3 things I don't want in a White Sox manager

Me with Ozzie Guillen in 2019

Who will be the next manager of the White Sox? Rumors were flying this weekend, and as you might expect, the situation is clear as mud.

There are reports out there that the Sox are poised to name Houston Astros bench coach Joe Espada their next manager. It's also been reported that Espada is a candidate to manage the Miami Marlins.

Then, of course, there's the gossip about Ozzie Guillen allegedly getting an interview. Depending on who you ask, Guillen has either a) already been interviewed, b) will be interviewed this week, or c) would be a candidate for the job only over Ken Williams' dead body.

I've been amazed by how many Sox fans want Guillen to return to the manager's office. That 2005 nostalgia runs deep for every South Side baseball fan, but we can't allow that to get in the way of our better judgment. The World Series title was 17 years ago. Guillen has been out of baseball since 2012, and let's not forget how his previous tenure with the Sox ended in 2011.

I'd rather not rehash the 2011 season, in fact, so I won't unless Guillen somehow gets the job.

I'll be honest and say none of the managerial candidates I've heard tied to the Sox thrill me. I'm more in the "Rick Hahn screwed this up" camp than the "Tony La Russa screwed this up" camp. Don't get me wrong: I'm glad La Russa is no longer the Sox manager, but I don't think any manager could have covered all the flaws in Hahn's roster construction.

So, I'm not sure what I'm looking for in a Sox manager. I just know these are the three things I do not want:

1. someone promoted from within (sorry, Miguel Cairo)
2. a recycling of an old guy who wore out his welcome somewhere else (sorry, Joe Maddon)
3. someone who is a friend of Jerry Reinsdorf (sorry, Ozzie)

There are lot of things getting in the way of Espada taking the job. First of all, he might want to manage in Miami. Second of all, if the Astros win the World Series, Dusty Baker could retire. That could put Espada in line for a promotion with his current club. Third, Espada used to work in the New York Yankees organization, and he could be a managerial candidate there if the Yankees decide to move on from Aaron Boone.

It's also possible that Espada is Hahn's guy, but Reinsdorf is going to intervene in the process and name Guillen manager.

Hey, that's happened before, right? In the past managerial search, Hahn wanted to hire A.J. Hinch. Then Reinsdorf intervened and appointed La Russa. 

It's the White Sox, so expect something weird to happen, until they prove otherwise.

White Sox sign relief pitcher Steve Cishek to one-year deal

Steve Cishek

The White Sox on Tuesday moved to increase their bullpen depth by signing veteran relief pitcher Steve Cishek to a one-year, $6 million contract.

Cishek, 33, will earn $5.25 million in 2020. The deal includes an option for 2021 worth $6.75 million, with a $750,000 buyout -- thus the $6 million guaranteed.

The right-hander spent the past two seasons with the Cubs. He appeared in 70 games in 2019, going 4-6 with a 2.95 ERA and seven saves. He struck out 57 and walked 29 with a 1.203 WHIP over 64 innings pitched.

Let's discuss the pluses and minuses of this signing in 3-up, 3-down format.

3 up

1. An ERA below 3.00 for four consecutive seasons. That 2.95 ERA in 2019 represents the *worst* season Cishek has had in recent memory. Over the past four years, his ERAs have been 2.81, 2.01, 2.18 and 2.95, respectively. Even if he regresses, he has a higher floor that some of the other candidates for the Sox bullpen, such as Carson Fulmer and Jose Ruiz.

2. Experience. Cishek is a veteran of 10 MLB seasons, and he's appeared in 572 games. His career ERA is 2.69, and while he likely won't be asked to close for the Sox, he has 132 saves lifetime. This is somebody who has been in his share of high-leverage situations. There's no reason he can't be placed in a seventh- or eighth-inning role.

3. Rubber arm. Cishek appeared in 150 games over the past two seasons, including a ridiculous 80 appearances in 2018. He's pitched in 60 or more games six times during his career. That reliability has to be respected.

3 down

1. A declining strikeout rate. Cishek struck out 10.0 batters per nine innings with the Cubs in 2018, but that declined to 8.0 batters per nine innings last season. His career mark is 9.5 strikeouts per nine innings, so he performed below his norms in 2019. There may be a little less swing-and-miss in his game going forward.

2. Overuse. I don't care who you are, 150 appearances is a ton over two years. In a way, it's a testament to Cishek that his former manager, Joe Maddon, trusted him that often. But sooner or later, that kind of usage has to take its toll. Perhaps that concern is among the reasons Cishek is only getting one year guaranteed on the open market.

