Ah, January, in which temperatures hit -20 in Chicago and the paper of record reminds us all of our favorite team’s epic fall from grace:
Only two seasons after they won the World Series for the first time since 1917, the White Sox incurred the largest dropoff in victories in the major leagues last season.
Thanks, Murray. The laughable front-office/PR/GM stock response quotes are too numerous to individually highlight, and it’s shocking that the Times of all places would have a piece that so closely resembles the “news” from whitesox.com, but this has to be the best:
“If we can get guys at their career numbers and with the addition of Swisher, Cabrera and Quentin, we feel good about our offense, and we feel our bullpen will rebound,” Williams said. “We feel we’ll have as good a chance as anyone in our division. We don’t think there’s a clear-cut winner.”
Of course there’s no clear-cut winner, but that’s like watching your house burn and saying “Thank God we didn’t get hit by a tornado.” The more damning reality of the situation is that there are are at least three teams in a better position, but apparently Nick Swisher, Carlos Quentin and their respective .251 and .230 career batting averages are going to more than make up the difference. You say “po-tay-toe,” I say “fourth place.”