By Roger Wallenstein

The Chairman doesn’t lose too many battles, but Jerry Reinsdorf’s attempt to install a fellow chairman, the Red Sox’ Tom Werner, as the next baseball commissioner fell short last week.
Most fans in these parts never had heard of Werner or the newly-anointed Rob Manfred prior to the owners’ conclave in Baltimore. However, now it’s common knowledge that Reinsdorf wanted someone with the potential to be a hard-liner when the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires after the 2016 season. The Chairman figured that Werner could fill that role even though Manfred was the chief negotiator for the owners in 2011 when the current contact was enacted. Apparently Jerry didn’t think Manfred did a very good job.

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Posted on August 18, 2014

By Steve Rhodes and Jim Coffman

Podcasting from the picnic tables: Jackie Robinson West; The Bears’ #FirstDivisionProblems; Cartoon Cub; Jose Abreu Is Tired; Kiss The Sky.

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Posted on August 16, 2014

QB is now the easiest fantasy football position to draft, and the one most fantasy football team owners will look forward to drafting this year. It’s so deep that Jay Cutler, equipped with arguably the best pair of WRs and one of the best pass-catching RBs, through no fault of his own (finally), ranks as no better than a borderline back-up.
That isn’t so with RBs. The position is finally suffering from a long-predicted dip in value, with a small reliable core of Tier 1 players, almost no one who would qualify as a Tier 2, and then a very large pool of middling talent at Tier 3.

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Posted on August 13, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Rick Rentamanager.
Carlos Villanuewavagoodbye.
John Bakeroonie.
I’ve got nothing.

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Posted on August 12, 2014

By Jim Coffman

The headline atop today’s Tribune sports section reads “Lesson learned, Bennett returns.” But what lesson did tight end Martellus Bennett really learn during the last week?
First, let’s give a shout out to the headline writer. That is a one-column head and those are not easy. It appeared in the paper like this:
Lesson
learned,
Bennett
returns
It is a very impressive little sentence containing a six-letter word followed by three of the seven-letter variety. It conveys the thesis of the story – and it stacks up – just about perfectly. There is even a little rhyming action in there. “Hey Mr. Anonymous Headline Writer (probably a copy editor at the Trib)!” we shout together. “Well done!”

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Posted on August 11, 2014

By Roger Wallenstein

Let’s begin with the numbers, ugly as they may be.
The White Sox dropped five of seven games last week and now find themselves playing out the string in the American League Central at 56-63. They scored 14 runs during the week. Their two opponents, Texas and Seattle, scored 44. That’s not good.
Included in the five losses was Tuesday’s 16-0 beatdown by the Rangers. The good news there – in a rather perverse sort of way – was that Adam Dunn got to pitch the ninth inning on a yield of one run. Compared to the bullpen trio of Maikel Cleto, Andre Rienzo, and Eric Surkamp, Dunn held his own. None of them pitched better than the Sox’s DH-first baseman. Rienzo and Surkamp now toil in Charlotte. That’s how dismal a week it was.

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Posted on August 11, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

Plus: Javy Time. The White Sox Report. Offseason Kaner.

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Posted on August 9, 2014

By Dan O’Shea

I’m taking a brief break from my fantasy football draft guide responsibilities this week to address a major development in the fantasy baseball world: The call-up of super-prospect Javier Baez.
Okay, maybe it’s a much bigger deal to local fantasy baseball team owners, and those who happen to be Cubs fans, but given Baez’s current position eligibility at SS, and another for which he should soon gain eligibility – 2B – Baez could have a major effect on fantasy fortunes.

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Posted on August 6, 2014

By Steve Rhodes

“Castro to Baez to Rizzo” actually trended on Twitter on Tuesday night.
Let me fix that: “Hendry Draft Picks Castro And Baez To Rizzo, Acquired For Hendry Draft Pick Cashner.”
And I hated Hendry.

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Posted on August 6, 2014

By Roger Wallenstein

“Good pitching beats good hitting, and vice versa,” Yogi Berra once said.
More recently, Hawk Harrelson has claimed that the game today is a “battle of bullpens,” whereas years ago it was the team’s starting pitching that dictated a club’s success.
The message from both of these walking antiques is that victories don’t come easily without pitchers who can get outs, especially in crucial situations. Yogi no doubt meant to stop his sentence before the comma, while Hawk’s proposition is arguable since the greatest bullpen in the game can’t save an inept starting staff.

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Posted on August 5, 2014