3. An increasing home run rate. Cishek gave up 1.0 home runs per nine innings in 2019, which was the second-highest rate of his career. His career mark is 0.6 home runs per nine innings, which is the exact figure he was at during the 2018 season. Of course, to be fair, the ball was juiced last summer, so a lot of pitchers around the league saw an increase in their home run rate.

With the addition of Cishek, I think we can take a good guess at seven of the eight spots in the Sox bullpen. Here's how it most likely looks today:

Left-handers: Aaron Bummer, Jace Fry
Right-handers: Alex Colome, Kelvin Herrera, Cishek, Evan Marshall, Jimmy Cordero, ??????

Here are some candidates to fill in those question marks: Fulmer, Ruiz, Dylan Covey, Zack Burdi, Matt Foster and Ian Hamilton.

Cubs don't look as if they are going to choke

Kyle Schwarber

One of the main questions I had about the Cubs coming into the playoffs was whether they'd be able to deal with adversity.

Most of their fans would probably never admit to this, but the Cubs faced no adversity whatsoever all season. They played a soft schedule -- 106 of their 162 games were against losing teams -- and dominated a weak NL Central. St. Louis had a down season by its standards. Pittsburgh's pitching staff fell apart. Milwaukee and Cincinnati weren't even trying to win.

The Cubs won their division by 17.5 games, and it was every bit the cakewalk that figure represents. So, I wondered how the Cubs would respond when they were placed in a situation where they had to win a game, because there wasn't a single time during the whole regular season when they were seriously challenged.

So far in these playoffs, the Cubs have been seriously challenged twice. Give them credit, because they've responded both times. Once, on the road in Game 4 of the NLCS, where they were trailing 2 games to 1 against the Los Angeles Dodgers after having been shut out in Games 2 and 3. They trounced the Dodgers, 10-2, in that game and went on to win the next two to claim the NL pennant.

The other challenge was Wednesday night. After the Cubs were clobbered, 6-0, in Game 1 of the World Series by the Cleveland Indians, how would they respond in Game 2? Quite well, as a matter of fact, as they collected a decisive 5-1 victory to even the series.

Previous Cubs teams have always choked when they get in these tight situations where they need to win in the playoffs, but this group shows no sign of that. They got a good performance from Jake Arrieta, who is basically a five- or six-inning pitcher these days, but he gave the Cubs an effective 5.2 innings Wednesday. He didn't allow a hit until the sixth inning, when the Indians scored a run off him and manager Joe Maddon went to the bullpen.

Arrieta doesn't have the same command of the strike zone he had during his 2015 Cy Young campaign. His walk rate has nearly doubled. His ERA and home run rates are up, his strikeout rate is down. He needs more pitches to get through innings, and he can't get as deep into games as he might like, but he doesn't give up a lot of hits -- only 6.3 per 9 IP this season -- and that's been his saving grace.

Wednesday night, Mike Montgomery and Aroldis Chapman provided 3.1 innings of scoreless relief, and that made a winner out of Arrieta, whose performance was far superior to that of Cleveland's Trevor Bauer.

Bauer needed 87 pitches to record only 11 outs. The Cubs scored two runs on six hits against him in 3.2 innings. The North Siders then added on with three in the fifth off Cleveland relievers Zach McAllister and Bryan Shaw, although the run charged to Shaw was unearned.

Kyle Schwarber, just back from a major knee injury, is becoming the story of the series for the Cubs. He went 2 for 4 with a pair of RBI singles in Wednesday's win. He became the first non-pitcher in the history of baseball to record a hit in the World Series after not getting a hit in the regular season. He has shown that he is healthy enough to be an effective DH in an American League park. That can only help the Cubs, if the series heads back to Cleveland for Games 6 and 7.

Big question for Maddon for Games 3, 4 and 5 at Wrigley Field: Can he put Schwarber in left field?

There's no getting around the fact that Schwarber was a butcher in the outfield even before he got hurt. Putting him out there would significantly weaken the Cubs defensively, but there's also no getting around the fact that he's a difference maker with a bat in his hands.

Schwarber is the kind of player who can hit a three-run homer off a good pitcher and win a ballgame for his team. He's also the kind of player who can misplay a routine fly ball, cost his team runs and lose a ballgame. 

Will Maddon choose to use his best offensive lineup? Or will he opt to put the best defense on the field?

Personally, I subscribe to the philosophy of putting the best defense out there. Of course, I'm not the one being paid millions to make these decisions, so what do I know?

