White Sox announce 2024 coaching staff; Pedro Grifol sadly still manager

There was a brief moment on Monday where White Sox fans could dream of having a competent field manager.

The New York Mets hired Carlos Mendoza to be their manager. The Cleveland Guardians hired Stephen Vogt. And Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic tweeted that Craig Counsell would manage *some team* in 2024, and while it would not be the Mets or Guardians, it would be a team with an existing manager.

Oh.

For about 15 minutes, Twitter lit up with Sox fans hoping that Pedro Grifol would be launched, and that Counsell would come to the South Side.

During that time, I tweeted the following:

Replacing Grifol with Counsell would be the sort of move that would make me reconsider buying a ticket plan. But I don’t see it happening. My first thought here was, “Bye bye, Grampa Rossy.” Either the Cubs or Yankees will do this.

Sure enough, moments later we learned the Cubs had launched David Ross and made Counsell the highest-paid manager in baseball -- five years, $40 million. 

I'm not sure any manager is worth that kind of money, but it's still a good move and a clear upgrade for the Cubs. After three straight years of either being out of the race or a faux contender at best, I expect the contention window to reopen on the North Side in 2024. 

Meanwhile, the Sox will continue their perpetual rebuilding with the following coaching staff:

• Manager: Grifol
• Bench: Charlie Montoyo
  
• Pitching: Ethan Katz
  
• Assistant pitching: Matt Wise
• Hitting: Marcus Thames
• Assistant hitting: Mike Tosar
• First base coach: Jason Bourgeois
• Third base coach: Eddie Rodríguez
• Catching: Drew Butera
• Major League coach: Grady Sizemore

If you've got any idea what a "Major League coach" does, please tell me. The most interesting name on the list, to me, is Thames, who becomes the third hitting coach the Sox have had in three seasons.

Fans have pointed out that Thames was the hitting coach for a failed Los Angeles Angels team in 2023, and while that's true, he had some success as the hitting coach for the New York Yankees from 2017 to 2021.

Assuming Eloy Jimenez and Andrew Vaughn are still on the roster for 2024, can Thames get them to start hitting the ball in the air again? Will we ever see an uptick in power and plate discipline with the Sox? Those are some of my key questions.

White Sox decline 2024 contract option on Tim Anderson

Tim Anderson

As recently as a year ago, some might have said Tim Anderson was the face of the Chicago White Sox. Now, he's off the team.

The Sox on Saturday announced that they declined the $14 million club option on Anderson for the 2024 season. Instead, they bought him out for $1 million. He is a free agent.

Anderson played for the Sox for eight seasons, and in many ways, his South Side tenure was a victory. Quite a few of the franchise's first-round draft picks have amounted to little, but Anderson was far from a bust. 

He had three excellent seasons between 2019 and 2021, batting over .300 in every one of those years. He won the American League batting title in 2019 with a .335 average. 

In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he won an AL Silver Slugger award after posting a .322/.357/.529 slash line. Following that season, he finished seventh in the AL MVP voting.

His game-winning homer in the 2021 Field of Dreams Game is one of the franchise's signature moments.

Anderson twice made the All-Star team -- 2021 and 2022 -- and he started at shortstop for the AL in the 2022 midsummer classic. He also represented Team USA in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

However, professional sports is "What have you done for me lately?" Anderson slumped badly the second half of the 2022 season and had the worst year of his career in 2023.

He batted a terrible .245/.286/.296 in 2023, and unfortunately, it doesn't seem as though this is a one-year anomaly. Dating back to June 2022, Anderson is batting .246/.286/.295. At some point, it's no longer a slump, and that's who you are now.

In 524 plate appearances in 2023, Anderson hit only one home run. Injuries have mounted, as he hasn't played more than 123 games in any of the past five seasons. And his defense? Oh boy. His SABR defensive index for 2023 was negative-7.3. I don't always know how they calculate that stuff, but that figure is bad, and the eye test tells us that Anderson's glove is in severe decline.

You add all this up, and the end result is the Sox parting ways with a player who will turn 31 next season.

I know what some are saying: How could the Sox lose Anderson for nothing? Well, I don't think there's a huge market for a shortstop who is no longer playing well in any aspect of the game.

On Friday, as expected, the Sox announced they were declining their 2024 team option on Liam Hendriks. They also announced that pitcher Mike Clevinger is opting out of his 2024 contract and electing free agency.

It was notable that announcements were made about those two players at the same time, while nothing was said about Anderson.

On Friday, I thought to myself that one of two things must be true: 1) The Sox were planning to retain Anderson, or 2) The Sox were trying to trade Anderson.

Thought No. 2 was correct.

If you've been following the transaction wire, you might have noticed the Milwaukee Brewers traded outfielder Mark Canha to the Detroit Tigers for a prospect. The Brewers decided they did not want to pick up Canha's $11.5 million option for 2024, so they moved him to the Tigers, who were willing to pick up the option.

I believe the Sox spent Friday trying to work out a similar deal for Anderson, but they found no team willing to take him at a price of $14 million. So, they chose to cut ties.

