is-undefeated standards of spring training, the White Sox look positively giddy.
That’s because, for the first time this decade, Chicago genuinely seems like a club on the rise.
Or better yet, determine why one clubhouse is destined for greatness and the other is obviously headed toward a 76-win season. Clubhouse atmosphere is real and something to be reported on, but the dominant trend I am pulling out of recent Sox clubhouse pieces is that Ventura-managed teams are loose and playful, no matter what kind of darkness is awaiting them on the diamond.
4. But read Bob Nightengale’s piece on how the Tigers told Al Avila he was replacing his boss, Dave Dombrowski, days before carrying out the deed of firing him, and try to figure out where the Tigers are going.
Ostensibly, Dombrowski was let go on the heels of a disappointing 2015 season that hinted at the end of the Tigers competitive window and ended in a deadline sell-off. But Nightengale describes Avila’s new regime coming with investments in their international operations, “adding an analytics department” and other investments in the infrastructure that has been neglected during their constant chase for World Series titles. Yet, that was immediately followed up by Justin Upton, Jordan Zimmerman and bullpen upgrades to attempt to compete around an aging Miguel Cabrera, Justin Verlander, Ian Kinsler, Victor Martinez group.
The Tigers are like a funhouse mirror of the Sox, where their GM has to try to balance strengthening organizational depth with annual contention, but has to prove the latter while spending lavish sums of money, rather than avoiding them.
Meanwhile, Victor Martinez was taken out of the game Monday for pulling a hamstring.
5. Jacob Turner is staying positive after getting tagged again Monday.
“The stuff has been pretty good, the execution has been a little disappointing at times, especially out of the stretch I feel like,” Turner said. “Coming off the injury, I’m happy to be pitching, happy to be competing. A few balls have found holes, but obviously when that happens, you have to bear down and get the next guy out.”
Turner gave up two more homers in three innings, so talking about found holes is a bit of a stretch, but he’s diagnosing the problem correctly. Turner is missing spots very badly with his fastball and getting lit up when he does. It’s Spring, and after missing most of 2015, fastball command is expected to be rusty, but like Erik Johnson, Turner, just 24 years old, needs to prove himself sooner than later because of his track record.
This summed it up best:
Mat Latos probably knows rotation spot is his to lose, but Johnson and Turner aren’t exactly pushing him.
6. As a bonus, definitely read Mark Simon on a single session altering Carlos Rodon‘s command problems in the middle of the 2015 season. Shades of the famous “one bullpen session” with Matt Thornton are present in this one.