White Sox settle for split in crosstown series

Tyler Saladino

In a season full of missed opportunities, the White Sox blew another one Thursday night. The South Siders were forced to settle for a four-game split in the crosstown series after a 3-1 loss to the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

We talked earlier in the week about the Sox stealing a couple games from the Cubs in which the pitching matchups didn't seem to favor them. Well, in this game, the Sox did have the advantage in the pitching matchup, and their weak offense failed to take advantage.

For his part, Sox ace Chris Sale wasn't particularly sharp in his return from a five-game suspension. The left-hander was making just his second start since July 8, and the rust showed. He did not have his good fastball command -- especially early -- and his velocity was not at peak levels. Sale did not record any strikeouts through the first three innings of the game. That's the first time that has happened in any of his 136 career starts.

That said, he went six innings and allowed only two runs on six hits. The Cubs have a power-laden lineup, and they are especially tough at home (32-16 record), but Sale kept them in the yard and generally held them down. It was not a poor performance given that his stuff was less than his best.

The loss is disappointing because the Sox hitters allowed struggling Cubs right-hander John Lackey to get back on track. Coming into Thursday, Lackey was 0-5 with a 5.06 ERA over his past seven starts. But against the Sox, he allowed only a run on four hits over six innings.

We're not tipping our caps here. This was an example of poor offense. Lackey retired 10 Sox hitters in a row at one point, and that string was broken on a single up the middle by Sale, of all people.

The Sox blew a golden chance to tie with the score at 2-1 in the top of the eighth. Tyler Saladino doubled off  Hector Rondon leading off the inning, but the Sox couldn't get him home. Apparently, the Cubs were serious about holding this lead. Saladino was at third with two outs when Cubs manager Joe Maddon summoned newly acquired closer Aroldis Chapman for a four-out save opportunity.

The hard-throwing lefty struck out Melky Cabrera to protect the lead, then retired the side in order in the ninth after the Cubs added an insurance run in the eighth off Sox reliever Nate Jones.

With the loss, the Sox are now 1-7 on the road since the All-Star break. That's ominous, given that these two games at Wrigley Field start a stretch of 17 out of 20 games away from U.S. Cellular Field.

The Sox drop to 50-52 entering Friday's play, and they are 8.5 games back of the Cleveland Indians in the AL Central -- six games back in the AL wild-card race.

The players say they do not want management to pull the plug and sell before Monday's trading deadline, but they are not making a compelling case for themselves when they fail to support their best pitcher in a game such as Thursday's.

Time is running out on the 2016 Sox.

Mets complete NLCS sweep of Cubs

Daniel Murphy is the first player in baseball history with at least four total bases in six consecutive postseason games. That's probably because he's first player to hit a home run in six consecutive playoff games. The New York second baseman took Cubs reliever Fernando Rodney deep in the top of the eighth inning Wednesday night to set that record, as the Mets beat the Cubs, 8-3, to complete a four-game sweep of the National League Championship Series.

New York will face the Kansas City-Toronto winner in the World Series.

It's getting late, so I'll just offer a few bullet points from this game:

• Why on earth did Cubs manager Joe Maddon start Jason Hammel in a do-or-die game? Granted, Jon Lester on short rest is no sure bet, but nobody should be surprised that Hammel got pummeled. He gave up five runs, all earned, in just 1.1 innings. The Cubs were behind 4-0 just six batters into the game, and the crowd at Wrigley Field was full of long, ashen faces. That was a nightmarish start for the Cubs, and a dream come true for anyone cheering for the Mets. Maddon is considered a genius by many in the Chicago media, but starting Hammel is this game was a terrible move, an indefensible decision.
• Power pitching will always beat power hitting. The Cubs have a lineup full of dangerous hitters, but they can't score if they don't hit home runs. The Mets outhomered the Cubs, 3-1, on Wednesday and 7-4 in the series. The Mets have four quality pitchers in Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard, and Steven Matz. Those power arms in the New York rotation gave up a grand total of six runs to Cubs hitters in four games. For the most part, they kept the Cubs in the park and off the scoreboard. As a team, the Cubs hit just .164 in the four-game series.
• Enough with the silly Cubs narratives, man. A lot of people ask me why so many White Sox fans (such as myself) refuse to cheer for the Cubs. Well, there are a couple reasons, but most of all, I'm weary of the storylines that seem to follow the Cubs. I'm tired of hearing about omens and curses and black cats and "Maddon magic" and various other hocus-pocus. Movie scripts that were written decades ago should not be taken as prophecy. The Red Sox rallying from 3-0 down in the 2004 ALCS has nothing to do with the 2015 NLCS. Nothing. There are no dead people looking down from heaven to make a ball disappear in the ivy. None of these extraneous factors have any impact on the outcome of ballgames.

