Ozzie Guillen, who owns a 19 percent success rate with sentences in his young Twitter career, became quite the statesman as the social media flap involving his son, Oney, wound down.
He hit all the right points:
- "You cannot Tweet or talk bad about this team while you're getting paid by this organization."
- "I told my kids: Every day you walk, you represent your mom, you represent myself. And every mistake you make, that gets back to us."
- "Everyone should be behind us and hopefully in November, we're celebrating with a trophy and have a nice book about how this season began."
AHEM.
Both Guillen and Kenny Williams said it hasn't affected their relationship, but a Ken Rosenthal article touched on some of my impressions about Williams' reactions to these types of distractions.
All of this struck me Saturday as I spoke with Williams at the team’straining facility in Glendale, Ariz. Williams, sitting in a golf cart,seemed worn out — not by Guillen, but by what he called “the peripheralchanges around the game that have made it difficult to navigate your waythrough your job.”
He seemed to be referring to social media —Twitter, Facebook, etc. — but he could have been talking about localmedia, national media, even MLB-operated media. The cycle of non-stopinformation, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.
For now, though, it looks like we won't have to worry about Sox employees talking trash in public for at least a couple days. So let's take a cue from Williams and Guillen and talk about the on-field product, since we're only a fortnight away from Opening Day, and I like using the word "fortnight."
BIG CONTRACTS
Sometimes, I get the feeling that Jake Peavy is trying a little too hard to be liked. He already has the the 110 percent intensity and self-reflexive profanity down pat -- now he's making his stance against the Cubs known as well.
This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because maybe he'll friend-dump Toby Keith if we all complain about it. But really, if he pitches like he has so far (8 IP, 5 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 9 K), he could lead "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" at Wrigley Field on a weekly basis and few would care.
Meanwhile, Alex Rios (.304/.346/.739) has everything working for him so far, with the exception of a sore quad, which he says is fine after Sunday's game. He's even making strides in the area of "Chicago toughness," which is a great indicator for something, I'm sure.
Ken Rosenthal talked to Rios, who reaffirmed Greg Walker's impact during the midwinter Miami workout.
ROTATING DH
Andruw Jones and Mark Kotsay have silenced the masses for the time being by being the Sox's two best hitters at Camelback Ranch. Kotsay went 2-for-3 on Sunday to raise his average to .433, while Jones is slugging a team-best .769.
BACK END OF THE BULLPEN
Thank goodness for Matt Thornton, who has allowed just one hit over four scoreless innings, striking out four. The rest of the late-inning workers are in flux. Bobby Jenks still has calf problems, but an MRI showed no structural damage and he says he'll be ready for Opening Day. It's hard to be too optimistic about J.J. "89.4 percent" Putz, who seems like he's still rounding into game shape.
Scott Linebrink? He's working on visualization. Oh boy.
FRONT END OF THE BULLPEN
It's not often -- at least in White Sox camp -- that the fight for the last bullpen spot is a good one. In previous years, we've been treated to a Boone Logan who was about to be overwhelmed, and Nick Masset and Mike MacDougal winning the job by default.
Of course, the Sox may have no choice to go with Sergio Santos, but nobody can quite complain about that, what with the 0.00 ERA and all. At the very least, he's shown flashes of dominance more often than bouts of wildness, even if Greg Aquino would have an edge with his 6 1/3 hitless innings, all things being equal.
But behind those two, a lot of guys are throwing the ball well. Dan Hudson has impressed Ozzie Guillen, and Carlos Torres is rounding into shape with two scoreless innings on Sunday, improving his overall line (10 IP, 13 H, 4 BB, 11 K).
LAST BENCH SPOT
Jayson Nix is still getting great results (.320/.393/.440) despite too many strikeouts (nine over 28 plate appearances). Brent Lillibridge is still getting poor results (.208/.296/.292) thanks in part to too many strikeouts (seven over 27). Shouldn't be a contest, although Nix committed error No. 4 on Sunday.
FIRST SPRINGS
Guillen is riding Nix and Lillibridge for the K rates, maybe in part because two first-timers are showing them up in the contact department.
Had C.J. Retherford played an inning above Double-A, he might be under more serious consideration for the utility job. He's been terrific thus far, hitting .318/.375/.545 and walking more often (twice) than he's struck out (once) over 24 PAs. Most of those are coming in the second half of games, but the competition he's facing isn't much different from Lillibridge's.
Brent Morel is still a couple years away, kinda slapping away early in the count at this point. Still, he's pantsing Lillibridge in the production department (.393 slugging, four strikeouts over 28 PAs).
An exception to Guillen's preferences: Jordan Danks. The manager has praised the younger Danks, even though he's all walks (nine), strikeouts (11) and singles (one extra-base hit) over his 43 plate appearances.
THE BIG QUESTION
Mark Teahen is taking his cuts in minor-league camp at the moment, but not because his spring training line is worthy of a trip to Winston-Salem.
As Walker describes the problem:
"Right now the effort level is too high right now," Walker said. "There's no fluidity to it. Everything is hard. He needs to slow the game down. It's too fast. It happens to everyone. All we're looking for is the guy who hits to all fields and hits line drives and in gaps and drives in runs. He's done it before."
Teahen is 3-for-25 with one walk, seven strikeouts and zero extra-base hits thus far, and it's a soft .120. Even Guillen says, "I didn't like his swing."
I wonder how much the new contract factors into it. If Teahen got off to the slow start in his first year of arbitration, there would be little cause for concern, because if he completely crapped the bed, the Sox would have the option of moving on. That three-year contract puts Teahen under the microscope in a major way, though, and the situation could get Linebrinkey in a hurry.
In other words, it's time to visualize.
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Sunday was a big day for the Minnesota Twins:
- Joe Nathan is done for the season -- and beyond -- after Tommy John surgery became inevitable.
- Joe Mauer will remain in Minnesota through 2018 after signing an eight-year, $184 million contract.
The second half of that contract is going to be fascinating. Mauer hasn't been the healthiest of guys so far, and catching doesn't exactly help guys stay in the lineup. Still, it's good for baseball that he's in Minnesota, even if it's bad news for the White Sox for several seasons.
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Site note: At some point this week, you may experience a site outage. It's planned, as I'm doing some spring cleaning and getting all my domain- and hosting-related ducks in a row before the season begins. I'll post updates on Twitter if necessary.
