Lo and behold, the Sox were three steps ahead, and less than a week away from debuting a full-throated marketing effort with Chance at the forefront: selling hats, narrating in-stadium hype videos, throwing out the first pitch at home openers, and perhaps launching into a more long-term ambassador role, even.

VP of Marketing Brooks Boyer did a very good job of summing it up Chance’s appeal:

“We wanted a sound that was younger, hipper, cooler to really connect. The whole goal of the video is to connect with the people in the city, with the White Sox, with our history—so having him do it seemed to make a lot of sense because he is very Chicago,” said White Sox marketing chief Brooks Boyer. “Chance is that next wave, and he seemed to be the right guy.”

Chance is absurdly talented, personable, community-oriented, and the rare combination of a rapper who can show a crossover, family-friendly side while maintaining artistic credibility. These type of figures aren’t just rolling off the assembly line, and even rarer is one that cares about identifying with a baseball team.

Yet even with this magical key to connect with young people on the South side of Chicago dropped in their lap, this decision still seems bold and innovative. The White Sox have dreary attendance and dismal cable ratings, and need to search for compelling ways to expand and invigorate their fanbase more than most, but it’s a rare day an MLB team drifts outside of doing more what they know their built-in demographics will respond to, and for the sake of the city, for Chance and his efforts, and for setting future precedent, I hope they are rewarded for it.

2. It was fun worrying about Carlos Rodon for two innings; it made him seem more approachable. His fastball was missing by feet, his finish on his release seemed inconsistent and sitting at 93-94 mph on his fastball seemed less comfortable when hitters could sit on him until he split the plate.

Despite the opening, Rodon wound up delivering the best White Sox start of the season. After allowing a second inning home run to Mark Canha–that Hawk mislabeled as a “can of corn”–he struck out six of the last 21 batters he faced while allowing only five to reach base. His only walk of the night didn’t come until the sixth, continuing his stretch of improved control that began last July from adjustments that Eno Sarris profiled on Wednesday.

This great control came alongside some of the nastiest, most wipeout versions of his slider. When he combines those elements, the vision of him performing like a No. 2 this year seem attainable.

3. The Sox getting Sonny Gray‘d for most of the night made Robin Ventura put on his managin’ hat for several late portions of the night.

He pinch-ran for Jose Abreu after a single with two outs in the eighth, which certainly had potential to take his best hitter out of the game with little opportunity to benefit, but Todd Frazier was up and it was about maximizing quickly disappearing opportunities. The oddity was keeping pinch-runner Tyler Saladino at first while Frazier and Jimmy Rollins stayed put, even while Rollins was having a brutal defensive night. If the flexibility isn’t there to use his defense, it gets hard to make Saladino useful.

J.B. Shuck was the next pinch-runner in after Melky Cabrera reached to leadoff the ninth, but that was to put him in front of Avisail Garcia, who is doing his best to throw believers in his offseason adjustments off the scent. Shuck seems as good of a bet as any to reach base or push Cabrera over as Garcia at this point, but Avisail is going to get the full confidence of management until he doesn’t.

4. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense to say this about a guy who currently has a .000 ISO, has only played two games, and apparently told Hawk Harrelson he felt beat up after his first game behind the plate, but I came away encouraged by Alex Avila‘s performance so far this season. Not 2012 All-Star level encouraged, but Avila’s walk rate and on-base skills seem like natural products of what he’s doing at the plate rather than a specter of his since-disappeared power.

He’s a prodding, discerning presence at the plate, who not only takes a lot of pitches but shows a lot more ability to employ a good two-strike approach and hit defensively than someone with a ~30% strikeout rate should, even if early indications are that his contact should slump soon. Avila’s issues include durability and he’ll be challenged to stay sharp over the year, but he saw 39 pitches in his first two games and it didn’t look accidental.

5. Avisail Garcia will get his first start in the outfield on Thursday, which he’ll continue to push for, since he abides by the adage that pretty much no player physically capable of playing in the field likes to DH. The Sox are still pitching all the offensive opportunities at the world at him without caution, but defense does look like the first frontier where they are willing to acknowledge Garcia is not their best immediate option for winning games.

Lead Photo Credit: John Hefti // USA Today Sports Images

Carlos Rodon has gotten a lot of ink this winter thanks to his strong 2015 finish and the expectations that accompany him into his sophomore season, including a piece this morning going into the details on why we may be looking at a breakout. What’s the big deal? After a rocky beginning to his career in which he basically alternated decent and tough-to-watch outings, he closed the year on a high note, lowering his ERA in each of his final eight starts. Getting deeper into games and limiting, but by no stretch eliminating, walk totals proved a good look for him, and leaves him room to build.

