The second half of the season is officially here.
The All-Star break isn’t for another week, but Sunday’s 4-1 win over the Astros was the 82nd game of the White Sox season, and things are, well, they’re perfectly average.
Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.
At 42-40, the White Sox remain in the thick of the playoff hunt, a hot streak away from the top of the Wild Card leaderboard, a cold spell shy of irrelevance, chasing teams with better peripherals, waiting for help, always waiting for help, searching desperately for help, help has to be somewhere! Eternally flawed but with enough hope to not give up.
This is the story of the 2016 White Sox.
This is the story of the 2009-15 White Sox, more or less.
This is the story of a franchise doomed to tread water from now until eternity.
This is Baseball Purgatory.
A sampling of quotes after Friday’s shutout loss to Houston, a game that moved them to 40-40 before reeling off two-straight victories to end the series, provided a sampling of quotes you could use for any of the last eight years.
“We had some missed opportunities,” manager Robin Ventura said.
“It’s a tough one to swallow,” hard-luck starting pitcher Miguel Gonzalez said.
“It’s just a matter of things clicking,” utility infielder Tyler Saladino said.
These are cliches, of course, phrases players and managers are coached to say after a loss. But they provide a blueprint of the White Sox of the recent past, the present and the likely future of the franchise.
Mediocrity, thy name is White Sox.
A team that lacks the financial means to acquire good players must be good at bargain hunting and developing minor leaguers. The inverse is true, as well.
The White Sox haven’t developed an above-average major league hitter in an eternity. They don’t spend enough money to acquire top-shelf free agents. The rosters they put together year after year after year are good enough to say “Hmm, they might have a shot,” but weak enough that if one or two things go wrong the ship will sink quickly. They have two premier pitchers, an All-Star-caliber outfielder, a first baseman who is better than the funk in which he started the season, and an assorted hodgepodge of bargain-basement deals, non-prospect utility-types, and guys at the end of their careers who were only available because nobody else wanted them.
You can blame the players. You can blame the coaches. You can blame Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams. But a commitment to mediocrity starts at the top, and until changes are made — financially, developmentally, structurally — this is the White Sox team you will continue to be all too familiar with. The names and faces will change, but the standard will remain this: good enough to keep things interesting but bad enough to never be taken seriously.
White Sox Baseball.
Lead Photo Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Around ’97, Reinsdorf was intrigued by the Reds–a mediocre team leading their division with a record near .500. Cincy was excited; fans were coming out. I think JR saw the future of baseball and modeled the White Sox after that pattern. And it’s a lot easier now with two wildcard slots.
Excellent read.
This feeling of hopelessness is reminiscent of the 70’s Veeck era. There isn’t a franchise in pro sports more in need of a new way of doing things than this one.
Reinsdorf has had the playing field tilted in his direction for years with an incredible stadium lease, being baseball’s shadow commissioner, a friendly business arrangement with the Tribune, and a division that is filled with the dregs of the A.L and he still could not get it done. Now that he no longer runs baseball and the Cubs would like nothing better than to bury this group things have gotten a hell of a lot more difficult.