The White Sox's momentum with their proposal for a new ballpark in the South Loop has been in a holding pattern since the end of February, when the White Sox and Bears were reportedly told to work on one financial request for new stadiums than compete against each other.
The only updates since have reflected a lack of movement. On Illinois Chamber Day on Wednesday, Springfield reporter and friend of the Sox Machine Podcast Brenden Moore relayed a transcript from Illinois Senate President Don Harmon saying, "I made it clear to them then and I've tried to make it clear in the media since that there's next to no appetite to fund a new stadium with taxpayer dollars."
On Friday, the Chicago Sun-Times was able to publish a lengthy investigation into the Iraqi-British billionaire who actually owns the 62 acres managed by Related Midwest, which includes more Saddam Hussein than you'd think. It also provides a handy history of why the land has failed to be developed. It also provides an updated price tag for Reinsdorf's requests. While $1 billion was already a big, scary round number, it's actually a lot closer to $2 billion.
Reinsdorf has discussed his stadium plans with Johnson and top state lawmakers, hoping the team’s landlord, the Illinois Sports Facilities Authority, will agree to pay for $1 billion of the project. He also wants the city to approve $900 million for infrastructure.
PERTINENT: Rendering judgments on a new White Sox ballpark in Chicago's The 78
Spare Parts
The criminal complaint filed against Shohei Ohtani's translator helps explain how Ippei Mizuhara could have kept all of the financial transactions private, and why his side was allowed to present two different stories as the investigation became public. What it doesn't explain is how Ohtani's agency didn't have any sort of contingency plan for if Ohtani's translator became an unreliable employee.
The White Sox's 2-10 start, combined with the injuries to Yoán Moncada, Luis Robert Jr. and Eloy Jiménez have made the White Sox the first team to reach 0.0 in FanGraphs' postseason odds.
As Major League Baseball and the Players Association battles over the larger contributing factors to elbow injuries, the various figures Lindsey Adler talked to say it's pretty much unavoidable as long as the incentives remain the same:
Chris Langin, the director of pitching for Driveline Baseball, says that players are prepared to blow out their bodies in the pursuit of a few more ticks on their fastball or spin on their breaking ball.
“The ways that you would lower the injury risk are also the ways you’d be lowering the players value,” Langin said. “At the end of the day, that’s not the business we’re in.”
Dan Szymborski looked into how well the Norfolk Tides would project as an MLB team, and ZiPS put them at 56.1 wins. We'll have to see whether the White Sox can beat that number now.
James Fegan wrote about Garrett Crochet's accidental discovery of a functional cutter, and Eno Sarris has noticed the way it completes Crochet's arsenal and makes him a more viable starter than most thought.
The White Sox contributed four games to the Royals' 7-0 homestand, although a sweep of the Astros lent some credibility to their efforts.