A couple of days recovered from sickness, Sonny Gray is now prepared to make his first start of the season. Gray is coming off of a season in which he finished third in Cy Young voting, but isn’t pegged by PECOTA to repeat on that success. As James pointed out earlier in the week, Gray’s peripherals don’t paint the picture of the same pitcher at home as they do on the road. For less than mysterious reasons, he pitches to contact much more, relying on the cavernous O.Co Coliseum to lend him protection. The White Sox have walked just three times in their first two games, and if Gray elects to consistently stay inside the zone, it may prove to be helpful to the seemingly aggressive swinging South side squad.

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton – RF
2. Jimmy Rollins – SS
3. Jose Abreu – 1B
4. Todd Frazier – 3B
5. Melky Cabrera – LF
6. Avisail Garcia – DH
7. Brett Lawrie – 2B
8. Alex Avila – C
9. Austin Jackson – CF

Athletics Lineup:

1. Billy Burns – CF
2. Khris Davis – LF
3. Jed Lowrie – 2B
4. Danny Valencia – 3B
5. Billy Butler – DH
6. Josh Phegley – C
7. Mark Canha – RF
8. Yonder Alonso – 1B
9. Marcus Semien – SS

Yonder Alonso, the lone left-handed swinger in tonight’s lineup for Oakland, is 1-for-5 thus far in the series. The Sox failed to force Josh Phegley to make an out in last night’s contest so I’m sure he’s feeling pretty good about himself. The MVP of the series in the first two games for the Athletics could be argued in favor of Marcus Semien. The glove-last shortstop might be batting ninth, but he’s collected a pair of hits and a walk, and has even yet to commit an error. Some quick mental math confirms that puts him well behind his 2015 pace, where he committed 35.

Adam Eaton and Jose Abreu have both hit the ball well in each of the first two nights, despite the latter having a couple of poor looking plate appearances last night. Eaton is riding a streak of 24 games in which he’s reached base, the longest of his career. I’d be unsurprised to see both get aggressive early in the game before the cool air settles in to the East bay and keeps the ball from carrying much.

Lead Photo Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

If Sale’s early-game loss of command and form didn’t so closely resemble the stretches that made his 2015 so much less than the sum of its awe-inspiring parts, it could be more easily forgiven. It was Opening Day and he was amped up and overthrowing. When he started pumping in more strikes at 94 mph and snapping sliders over the outside corner, he was Sale again, and in terms of problems he could have been expected to have when he shifted to the rotation in 2012, that his stuff looks just as electric and overpowering in Year 5 is a major victory.

2. And you could almost envision a new era of a viable White Sox attack when they reeled and lit up a wild Rich Hill–he hit two of the first three batters!–in their second trip through the order.

Adam Eaton will need to slow down quickly to repeat his April slump of last year, after he reached base three times, and alternated between flashing the ability to slap through the 5-6 hole to left field and showing surprising power by blasting a triple to the Coliseum wall. Jose Abreu saw 26 pitches on the night and crushed a hanging Hill curve so hard in the third it clearly impeded Jimmy Rollins from scoring, and even Rollins himself and Austin Jackson looked hitterish in a lineup that very much needs for their bats to not be dead.

This same group went almost completely silent against the A’s bullpen, Todd Frazier‘s timing looked so off early in the night that a simple lineout to third in his last at-bat was a relief, and the Sox got picked off and popped up bunts into outs two times each. Everything they did to force the issue and initiate energy and push the defense into mistakes blew up in their face nigh immediately, which is not a good look for a team that’s spread a lot of talk about being ready to avoid their umpteenth slow start. But the good news is they don’t need to execute yet. The A’s rotation is too infirm, their defense still relies too heavily on Marcus Semien, and the Sox have enough installed major league competence to wait out the unforced errors.

3. Now that Opening Day has…opened, the Opening Day payrolls have the White Sox with the 16th-highest in MLB with roughly $113 million. A roughly median payroll is fine on its own, maybe even to be expected given how far down the Sox are in terms TV and ticket revenues. Avoiding a scorched Earth rebuild is an understandable, and in my eyes, commendable decision to maintain a decent standard of product during a period of transition. Draft spending has also been commensurate with the league, and international free agency has been trending upward after an impossibly ugly nadir.

