It has come to the point in the White Sox 2023 season where, as anyone could have guessed, Sox fans have completely given up on a lifeless, listless and seemingly worthless squad of alleged baseball talent. There is a palpable, yet also stunningly and thunderously tangible gamut of negative emotions running through White Sox fandom that has, at the very least, become more coordinated in what it is in the stands and at home than the White Sox have on the field. Well, to the extent that “suck” isn’t something you coordinate in socially acceptable company.
And lest you think that Sox fans are all just angry, they aren’t. After all, everyone processes grief at a different rate. There are some that reached the fifth stage of grieving this team in 1984 and never looked back, even during 2005. There are some that are very much in denial. That does not include any former managers offering to strip for every victory, though better Ozzie than…uhhh…every other former manager? Nope, this is strictly on the paying and not-so-paying fans, who are treated the same in the White Sox’ eyes. With disdain.
But this is not another rant. This is a therapy session. This is grief counseling to help fast track you to healing and being able to either find some enjoyment in a dumpster fire started by a Molotov Cocktail made with a dirty diaper, or move on to the Bears. There are certainly options and choices going forward.
DENIAL. It ain’t just a river in Egypt. It is, however, what the fans saying “it’s only April” are sitting in right now. Granted, the team could roll off a huge winning streak at some point. Granted, teams that are scuffling in the first half can find success in the second half. Granted. The denial phase is really about saying that the team is too talented to be playing this poorly for too long. That the rebuild was not all for nothing, the young core is going to dominate.
FACTS: Sorry, those in denial. Uhhh…there are some hard truths to face about this team and the rebuild and the young core. In the shortened 2020 season the youth was served in an unexpected playoff run, for however goofy the setup was that year. In 2021, when the team made the playoffs, they were exposed as over matched by a deeper and more experienced Astros team. In 2022, the team was exposed as having holes that needed to be fixed before they could ascend to a real championship roster. Namely, the starting rotation was lacking innings and the bullpen was taxed too often. The team lacked depth to cover injuries to star players. There were too many 1B/DH types on the roster. Players’ holes were becoming exposed, like Andrew Vaughn’s lack of homerun power, Gavin Sheets and Jake Burger’s lack of positions to play, Luis Robert Jr. and Eloy Jimenez both having a tendency to get injured, or the fact that there was no one capable of playing second base at a major league level. Entering this season, the addition of Mike Clevinger and the loss of Johnny Cueto seemed like a wash at best for the rotation; in reality Dylan Cease, Lucas Giolito and Michael Kopech needed to take the next step and become Jose Contreras, Freddy Garcia and Jon Garland circa 2005. Letting Jose Abreu walk was fine, but that meant Andrew Vaughn needed to become a 20-30 homer guy and not just a potential doubles machine. Andrew Benintendi allowed Eloy to move out of the field to try and quell his injuries, but the hole that had been right field was still Gavin Sheets or the same rookies we had been waiting on. Second base was a shot in the dark veteran in Elvis Andrus or the same cast that failed in the two years prior. The bullpen added castoffs and tryouts to a bullpen that had somewhat faltered down the stretch. In short, the team didn’t add to a lacking 2022 team, they swapped. There is still no real depth.
MOVING ON: Look, there’s always hope until the team is eliminated from the playoffs. And hope is fun, frustrating and both euphoric and painful. Hope and love are not the same but they often go hand in hand. You love the White Sox? You’ll always have hope. But denying that this isn’t a massively flawed team that needs career years to start happening isn’t hope. Denying that Rick Hahn wasted the rebuild years by not drafting well, not identifying players that weren’t hyped and not building a complete roster isn’t fostering hope. Denying that the player development is not on par with teams like the Rays is not being hopeful. You can still love the team and have hope even though you embrace the facts that the team is still very, very flawed and might actually suck. Keep the love, keep the hope, believe the facts.
ANGER. It ain’t just a made up saint for Metallica’s worst album. It is, however, what the fans saying “sell the team Jerry” and “I’m done forever” are emoting. And anger is justified. And moving on from denial the anger wells up because this feels like betrayal. Where denying that the team is bad feels like keeping hope and love alive, admitting that the White Sox are either incompetent or were actively selling a line of BS feels like admitting that you were used and disrespected. That’s enough to make even the sunniest ball of happy fluff into a screaming shard of fiery hatred.