Honestly, that's the right thing for general manager Chris Getz to do if he wants someone other than Anderson to be his shortstop in 2024. The whole idea of picking up Anderson's option and then trying to trade him is an accident waiting to happen.

It takes a willing trade partner to swing a deal, and there's a strong chance that there is no such partner, especially given the contract involved. Then you run the risk of going into next season with an unhappy player who knows he isn't wanted. That's the worst-case scenario.

There's always a chance that Anderson will re-sign in Chicago for less money later in the offseason, but the guess here is this is a permanent goodbye. I expect someone else at shortstop for the Sox when the 2024 season begins.

Rangers beat Diamondbacks in 5-game World Series

Our congratulations go out to the Texas Rangers, who are the 2023 World Series champions after beating the Arizona Diamondbacks, 5-0, in Game 5 on Wednesday night.

The Rangers took the series, 4 games to 1, and this is the first time in team history that they have won the World Series.

Sure, the ratings sucked, but so what? I don't work for Fox, and I'm happy to see a different team win for a change.

The Rangers won it with their stars. Shortstop Corey Seager was named World Series MVP after homering three times in the five-game series. He had 16 total bases and a 1.137 OPS during that span.

Marcus Semien had five RBIs in two swings in Game 4. He had a two-run-triple and a three-run homer in the first three innings as the Rangers raced out to a 10-0 lead in an eventual 11-7 win. Semien put the clinching Game 5 out of reach with a two-run homer that took the score from 3-0 to 5-0.

American League Championship Series MVP Adolis Garcia strained his oblique in Game 3 and did not play again. But he won the Rangers the first game of the series, 6-5, with a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 11th inning. That blast came after Seager hit a two-run homer to tie the game in the ninth.

The Rangers also had some unsung heroes. How about relief pitcher Josh Sborz? During the regular season, Sborz was mediocre at best -- he went 6-7 with a 5.50 ERA in 44 appearances. But in the playoffs, Sborz tossed 12 innings across 10 appearances. He allowed only one run. He capped it off with a seven-out save in Game 5, striking out Ketel Marte looking for the final out of the season.

For Seager, it was his second World Series MVP. He also won it with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2020. He becomes only the fourth player in baseball history to win multiple World Series MVP awards. The others are Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson. All three of those players are in the Hall of Fame.

Texas manager Bruce Bochy captured his fourth World Series championship. He won three of them with the San Francisco Giants -- 2010, 2012 and 2014. Bochy's clubs are now 17-4 in games where they have an opportunity to clinch. He's 6-0 lifetime as a manager in Game 7s, including the Rangers' win over the Houston Astros in the ALCS this season.

The Rangers finished the postseason an astonishing 11-0 on the road. They were only 2-4 at home in the playoffs. They'll be remembered as a team that capitalized on "road team advantage." The previous record for road victories in a single playoff run was eight. I'm thinking the new record of 11 will stand for a while.

2023 World Series schedule: Rangers vs. Diamondbacks

Here is the 2023 World Series schedule, featuring the American League champion Texas Rangers and the National League champion Arizona Diamondbacks. 

All games are on FOX. All games start at 7:03 p.m. Central:

• Friday, Oct. 27: Diamondbacks at Rangers
• Saturday, Oct. 28: Diamondbacks at Rangers
• Monday, Oct. 30: Rangers at Diamondbacks
• Tuesday, Oct. 31: Rangers at Diamondbacks
• Wednesday, Nov. 1: Rangers at Diamondbacks (if necessary)
• Friday, Nov. 3: Diamondbacks at Rangers (if necessary)
• Saturday, Nov. 4: Diamondbacks at Rangers (if necessary)

Wow, a potential Game 7 on Nov. 4. Good thing they aren't playing in a northern city, huh?

Diamondbacks prove that nobody knows anything with Game 7 win

So, the Arizona Diamondbacks are in the World Series after their 4-2 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday in Game 7 of the National League Championship Series.

I'll admit it: I didn't think there was anyway in hell that Arizona was going to win two games in a row at Philadelphia to close that series, but that's exactly what happened. 

This once again proves that the only thing I know about baseball is that I know nothing about baseball.

But, good for the Diamondbacks. They are an improbable underdog story. They won only 84 games in the regular season, and they were the sixth and final team to qualify for the NL playoffs.

Arizona had a minus-15 run differential during the regular season, which pencils out to an 80-82 Pythagorean record. The Diamondbacks become the first team to qualify for the World Series with a losing Pythagorean record since the 1987 world champion Minnesota Twins.

This has created quite a debate among baseball people. Is an 84-win league champion proof that too many teams get in the playoffs? Has the postseason become too watered down? Has the value of a good regular season been disregarded?

Honestly, these debates are as old as time. I've heard them in some form for my entire 47 years on the planet. The nature of baseball inevitably leads to upsets in a short playoff series. There's a tremendous amount of variance in small sample sizes.

The Diamondbacks are hardly the first team to advance this far in the playoffs with a rather pedestrian record. Remember the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals? Yeah, they were 83-78, the champions of a weak NL Central. They also won the World Series.