It’s all fine, and we don’t need to call anyone “cheap” while still acknowledging that in concert, it’s all very middle of the road activity for a major league club that projects to be middle of the road and is buttressed by a middle of the road farm system. There’s some potential for overperformance, but it’s unsurprising that this all totals up to middle of the road expectations. They need a way to distinguish themselves.

4. Miguel Gonzalez’s contract does not have an opt-out date, reports Dan Hayes. He is pure, unadulterated starting pitching depth for a rotation that often can go long stretches without a natural opening for a spot start.

Mat Latos is already on a short leash as is, but right now Gonzalez is the best threat to actually provide some push from below. Given the way his Spring went, that could just be the thrill of something new. At least Rick Hahn feels good about where Gonzalez ended the year velocity-wise.

5. It’s a little early for the rotation to be in chaos, but the A’s are ahead of schedule. Sonny Gray‘s bout with food poisoning–apparently not an unusual issue for him–means old friend Chris Bassitt will go on Tuesday.

Bassitt’s nice results (3.56 ERA in 86 innings) last year made the Jeff Samardzija trade sting even more, but his 107 cFIP in 2015 sees the Sox being pretty right on in pegging him as expendable. Gray is set to pitch on Wednesday, which will spare the Sox from an encounter with another old friend. Elbow surgery for Felix Doubront–already not a great option–means Eric Surkamp (memorable for a mostly unsuccessful stint as a White Sox LOOGY) is headed to the rotation.

This A’s team was a juggernaut ticketed for a deep playoff run 18 months ago.

Lead Photo Credit: Kelley L. Cox // USA Today Sports Images

The Athletics are coming off of their worst finish since 1997, which led to them missing the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Seven trades were made during the offseason, necessary to keep pace with the heavy dealing the team was engaging in during the 2015 season. The Oakland squad has a reputation that no player is safe, and it’s earned. Every game is a tryout when you’re wearing white shoes with some variation of green and/or yellow.

Among the additions not achieved through trade is left hander Rich Hill.  Hill wasn’t expecting to pitch when he woke up today, but originally scheduled starter Sonny Gray was an afternoon scratch due to food poisoning. Hill has had a strange career trajectory. Early on he failed to live up to the expectations stemming from his overwhelming curveball. He then spent time as bullpen journeyman after being scrapped as a starter, and once he found himself successful in a handful of starts for Boston in 2015, he parlayed it into a nice free agent contract from the A’s. The success of four starts in the last five years is evidently enough to slot him in at #2 on the A’s depth chart, needing only the push of some bad fish tacos to make him an opening day starter. The world is a crazy place.

Chris Sale, predictably, is representing Chicago’s South side as the season gets underway. Sale is expected to maintain the dominance he’s shown in each of his four seasons as a starter, while the Sox are coming off of their worst season since…the season before. Which was also their worst season since the season before that. Less depressingly put: the White Sox are trending up!

2015 Chris Sale was just as devastating to hitters as he’s always been, his league leading 64 cFIP is even an improvement on previous years, but the look of his more traditional stats took a hit due to a terrible defense behind him, and of course an anemic offense that was regularly lacking in run support. The 2016 edition should benefit from some turnover. Todd Frazier at 3rd represents an improvement on both sides of the ball, and from an offensive standpoint both Jimmy Rollins and Brett Lawrie hope to represent improvements while not costing the team much on the defensive end.

White Sox Lineup:

1. Adam Eaton – RF
2. Jimmy Rollins – SS
3. Jose Abreu – 1B
4. Todd Frazier – 3B
5. Melky Cabrera – LF
6. Avisail Garcia – DH
7. Brett Lawrie – 2B
8. Dioner Navarro – C
9. Austin Jackson – CF

Athletics Lineup:

1. Billy Burns – CF
2. Jed Lowrie – 2B
3. Josh Reddick – RF
4. Danny Valencia – 3B
5. Khris Davis – LF
6. Billy Butler – DH
7. Mark Canha – 1B
8. Stephen Vogt – C
9. Marcus Semien – SS

Concerns about whether or not Robin Ventura would bat Jimmy Rollins second in the batting order preceded the knowledge that Jimmy Rollins would even be the starting shortstop. You’ll hear varying schools of thought regarding the importance of lineup construction. On an any-given-game basis, it might not matter a great deal, but the idea is to accrue a higher likelihood of success over the course of a season. With that goal in mind, batting your aging middle infielder whose .285 OBP would be the lowest of any of Chicago’s 2015 regular starters (other than, oddly enough, his predecessor Alexei Ramirez, who had the same OBP) in what many would contend is one of the most important spots in the lineup is puzzling. With Mark Parent out, and Rick Renteria in as bench coach, the Sox made a specific point of announcing their intention to be more analytic from the bench. I’m not prepared to call foul before the season even starts, but in the first opportunity to show it, we see indications of the same dugout thinking that has accompanied Robin’s regime throughout.