FACTS: White Sox fans truly believed that the rebuild was going to remodel the team into a franchise like the Rays, or the Twins, or the Guardians where success is sustainable because the foundation of the team is a constantly strong farm system, supplementing young and homegrown stars with key veterans or the occasionally imported star, and having the depth to cover injuries and departures either by bringing up the next guy or by making trades with the guys that are blocked or maybe talented but not in the team mold. What we have instead is a GM that started great by trading controllable stars for high-end, pipeline-hyped prospects. But that GM took a handful of top prospects, signed only the most-hyped international prospects, only hit on his top draft choices and created a farm system that was considered great for a couple seasons during the bad years. Once the trade returns and top international guys arrived with top draft picks like Andrew Vaughn and Garrett Crochet, the farm system plummeted to the basement of the league. The Sox have no starting position players that were drafted lower than Round 1. Gavin Sheets, a second-rounder, is a bench/platoon guy. Seby Zavala, a 12th-rounder, is a backup catcher that at almost 30 years old is not really the long-term future. Romy Gonzalez doesn’t belong on an MLB roster. No one in the rotation was drafted by the team. Two guys in the active bullpen, Aaron Bummer and Jimmy Lambert, were drafted by the team. Bummer was drafted pre-rebuild, Lambert was intended to be a starter on this team. Garrett Crochet was a first round pick. Rick Hahn has been GM for 10 years. He has drafted three pitchers on a White Sox team that was supposed to be building from within. He has one drafted position player that was a day-one starter. The farm system is ranked 26th this year. The Dodgers, who have finished first or second in the NL west every year since 2013 and are currently in second place, have the second-ranked farm system this year and never tanked. That alone should make Sox fans madder than hell. The bottom line is that this team neither buys contention in free agency as they have never given out a $100 Million contract, nor can they evaluate talent well enough to keep the farm system from tanking and create depth and sustained success. Be very, very angry at that level of incompetence.
MOVING ON: How can you? Well, throw away all expectations. Understand that you can’t control how the team spends or whether they manage to find prospects that matter. You cheer for team and hope that they are plucky underdogs. You accept that the love you gave wasn’t given back, and let that hurt temper your future expectations. You pick the players that you like and cheer for them, you go to games because baseball games are something you like going to. You try and see the Angels series because Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani are special, or the Cubs series because you like swearing at people from the Northwest Suburbs. You go see the Dodgers and Rays because they are the baseball equivalent of getting a lap dance; you aren’t cheating on the White Sox and changing fandom, you’re just letting top end franchises rub up against you and allowing for a fleeting fantasy.
BARGAINING. If you just do this, I promise I’ll do that forever. There’s little to be bargained with this team. Most bargaining right now among fans is “I’ll come back if Jerry sells the team” or “If they fire Hahn and Kenny I’ll be a bigger fan”. Ehhhh…not a lot to work with in the bargaining phase.
FACTS: Jerry isn’t selling, he isn’t firing anyone at this part of the season, and the team will not be adding serious payroll during the year. They can’t make trades unless you’re tearing down the roster in April, but what team wants an injured Yoan Moncada or Lance Lynn’s bloated…ERA? Most of the time in grieving the bargaining is really facing your own shortcomings and trying to effect change based on a promise to be better. Think praying that a sick or injured loved one pulls through and regains health, and promising to attend church weekly and not do bad stuff weekly if God sees fit to answer the prayer. Or promising to not cheat anymore if your spouse stays. Or promising to buy season tickets if the team is good. These are (often) hollow promises to change in an effort to get your way. With a professional sports team, fans really have no promises to keep that the team cares about. Jerry Reinsdorf might want to win, but on his terms. The players want to win and want the fans’ support, but they aren’t going to suddenly get better because the fans make a promise to do something or refrain from it. Fact is, there’s no bargain to be had here.
MOVING ON: Just accept that you’re powerless here except in your own choices. Which leads right smack face-first into…
DEPRESSION. Sox fans collectively have a case of the Mondays (ducks a punch). This is depressing. It is a massive downer that we are staring at the gray and expensive abyss of a White Sox season that looks like a third place finish in a weak division. Sox fans need a couch in a dark room with a bottle of something. Just leave us alone, we need to be alone.
FACTS: High expectations can often lead to crippling disappointment. That in and of itself is depressing. But the fact is that this is the supposed championship window and it is not only closing, but feels like it never really opened. As fans we were excited at the prospect of following the Cubs plan to create a contender. We were excited at the idea that there could be a Rays-like pattern of competitiveness in spite of limited spending. hopes got up. Those hopes being dashed upon the remnants of a nachos helmet in the face of a team that is absolutely playing terrible baseball with no clear answers is not just disappointing, it is gut wrenching. The depression of this team maybe not being made up of superstars with killer instincts is real. Watching a few years of really bad baseball in the hope and expectation that it would turn around, only to be treated to the same bad baseball is a massive downer. And really irritating. And frankly, there is so much
ANGER. Ok these stages aren’t linear…ummmm…deep breath, sadness taking over, shoulders drooping, eyes welling up a bit, apathy rising…and there’s the depression. Phew?
MOVING ON: Smile and bear it? Nah. Drink it away or eat your feelings? Not healthy or cost effective. Frankly, there just needs to be some context about where the White Sox fit in to your life. Fandom tends to be an identity issue and there’s something hard about knowing that an identifying trait is not a good trait to have. Cubs fans, unfortunately, are one method of moving on. Loveable losers. Embrace the crappiness. Enjoy the moments where it looks like the trend might be bucked and then enjoy the comedy when it’s really bad. Or, better yet, just understand what White Sox fandom really represents: a community. We belong as White Sox fans. We can enjoy each other’s company in hating on Jerry and the team. We can enjoy the comradery that we all felt when the team won in 2005 and when Leury Garcia and Dallas Keuchel were DFA’d. We can remember Mark Buerhle’s perfect game or whatever thrill the fandom gave us in the past. How to move on from depression? Misery loves company. Here’s to having plenty of company.