Remember, the Cubs did not lose to the Mets because they are cursed. They lost because New York is a better team than they are. In fact, the Cubs are not cursed at all. They haven't won the World Series in 107 years because they've never fielded a good enough team to get the job done. 

MLBPA threatens litigation over Kris Bryant demotion

So, the Cubs assigned third baseman Kris Bryant to their minor league camp on Monday.

You can't say the 23-year-old prospect didn't make a strong case to be included on the Cubs' 25-man roster to start the season. He hit .425 with nine home runs in 40 at-bats this spring.

We've talked about the service time rules before on this blog, but just to review, if Bryant spends 12 or more days in the minor leagues this season, the Cubs would delay him from becoming eligible for free agency by one year, until after the 2021 season, according to baseball's collective bargaining agreement. If the team keeps him on the roster for all of this season, he would be eligible for free agency one year sooner, after the 2020 season.

The Major League Baseball Players Association, as expected, was not happy with the Cubs' decision.

'"Today is a bad day for baseball,'' the union said in a statement. ''I think we all know that even if Kris Bryant were a combination of the greatest players to play our game, and perhaps he will be before it's all said and done, the Cubs still would have made the decision they made today. This decision, and other similar decisions made by clubs will be addressed in litigation, bargaining or both.''

Whoa, timeout here. Litigation? Seriously?

This is the part where I think the union is out of line. The rules for service time were collectively bargained, and the union signed off on them. The union can sue the Cubs or MLB if it wishes, but I don't think it will take long for that lawsuit to be thrown out of court.

If the union is unhappy with the service time rules, maybe it should bring that up in the next CBA negotiations. But with the rules that are in place right now, the Cubs are clearly within their rights to send Bryant down to the minor leagues. The question here isn't whether the Cubs can do this. They can. The question is whether they should.

From a purely business perspective, it's the right move. The Cubs can bring Bryant to the majors 12 days into the season and not cost themselves that year of control in 2021. Barring weather issues, the Cubs will play just nine games in those first 12 days of the 2015 season. If you're the club, would you rather have Bryant for the first nine games of 2015? Or would you rather have him for 162 games in 2021?

That's a no-brainer. Anyone would take the 162 games in 2021. But that's just from the business perspective. I don't think you can just ignore the baseball side of things and just make a pure business decision.

On the baseball side, the Cubs are running the risk of alienating their own players by sending Bryant down. In any workplace, employees don't like it when decisions are based upon something other than merit. It's no different with a baseball team. This move by the Cubs no doubt pisses off Bryant and his agent, but it probably pisses off some other players, too.

Think about it. If you're a prospect in the Cubs organization and Bryant is one of your peers, what are you thinking today? I'd be thinking, "Damn, that dude did everything right. He earned his shot, and they still didn't give it to him. Is that going to happen to me? How is the organization going to treat me when my time comes?"

Or, what if you're a veteran player on the Cubs? Say you're Anthony Rizzo or Jon Lester or Miguel Montero, and you're listening to Joe Maddon talk about how the team has "very high expectations" and "expects to win."

OK, that's good, it's Major League Baseball, and your manager should say he expects to win. But then you look over at third base and you see Mike Olt standing there instead of Bryant. If I'm a veteran Cubs player, I'm looking at Olt and saying, "If we expect to win, then what the hell is that guy still doing here?"

The idea that the Cubs are better positioned to win with Olt at third base instead of Bryant is complete fiction. It's not even an argument. Everyone knows it. The Cubs players aren't stupid. They know it, too. I'd be frustrated if I was in their spikes. A team that has "very high expectations" doesn't put Olt in its everyday lineup to start the year when there's a better option available.

That's the risk the Cubs are running here. Is sending Bryant down a sound business decision? Yes, no question, but it sure is a maddening one when looked at from a pure baseball perspective.

Joe Maddon talks about practice, not a game, practice

When I was at The Beacon-News, I never missed an opportunity to post Allen Iverson's infamous practice rant on my blog.

Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon was spoofing on that rant at one of his recent press conferences, so I figure it would be fitting to link to it here.

I was initially going to post the video itself, but I think it's copyrighted by MLB, which could get me busted.

In any case, it's too bad Maddon didn't ask, "How the hell can I make my teammates better by practicing?" That's the best part of the whole Iverson rant.