Please, 2014 White Sox, just don’t get any worse.
After the “dumpster fire” that was the 2013 season, to use general manager Rick Hahn’s term, all fans can really ask for is a watchable product on the field.
Compared to last season, that can’t be too hard.
Last year the White Sox lost 99 games, committed 121 errors (14th out of 15 American League teams), scored 598 runs (15th) and gave up 723 runs (10th).
Dumpster fire indeed, Mr. Hahn.
You know a team is bad when one of the top-five best pitchers in baseball, Chris Sale, finishes the year with an 11-14 record despite a 3.07 ERA and 226 strikeouts in 214.1 innings pitched.
But Monday’s season opener for the White Sox brought some hope, as it does nearly every year.
Sale is already 1-0 in 2014 and the team appears to be committed to becoming younger and more athletic. But that does not mean there will not be growing pains.
New Cuban first baseman Jose Abreu had hits in his first two at-bats for the White Sox in their opener on Monday.
But Abreu, a 27-year-old, will certainly have to make adjustments to major league pitching on the fly this year.
He will not be alone in that endeavor.
Fellow youngsters Avisail Garcia, Adam Eaton and Marcus Semien will see plenty of playing time in the early season.
That playing time will be beneficial to their development as major league players, yes, but it will also mean that by the middle of the season opposing scouts and pitchers will have a pretty good idea of the best way to get them out.
Their offensive adjustments throughout the season will be critical to the White Sox having anything resembling a contending team.
And then there are the players who were in Chicago for the dumpster fire last year.
Slugger Adam Dunn is in the final year of his contract, which looks to have been a mistake based on the numbers he has put up.
Outfielders Alejandro De Aza and Dayan Viciedo are still on the team, but they do not have the starting roles they secured last season. Instead, the two will share left field.
De Aza had a two-homer game on Monday, but his most glaring issue was not at the plate but throwing away outs once he reached base.
De Aza’s speed dictates that he should be a good base runner. Unfortunately for White Sox fans, he proved last year that he has the speed but not the awareness required for the task.
And just like bad free-throw shooters in basketball, some can practice and get better but some will always be bad. Here’s hoping De Aza and the White Sox can figure out a way to make him better.
Moving to the infield, here is some reason for optimism: shortstop Alexei Ramirez made 22 errors last season.
Sure, that sounds like reason for pessimism, but he is one of the players who simply has to revert to his career averages. He is too good of a fielder to commit that many errors again.
After committing 20 errors in each of his first two major league seasons, he cut that statistic down to 16 and 12 in the subsequent two seasons before the 22-error anomaly of 2013.
White Sox fans know what Ramirez is: a supremely talented shortstop with all kinds of range and a strong arm.
His combination of skills means that he will make some truly spectacular plays on balls he has no business even reaching. But it also means that he will make some tremendously bone-headed plays on balls hit right to him.
Catcher is a position that has been a problem for the White Sox since the departure of AJ Pierzynski, and that problem does not appear to be going away any time soon.
The best thing the White Sox have going for them is the pitching. With Sale locked up long-term and lefty Jose Quintana signing a new deal last week, the front end of the rotation is solid.
The relief pitching is probably going to be good based on the fact that just about all of the pensmen can throw in the upper-90s. The only question is if they will throw strikes. It’s a relatively safe bet to assume solid pitching.
If the young position players can make the adjustments they need to and the established players can demonstrate that their 2013 seasons were just outlier years in the bad sense, a .500 record could be realistic.
But if they cannot achieve that…
Please, 2014 White Sox, just don’t get any worse.
Tim Carroll
Senior Sport Editor
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