ACCEPTANCE. This is the landing spot and it isn’t an easy place to land. It’s all hurty and pointy. But gravity being the jerk that it is, there’s no way to avoid landing if you’ve jumped. It is just a question of whether you survive the landing or they’re scooping you up with a wet paper towel. In this case, survival is pretty much a guarantee but there may be some minor wiping needed afterwards. And yes, full-on ewww was intended.
FACTS: We root for a team that is always in transition. Players’ time in a White Sox uniform is fleeting, although we immortalize them in this one particular stretch of their lives. We accept that they will let us down by leaving and doing better elsewhere, or retiring and leaving a hole in the lineup, or failing to be what we wish they were. We remember Mark Buerhle throwing a perfecto and another no-no, being this all-time great on the World Series team and someone that as fans we can admire. We don’t really remember him losing all his starts against Minnesota and Detroit in the second half of the 2006 season. It doesn’t matter, he’s still a source of great joy for White Sox fans who were there. In regards to the organization, we want to be entertained and thrilled by what they put on the field, and be well-fed and refreshed by what they offer at the park, and well-dressed by the gear we can buy. And let’s face it, in baseball parlance hitting .333 isn’t bad. We have one of the best dressed teams in the game to wear our allegiance to. The thrills and entertainment aren’t constant, but even the Rays and Dodgers lose games in front of their fans sometimes. And the food is good too, even if it is pricey and the interesting stuff is often hard to find. The problem is that all these things that we have as fans, that we share with other baseball fans except in Oakland, comes from a team that will absolutely tell you what you want to hear even when it isn’t the truth. You are not accepting mediocrity as a White Sox fan, you are accepting that the team doesn’t respect you enough to not pander to you. Lie to you. You are accepting that you are not one of the millions of Dodgers fans, one of the 87 actual Rays fans, and not receiving the paycheck that Mets fans should be getting. You are the fan of a team, that like 25 other teams in the league, is flawed, and will need more luck than skill to succeed.
MOVING ON: Don’t live or die with Jerry Reinsdorf’s checkbook or the ability of two lawyers and a couple guys who never really made it in the majors to assess baseball talent. Because, frankly, they’ve shown they really can’t. Life goes on, maybe try Davis Martin and move Kopech to the bullpen? And in five years, that same sentence but with two different names? The fact about baseball is that decades and a century of this have been going on with teams being hyped up and then turning out to be bums. But the game endured because it lets us shrug off the other nonsense in our lives and make moments that matter to us personally. Look, move on from this garbage team by taking the family or friends to the ballpark and using the time to talk and catch up with each other, or put the game on in the background as a momentary distraction from the grind of daily life. Use the common ground to make new friends and connect with people you would never otherwise connect with, and get to know the world a little better. Because that is what made this America’s pastime, the connections baseball fosters. And not even this damp fart of a White Sox team can change that.
THE STAFF OF CORK AND KERRY
And what, pray tell, is the Staff of Cork and Kerry? Scholars maintain two definitions are valid: first it is the assembled persons who provide the excellent food and drink at Cork and Kerry at the Park and Cork and Kerry Beverly. Also, same said scholars maintain that the Staff of Cork and Kerry is a weapon of mythical and fearsome power, wielded by only those of rare strength and skill or powerful of spirit to rise to greatness.
This roster does not present the strength, skill or character to wield such a might weapon. So we take the staff, give it back to the, uhhh, the people staff…staff people?…at Cork and Kerry for safekeeping. And then, if fans can revolt truly, we turn Jerry, Rick and Kenny over to the staff of Cork and Kerry…for answers.
FIRE RICK HAHN AND KENNY WILLIAMS!
It’s your turn to run the White Sox. (Only Jerry remains until death.) Read the below rules, subscribe to Sox In the Basement and let’s start fixing this mess together. YOU can take over as the head of the White Sox Front Office. Know what the team should do right now?
Do us all a favor and submit your ideas for how to fix this team. The following rules apply:
- You have taken over the White Sox front office. Unfortunately Jerry Reinsdorf remains the owner until death (and you can’t kill him). what would you do immediately with your roster & staff?
- No trades allowed at this point. (It is too early.)
- You cannot DFA any player with more than $15MM left on their deal as it would anger the owner and cost you your position. (Similar to what was left on Dallas Keuchel’s deal last year.)
- You may not promote anyone below AA in the organization to the MLB Club.
- You may only promote a max of two AA players to the MLB Club.
- You can promote any amount of AAA players to the MLB Club.
Give it your best, most (or heck, least) well thought out shot. The best entries will be read aloud on Sox in the Basement until we run out of good entries or the team goes bonkers and runs away with the division, which that latter part will not come true first.
Submit your entries here: https://forms.gle/a7N221dpdjbwP6xB8