When alluding to the lineup late last week, Ventura pre-emptively defended his decision, while at least not committing to full-time exposure in the 2-spot for his shortstop:

“He can move. Just because he’s a switch-hitter and can handle the bat, he can go to a couple of different places. Right now it looks like he’ll be [second].”

But today is not a day to get upset, at least as long as a dominant Chris Sale start doesn’t go to waste. Today is a day to rejoice. It’s the first White Sox game of a new season, and it’s the first Chris Sale Day of the season. I advise you to stay up late and enjoy it.

Photo Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

Sale and Gray have never faced each other, though somehow Sale has faced the injury-prone Jarrod Parker three times. Think of how much harder it will be for them to match up after Gray gets traded to Cubs.

Gray’s is projected for about half the value as Sale by PECOTA for 2016 because 1. Sale is really good and 2. Gray’s peripherals become more pedestrian when he’s in Oakland Coliseum (7.3 K/9, 51.6 GB%) compared to who he is on the road (8.1 K/9, 57.2 GB%), and he seems to be more focused on pounding the zone (3.1 BB/9 down to 2.3 BB/9). Not being completely starved for power might aid the Sox in dealing with this approach this year.

One-on-one matchups are mostly noise, but if Billy Butler owning Chris Sale (.357/.404/.643) has been a constant annoyance for a while and if it continues even as he becomes an albatross for his current team, maybe we’ll really know it is for real.

2. Jimmy Rollins will be batting second on Opening Day, which reads as a rather significant subversion of the thinking that placed Jose Abreu in the No. 2 hole last season. Rollins has never been a great OBP guy–he only had a .344 OBP in his MVP season–and is coming off a season where he reached base at a .285 OBP clip. His offensive potential is the reason he’s starting over Tyler Saladino, but that’s a potential that doesn’t stretch far beyond hopefully a .300 OBP with moderate pop–not something to leverage the top of the order on.

Besides just putting Abreu back to where he belongs, the type of hitter Robin Ventura seems to be searching for is Melky Cabrera, whom he is likely avoiding for the sake of ducking having him in the same position where he flopped last season.

It feels so great to be griping about lineups again!

3. Alex Avila will also be getting the Opening Day nod at catcher, starting a season-long curiosity in how the Sox will split the playing time between him and Dioner Navarro. A traditional platoon split would make Avila the primary starter, especially in the AL Central, but durability and performance concerns (can he still put a bat on a ball?) make banking on him for even 100 games seem dicey. Are they going to try to keep both with an even split? Is Navarro going to be aggressively used late in games for matchups?

Navarro is a better bet to scratch what league average for catcher offense is these days in regular action, which is likely why he was able to demand more money, but Avila’s quieter actions behind the plate and game management make him more appealing. It’s a question of a much tolerance a long start with a sub-.200 average will bet met with for Avila. but if he just hits like its 2011 again, it won’t be an issue (He won’t).

4. The White Sox announced Chance the Rapper will throw out the first pitch at their home opener on Friday; a promising start to the dream of ‘Chance the Rapper–White Sox hypeman and talisman.’

Chance previously threw out the first pitch on May 30, 2014, which was followed by the Sox losing 4-1 to the Padres in a game where they blew a genuinely good start from John Danks, but this was before he rapped the line “I made Sunday Candy, I’m never going to Hell/I met Kanye West, I’m never going to fail.” So, suffice it to say the calculus has changed just a bit.*

5. Paul Sullivan had an interview with Robin Ventura about his lame duck status heading into the 2016 season. Unsurprisingly, Ventura is publicly very unbothered about not being under contract after this season and praised the team’s vibe through camp.

Ventura famously turned down a contract extension after his successful first year at the helm, which only furthered speculation at the time that he was an unwilling passenger in the organization’s unique fascination with him (this is his first coaching job, after all). While there is little reason to seriously doubt Ventura’s commitment to his work, he’s never read as the type of striving careerist who would be stewing about a lack of financially guaranteed job security, especially with the regard he has with ownership. Ventura lost his bench coach over the offseason, so he is likely well-aware of the stakes at hand, but keeping the peace is his primary skill–one still touted even after the LaRoche madness–and that starts with his own conduct.