But let's go back a generation or two farther, to an era when only four teams were allowed in the playoffs. 

Remember the 1973 New York Mets? They were 82-79, the champions of a weak NL East. They beat the Cincinnatii Reds -- the Big Red Machine of the 1970s -- in a five-game NLCS. Then they took the Oakland A's to seven games in the World Series before losing. 

Mind you, that was a dynastic Oakland team. The A's won the World Series three years in a row from 1972-1974, but they needed a seventh game to swat away an 82-win team to take the title.

Were the playoffs watered down in 1973 too? You see, there's no perfect system. I see both positives and negatives in the Diamondbacks' story.

The Good: This shows that a smaller-market team has a chance. Why should fans in New York and Los Angeles have all the fun? Even teams that don't get a lot of media attention have an opportunity if they get into the playoffs and peak at the right time.

The Bad: This disincentives teams to strive for greatness. If you have a 92-win team, why bother adding to it to try to become a 100-win team? We've seen this year that regular-season success is just that. It guarantees nothing in the playoffs.

Like I said, no perfect system. But this excitement and intrigue is what we watch baseball for, right? Let's just enjoy the World Series. Neither the Diamondbacks nor the Texas Rangers have been on baseball's biggest stage in a while. Good for them. I'm looking forward to watching.

Rangers slay Astros; Diamondbacks for Game 7

So, is it time to start talking about road-field advantage?

The Texas Rangers lost all three of their home games in the American League Championship Series, but they went 4-0 on the road. They knocked out the Houston Astros and advanced to the 2023 World Series with a 11-4 victory Monday night.

I have to admit, I wasn't feeling too good about Texas' chances after they lost Game 5 in dramatic fashion. Jose Altuve's 3-run homer in the ninth inning of that game lifted the Astros to a 5-4 win  -- and a 3-2 series lead.

But the Rangers answered big time as the series shifted back to Houston. They used a five-run ninth inning to blow open a tight game in Game 6, tying the series with a 9-2 victory. Adolis Garcia was 0 for 4 with four strikeouts until that ninth inning, when he delivered a grand slam that put the game out of reach.

Garcia continued his heroics in Game 7, going 4 for 5 with two homers and five RBIs. So, in his last six plate appearances of the series, he had five hits -- including three homers -- and nine RBIs. That's clutch.

Corey Seager and Nathaniel Lowe also homered for the Rangers in the deciding game. Texas scored three runs in the first inning, added one in the third and four in the fourth. The Rangers had an 8-2 lead by that point and never relinquished control.

Diamondbacks force NLCS Game 7

After the Philadelphia Phillies won Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, 10-0, I thought the Arizona Diamondbacks were dead.

I was wrong.

Arizona has since taken three of four games. The Diamondbacks tied the series at 3-all with a 5-1 victory in Philadelphia on Monday.

Phillies starter Aaron Nola had been 3-0 with a 0.96 ERA in these playoffs, but the Diamondbacks got to him for three runs in the second inning, highlighted by back-to-back home runs by Tommy Pham and Lourdes Gurriel Jr.

Arizona's Merrill Kelly tossed five innings of one-run ball, and four Diamondback relievers limited Philadelphia's offense to three singles over the last four innings. For a change, the Phillies did not homer, and that's the key to beating them -- keep them in the ballpark.

Game 7 is Tuesday night. Brandon Pfaadt is pitching for the Diamondbacks. The Phillies will counter with Ranger Suarez.

Philadelphia Phillies looking tough in NLCS

Anyone else feeling as though the Arizona Diamondbacks have run into a buzzsaw in the National League Championship Series?

The Diamondbacks have two quality starting pitchers in Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, and they had them lined up to pitch the first two games in Philadelphia against the Phillies.

The Phillies did not seem impressed. In Monday night's Game 1, Philadelphia hit three home runs in the first two innings off Gallen. Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper and Nick Castellanos all went deep, and Gallen walked off the mound after five innings with his team trailing, 5-0.

The Diamondbacks, as they have done throughout the season, fought back with two runs in the sixth and one in the seventh, but the Phillies walked away with a 5-3 win.

Game 2 on Tuesday? It was no contest. 

Kelly didn't pitch poorly. He gave up only three hits over 5.2 innings, but the hits were all homers. Schwarber went deep twice, and Trea Turner homered in the first inning. And once Kelly left the game, Philadelphia absolutely pounded the Arizona bullpen and went on to an easy 10-0 victory.

The Phillies have two pretty good starters as well. Zack Wheeler pitched six innings of two-run ball to get the win in Game 1. Aaron Nola tossed six shutout innings to win Game 2.

I was thinking all along that the winner of the Division Series between Philadelphia and the Atlanta Braves would end up as the NL champion. The Phillies won that series, and now they head to Arizona up 2-0 in the NLCS.

The only saving grace for the Diamondbacks is they get to play at home now. However, they've already lost with their two best pitchers on the mound. They face a tough climb against a Philadelphia team that looks awesome right now.