White Sox 2004

I haven't written much about the Sox this year, despite it being one of the most exciting and enjoyable seasons I can remember in recent times. Even though our season has taken a sharp turn for the worse, I thought I should still record my thoughts on 2004. Notice, by the way, that I'm not one of those sports fans who only talks about his team when it's doing great.

I have to say, coming into the season, I really wasn't feeling all that upbeat as a White Sox fan. The team itself didn't change much since last year, in fact, after missing the 2003 playoffs, we actually lost a bunch of players to free agency. Among them, Bartolo Colon, Robbie Alomar, and Carl Everett. The one thing we did gain was firing Jerry Manuel and hiring Ozzie Guillen as the manager. As far as that went, I was definitely skeptical at the time of whether or not it was a good move - picking a guy who had a below average career as a player, and zero experience as a head manager, was not too promising.

Well, now that I have seen what Ozzie has done for the better part of a season, I no longer question his hiring. A real pleasant surprise, to say the least. It's really amazing how big of a difference one guy as a leader can make on a team and its fans.

Which is pretty much what we were lacking with Manuel, a real leader. Not to hate on him too much, because he did give us the one good year after the Terry Bevington disaster. But as a fan, you can totally feel a major change in attitude with this year's team, as compared to 2003. This has been most noticeable in the fact that we actually come back in games now. Yeah, you'd rather not fall behind teams to begin with, but it's so nice to know that when the Sox are trailing after the 6th or 7th inning, that they aren't going to just fold 100% of the time. It gives the fans that much more reason to follow the team, when the players actually show some heart and battle to the end of every game.

As far as baseball decisions go, I don't know if he has been all that great. I still don't know exactly what "Ozzie ball" means. We've been a lot more aggressive as far as baserunning goes, which can be exciting, but also stupid. I'm interested to know what the stats are, on whether or not the aggressiveness has helped or hurt the team in the wins column. I know I've seen more than a few rallies killed this year, because of runners picked off or caught stealing.

Also, if "Ozzie ball" is supposed to be like "small ball", then we definitely don't have the players to pull it off. Not enough guys in the lineup can lay down a bunt if needed, or just move runners over when they make outs. I've always thought that any major league player should at the very least be able to do those things. It's like being able to shoot free throws in basketball. Even if you don't have the God-given talent to hit monster home runs, anybody should be able to do the little stuff, if they just take it seriously enough and put effort into practicing it. I mean, little league players and National League pitchers can do it, there's no excuse for a position player at the top level to not have that ability.

Anyways, back to the positives of Ozzie Guillen. I think my favorite part about his hiring is listening to him speak English. Much more entertaining than Sammy Sosa. He's a funny guy to begin with, and then hearing it come out in that thick accent just makes it that much more hilarious. I don't know whether it's true that a Spanish-speaking manager connects to Latino-players better and gets more out of them, but listening to Ozzie talk this year has convinced me that every team should have a manager with an accent like his.

Other than the manager, I believe the next biggest improvement from last season has been Aaron Rowand. This guy has really developed into a respectable hitter, and a very above average center-fielder. Fast enough to steal some bases too. The one thing that bothers me is his batting stance, very ugly. When we went to the game on Saturday, Olivia observed that "he looks like he's trying to dookie", which is actually not that far off. I guess as long as he keeps hitting, though, I can live with dookie-man.

Uribe has also been a major positive, even with his streakiness. You can't argue with his overall production though, and he's still pretty young with some good tools to develop.

The biggest disappointment, in my mind, is Joe Crede. He might still turn it around, but I think it's now or never for this kid. The guy has been given plenty of opportunity to prove himself, but he hasn't done nearly enough to earn a spot in the lineup. Also disappointing has been Jon Garland, who just can't seem to figure it out. He'll pitch so well for 4 innings, and then blow up and give up 5 runs at once. Doesn't strike out anyone either. Perhaps not coincidentally, I drafted both guys in fantasy this year, which maybe made me expect more out of them. That's another story though. Anyways, however you look at it, those 2 players have been underachieving for too long and they need to either start producing, or go away.

As far as trades go, I'm not sold on Freddy Garcia yet, but I'd be happy to see him prove me wrong. Maybe you dump a prospect or two for him, but I don't know why you would trade away a guy like Olivo, your most consistent catcher this year who's been steadily improving and is only going to get better. Ben Davis has been a lot better than anyone expected though (except maybe Kenny Williams saw this coming?). I just don't know if we'll someday regret giving up too much in this trade.

The Contreras for Loaiza deal, on the other hand, I was all for. Loiaza was even more frustrating for me to watch this year than Garland, which is saying a lot. Everytime the offense got him a lead, he coughed it up in the bottom half. Contreras might not end up being much better, but we needed a change and I'm happy with this one. Even though he's inconsistent, I believe Contreras at his best is better than Loaiza at his best. Also, there's 2 more years on his contract, whereas Loaiza would've probably been gone after this year.

Then, there is the past 3 weeks when the team just completely collapsed. Make no mistake about it, I'm not happy at all about the Sox getting dominated by Minnesota, then Detroit, then KC, and now Cleveland. Losing your 2 best hitters is rough, but even without Frank Thomas and Magglio, we should be able to do better than this. A lot better than this.

Still, it doesn't take away from the rest of this season and the fact that the White Sox have been infinitely more exciting to watch than they were last year. I'm not giving up on the playoffs yet either. Yeah, it doesn't look good now, but I really don't think the Twins are as good as they've looked recently. And the Sox aren't as bad as they've looked, without Frank and Magglio. Either way, there's still a month or two left of season to play, and I haven't lost hope.

On a side note, it is absolutely amazing that the Braves are again leading their division. I don't know how they do it, year after year. Each of the last few years, they've been losing big chunks of their team in the offseason, but in the end, they still find a way to win somehow. Something special about that organization, either the coaches, trainers, owners, or all of the above are doing everything right. Meanwhile, the Phillies and Mets should be ashamed of themselves for being so pathetic, while spending so much money on the big names.