In the first weeks of Pedro Grifol's spring training back in 2023, I started noticing that he hadn't defined himself as a person in any way, shape or form, only as a baseball obsessive. That was his prerogative, of course, but the absence of even trace amounts of public personality and relatability made me wonder how he could possibly pivot as a messenger if the White Sox had already devolved beyond the help of his attention to detail.
Indeed, he never figured out how to shift gears, as his pervasive self-consciousness prevented any kind of reinvention. The only other club he had in his bag was excessive flattery of the people who could keep him employed, and even that couldn't help him stave off the first midseason firing of a White Sox manager in decades.
If a new manager is hired in response to the old one, then Will Venable has already differentiated himself in subtle ways, whether by emphasizing soft skills over hard drills and expressing contentment that he didn't have to be in charge of mapping out the day's work at spring training.
Wednesday marked a more significant departure, as the White Sox shared a video on their social media channels quizzing Venable on quotes from "The Office." Ordinarily this would not be worth relaying, but this is the sort of Turing test that tripped up Grifol from the get-go. By demonstrating an interest in one (1) pop culture topic, Venable passed it with flying colors.
https://twitter.com/whitesox/status/1892375857416851823?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Spare Parts
- 2025 Top 100 Prospects -- FanGraphs
- ZiPS 2025 Top 100 Prospects -- FanGraphs
- Paul Janish ponders the promise of a rejuvenated White Sox prospect pipeline -- FanGraphs
FanGraphs' prospect week has been kind to the White Sox, what with six top-100 prospects on Eric Longehagen's list, Dan Szymborski's ZiPS projections loving Chase Meidroth, and Paul Janish getting his own interview with David Laurila, in which he calls Brooks Baldwin "kind of a Ben Zobrist type of player," which means he's the next Romy Gonzalez. His first comp for Meidroth is Jamey Carroll, who hit 13 homers in 12 years, seven of them in two years with Colorado.
Either Ron Washington is going to be the exact manager Yoán Moncada needs at this stage in his career, or it's going to end terribly. Also, I laughed at this quote, which could be said by so many members of the 2024 White Sox: "“The thing I would like to improve on the most is everything."
The other oft-injured White Sox looking to rebound after crashing out before his option years arrived, Jiménez has recognized the reckoning:
The Rays already like what they’ve seen from Jiménez physically. He said he incorporated more running into his offseason workouts -- “Way more than I used to,” he said -- and feels like he’s in good shape after dropping so much weight.
Tom Ricketts seemed to be cribbing from Jerry Reinsdorf's playbook with the Cubs' offer to Alex Bregman, offering a competitive-sounding offer until realizing it had nothing on the competing bids:
Nothing about the Cubs' offer could've given them a legitimate shot at landing a player who would've been a perfect fit. The Tigers offered the most total dollars on the table; the Astros offered a chance for Bregman to continue his Houston legacy, without being tapped for state taxes. The Red Sox deal offered the highest average annual salary with contractual flexibility. It was as if the Cubs wanted Bregman to play for less money and the privilege of being part of their organization.
As Major League Baseball continues to lay track toward the use of an automated ball-strike system for a challenge system, the strike zone box on broadcasts could be changed or removed entirely, whether to reduce the chances of dugout influence on using a challenge, or to make it more suspenseful for the viewers at home.
The Cardinals' offseason baffles me more than any other team, mostly because they let John Mozeliak hang around for one more season, only for him to hinge his entire winter around trying and failing to trade Nolan Arenado.
The Blue Jays' frustrating offseason is easier to explain -- a lot of players don't want to go to Canada if equally attractive offers exist elsewhere -- but that makes it a bigger risk to let Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit free agency, because the price will likely only get higher from here.
