'08 Season a Failure?, Early Off-Season Analysis, and the Sox Are a Hit on the Boob Tube

We'll start tonight with a delightful piece from Mike Imrem that was published in The Daily Herald about a week ago. In it, Imrem lambasts the Cubs and Sox as a pair of losers who deserve the same treatment after their LDS flops this past October; even if the Cubs were sexy pre-season picks to win the National League in the World Series, cruised to 97 wins, and were generally considered the best team in the N.L. from Game 1 to 162 while the Sox were written off as pretenders in the A.L. Central and only won 89 games this season, even with the added benefit of getting to play a 163rd game!

If you can't tell, I strongly disagree with Mr. Imrem, who summarizes his basic position when he writes,

The Rays eliminated the Sox in four games and the Sox are considered successes.

Down deep they aren't.

I could go on copying and pasting his rants about how Chicago fans should expect a winner every year, yada yada yada... My only question is where does a Chicago baseball fan get the right to take on that kind of Yankee-fan mentality? When did baseball only become a game of "World Championship or Nothing?" The 100-year-and counting and 88-year-old droughts aren't enough? I'm not saying I'm 100% satisified with the way this season ended, but to paint it a dissapointment and failure is remarkably oversimplifying what this great game is all about.

In the end, I agree with Richard Roeper, a great Sox fan, who summed it up when he noted that, simply stated, the Rays were just a better team. Over the course of the regular season and in 3 of the 4 ALDS games, Tampa Bay was just the superior baseball team. Even with just one week passed since the 2008 White Sox season ended, the dissapointment I felt after Game 4 is fading; this Tampa Bay team is just really good.

Where I stand with the Sox, however, is why I feel this year was a success. Last October, the White Sox were coming off a 90-loss season and looked old and full of holes. The Indians and Tigers looked much better on paper, and it appeared the Sox were doomed to spend the next few years struggling to keep their heads above .500. Now, I look at a roster teaming with good, young players like Carlos Quentin, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, and Alexei Ramirez. I see some holes that if plugged correctly, will make the Sox an immediate contender for next year's American League pennant. In short, I've turned nearly 180-degrees on the Sox. I can't wait for next year to begin. They say that hope always springs eternal in February and March, but if hope springs eternal in October and November, well then how could it be bad?

If you remember, earlier this month I wrote about the fact the Sox had already pulled the official "Division Champs" hats from whitesox.com... Not that I'm 100% sure, but it looks like the White Sox shop has even less Division Champs stuff up now. I could be wrong, but I could have sworn there were more than 5 items up for sale last time I checked a few weeks ago. At any rate, I'm sure there's not a ton of this stuff lying around so get it while you can.

This afternoon, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Ken Griffey, Jr. had his left knee scoped today in Cincinnati. The Enquirer also reported that it's very unlikely the Sox will pick up the $16 million option on Griffey this year, but if Griffey's knee is healthy for '09 (a big, big *if*, I know), he could be an intriguing role player for the Sox. If this bum knee was responsible for his power outage in '08, when his at-bats per home run nearly doubled from 14.27 AB/HR in 2007 to 29.33 AB/HR in 2008, why wouldn't you want a power-hitting left-handed bat with some outfield defensive versatility? For the right price, of course.

The White Sox want you to know that Kenny Williams is hard at work... At least that seems to be the angle of this piece published yesterday on the main site. Though the first half is the general "rah-rah" fluff you'd expect from the official voice of the Sox; the usual lines about needing balance, consistency, depth, etc. However, the 2nd half has some nice analysis of the current state of the Sox's payroll situation. As of right now, the White Sox have 13 players under controlled contract for 2009 at the tune of $99.125 million. With key guys like Bobby Jenks, John Danks, and Gavin Floyd either up for arbitration or still needing to settle on an '09 contract, that figure should balloon, I'm guessing to around last year's Opening Day payroll of $114 million before you even finish the 25-man roster.

I don't know how this will handcuff Williams and the Sox. Merkin wants you to believe that Josh Fields and Chris Getz can be starters on contending baseball teams, but I really don't see it, especially with Fields who is more of the same "all home run, little defense, not much else" that everyone was so damned pissed about in the first place. This also doesn't really address the fact that with Jose Contreras out until at least midyear, the Sox currently have no real plan in place for the 5th starter's spot, other than now to have Richard and Broadway duke it out and pray Contreras isn't terrible when he comes back.

Bottom line: Plenty of holes, not as much money.

Northwestern University's Medill Reports suggests that high ticket prices for the Sox, as well as Bears, Cubs, and Bulls are here to stay despite recent economic problems. The article mostly focuses on the Cubs (rightfully so, since their average ticket price is now 60% higher than the MLB average ticket price), there are some good graphs and interesting data if you're into the whole sports economics thing.

Greg Hansen, a columnits from Tucson, Arizona feels the Sox are trying to dupe the good residents of Tucson as they try to bolt town for greener pastures in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix. Apparently the fate of the White Sox Spring Training plans for 2009 is all the talk of Tucson, and Hansen even gets particularly feisty when he writes,

Here is the deal: Reinsdorf and the White Sox will pay $3million to leave town now. Do they really think we are the kind of suckers who would take that deal? Is the cost of blowing up spring training baseball in Tucson a mere $3 million?

Here's my take, as a lifelong Sox fan: I honestly don't care. I'd like to see the Sox get the best deal they can and bolt Tucson for Glendale... Having never been to Arizona, I can't comment as an expert as to what's going on out there, but as far as I can tell, Phoenix is the place to be. I can fly there and not have to drive almost 2 hours through the desert. Just about every other team that trains in Arizona plays somewhere in the Phoenix area. The Phoenix Metro area has over 3 million more people than Tucson, and believe me, that means much more to do non-baseball-related. And finally, have you seen the park the Dodgers and White Sox will share in Glendale? It's beautiful.

Finally, the Sox had a huge gain in television ratings this past season, despite the fact baseball's TV ratings on average suffered in the '08 season. The Sox's rating jumped 67% from 2007, of course boosted by their 17-win improvment over last year. The only team that had a bigger ratings jump, percentagewise, was the Rays, who nearly doubled their ratings in a single year. Paced by both the Sox's and Cubs' play-off runs, Comcast SportsNet was one of the strongest local baseball television stations in the country, and the White Sox finished the season as the 11th most watched team in baseball.