The White Sox Are Rebuilding In 2019

The White Sox Are An Incredibly Hard Team To Watch This Season, I Mean, YIKES

Although it's still a "rebuild," there need to be some results for us to hold onto.

Joshua Baca
Joshua Baca Apr 17, 2019
21
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The 2019 preseason hype for the Chicago White Sox was tremendous. Fans and players alike were electric for the season to start. Fans thought the team would get Manny Machado (didn't happen), and the young talent was on the rise. I may have had unwarranted expectations for this team because I always hope for the best. I have been a fan of the Sox for well over 15 years, and I'm only 22. We haven't been a good team in about a decade, yet every season I am optimistic that this team will get it right. In 2019, through 11 games (3-8), I am once again filled with disappointment. This has been a difficult season to watch so far.

Where to start. Well, I had extremely high hopes for Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, Carlos Rodon, Reynaldo Lopez, Lucas Giolito and Eloy Jimenez. Many of the players on this list are underperforming so far and it pains me. Rodon, Lopez, Giolito, and Jimenez don't look comfortable. The pitching is horrendous and the power is missing. I will give Jiminez a pass for right now because it's only his 11th game but only one extra-base hit through 11 games? Come on, where is that power? Tatis Jr (the one that got away) is lighting up the baseball in San Diego (with Machado...).

The positives come from Leury Garcia, Yoan Moncada (kind of) and Tim Anderson. Garcia has no power whatsoever but he manages to get on base, and that is what our lead-off man needs to do. Moncada had a massive few games but quickly cooled off after his 6th game. He looks a bit more comfortable at the plate and seems okay at 3rd. He's still developing and his improvements show, which is good. The strikeouts are coming back though, and only time will tell if he learns from last season. Tim Anderson is the only consistent piece in this lineup. His bat is electric (highest batting average in the MLB as of April 10th), and he just looks comfortable. Without him, we may not have won more than one game.

The underperformers are really killing this team. I mentioned the starting pitchers already, but almost everyone else looks horrible. The bullpen, aside from 2 players, look lost. We have given up 53 runs in the last six games. That is almost 9 runs a game! How can any team win when giving up that many runs? Jose Abreu (aside from power), Yonder Alonso, Yolmer Sanchez, Daniel Palka, and Wellington Castillo look as if they shouldn't have an MLB jersey on. These players are a combined 18 for 153, or batting .117, with 9 of those hits coming from Jose Abreu. Those numbers are beyond horrible.

Of course, I am panicking at the moment but it has only been 11 games. The season is extremely long, and I'm sure some of these players will snap out of it. We have also played 6 straight games against the hottest teams in the league. Will we make the playoffs? Probably not. Will we be competitive this year? probably not. But will we show progress towards the future? That is the answer we need. If there is progress, there is hope. So far the team looks lost, but we can only hope for progress throughout the rest of the year. Even though I watch every game, and it pains me a lot, I still love the White Sox. Hopefully, we progress and add some players throughout the next year.

Joshua Baca
Joshua Baca Apr 17, 2019
At Illinois State University

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29 Insane Jose Canseco Tweets

"I see the inner dragon of people"
Alex Valdes
Alex Valdes Aug 7, 2017
2663
views

Retired baseballer Jose Canseco's Twitter account is a goldmine, overlooked by many but home to dozens upon dozens of bewildering and hilarious dispatches from his enigmatic psyche. Among his favorite topics are the "sandsquatch," his ex-wife, and the various beings of the supernatural. I compiled a number of my favorite tweets.


1-2.


3-5.


6.


7.


8.

I don't even know what the fuck is going on here.


9.


10. In which Jose patronizes Jack Nicholson


11-16. In which Jose patronizes Elon Musk



17.


18. In which Jose channels Dril



19.


20.

21.


22.


23.


24-26.


These last three are my personal favorites.


27-29.

Cover Image Credit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/21/jose-canseco-goats-pulled-over-twitter_n_4316666.html
Alex Valdes
Alex Valdes Aug 7, 2017
At Montclair State University

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Dexter Fowler Deserves An Apology

Roughly a fourth of the way through the season, it's very clear that a lot of us were wrong about Fowler.

Trevor Cleveland
Trevor Cleveland May 14, 2019
20
views

Baseball is a mental game just as much, if not more of a physical one. Baseball is one of those unique games where failure is present at all times. If you hold a .300 batting average, you've got a pretty good chance of getting into the Hall of Fame. For context, Ty Cobb holds the record for highest career batting average at .366 and was inducted into the Hall of Fame. In any other sport, if you're only successful 30% of the time, you're rarely viewed as excellent in your sport.

But I don't think the nature of the game usually sways fans from shortsighted opinions and conclusions about the players, especially if they're on our own team. Cardinals fans went through something very similar with our own Dexter Fowler, and some of us really dragged him through the mud. In the second year of his five-year, $82 million deal, Fowler had the worst statistical years of his career. A .180 batting average with a .278 OBP were the cornerstones on what was a very confusing year for many Cardinals fans.

But I want to be very clear when I say that there were two camps with the Fowler situation: those who thought the year was simply a statistical outlier and those who thought that Fowler was at the end of his career, the Cardinals were foolish to give him the money and that the team would be better off trading him if they could find a suitable trade partner for such "broken goods". And maybe this is just my biased Cardinals Twitter point of view, but I felt like the second group was definitely the vocal majority.

But what I think we often forget to remember is there are real people out there playing that game. As weird as that may sound, sports fans often forget that athletes are just as vulnerable to the mental lows that plague so many everyday Americans. Dexter Fowler spent the majority of last season in a deep depression that was both caused and a source of his poor performance on the field. And I'm sure all the negative press he got and the angry fans in his mentions didn't help in the slightest.

But the Cardinals never gave up on him, and for good reason. The numbers Fowler has put up this season are outstanding thus far with still roughly 80% of the season left to play. The commitment the front office showed to Fowler is a reflection of the culture established that makes players want to come and play for this organization. The Cardinals never gave up on him, and so many fans should have taken that same approach. As I said earlier, those are real people out there playing in those Cardinal uniforms.

Trevor Cleveland
Trevor Cleveland May 14, 2019
At University of Missouri

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