Eulogizing Jermaine Dye

Normally, I wait until after a player has officially found work elsewhere before I serve up the eulogy. I’m making an exception for Jermaine Dye.
For one, he’s had a rough winter — at least as rough as somebody who feels insulted by annual salaries worth more than my job pays over a lifetime.  It’s easy to knock him for poor strategy, and I’ve done my fair share.
And also, it’s going to be confined to print, anyway.  I received the proof copy of White Sox Outsider 2010.  Once I make a couple of tweaks — probably as soon as tomorrow — it’ll be ready for sale.  I may as well give potential customers an idea of what’s inside this book (which will be $19.95).
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Jermaine Dye probably should have been an Arizona Diamondback.
After he agreed to a two-year, $10.15 million deal with the Chicago White Sox in December of 2004, the D-Backs came calling multiple times over the course of the day.  The fourth and final time, the Diamondbacks added $1 million to the Sox’s offer.[1] Most others in Dye’s place would have accepted the higher offer, especially when considering that Dye and his family live in the Phoenix area.  Most people watching would have understood.
Look at Omar Vizquel.  Vizquel nearly signed a two-year contract in the range of $9 million earlier in that offseason.  At the last minute, the San Francisco Giants swooped in and offered him the third year he desired.  That changed his mind, he took the Giants’ offer, leaving Kenny Williams stunned.  Williams certainly didn’t hold it against him – he signed Vizquel to a one year, $1.3 million contract five years later.
Dye hadn’t played a game for the Sox, and he hadn’t signed any paperwork.  There was nothing stopping him from accepting the Diamondbacks’ advances, but for whatever reason, Dye felt like he had to uphold his oral agreement.
So Jermaine Dye signed with the White Sox, and in the process, irrevocably altered the history of the franchise.
“What if Dye signed with the Diamondbacks?” is the second greatest “What if?” question in franchise history[2], and the answer to the question probably isn’t a good one.
Only the White Sox brass knows what would have happened if Dye took the higher offer, but one possibility has the Sox signing Richard Hidalgo.  They were considered comparable players at the time.  Dye at his peak was better than Hidalgo, but Dye hadn’t fully recovered from his knee injury, so both sides posed a great risk.
Dye signed with the Sox on Dec. 9; Hidalgo joined the Texas Rangers three days later for one year and $5 million, which was $1 million more than Dye’s 2005 salary.
It’s probably a good bet that Hidalgo doesn’t fill Magglio Ordonez’s shoes.  Hidalgo hit .221/.289/.416 in 88 games with Texas, and he never played in the big leagues again, bouncing between Japan and independent baseball.  He was last seen in playing in the Venezuelan Winter League in 2009.
The Sox don’t win the World Series with Hidalgo dragging them down.  Maybe they don’t even make the playoffs.  That season, only Dye and Paul Konerko had truly above-average seasons at the plate.  Take Dye out of the equation, and for all anybody knows, that vaunted 35-19 record in one-run games could be inverted.  If that happens, that controversial Carlos Lee trade doesn’t look too special, and Williams is in a bit of trouble.
Fortunately, we’ll never have to know the answer to that question, because Jermaine Dye became the only World Series MVP in White Sox history.  He hit .438 in the Fall Classic.  He bounced that single back through the box against Brad Lidge, pumping his fist while Willie Harris scored from third, driving in the only run in that decisive Game 4.  There’s no universe in which Richard Hidalgo does that.
Dye then followed up his unprecedented 2005 with a career year in 2006.  He hit .315 with 44 homers and 120 RBI, earning a spot on the All-Star team and a Silver Slugger.  Hidalgo wouldn’t have done that.
The rest of his career, from 2007 to 2009, wasn’t as rosy.  He had two great halves, two good halves, and two disastrous ones.  He was good for extra-base hits on both ends – producing them on offense, allowing them on defense.  Leg problems diminished Dye’s range to the point where his corner became the place where triples went to start families.
Sometimes, he outwardly expressed confusion and disappointment.  He wondered aloud why the Sox renegotiated Mark Buehrle’s contract in the middle of 2007 when he was told no mid-season deals were in the works.[3] He clashed with Orlando Cabrera in the dugout in 2008 when Cabrera distracted him by stealing third in a game against the Royals, even though the steal came with one out and put Dye in an easier RBI position  (Dye ended up striking out, which was probably the root of the frustration).[4] He wasn’t exactly supportive of the Alex Rios acquisition, either.[5]
However he may have expressed displeasure, it wasn’t enough to irk Ozzie Guillen, who called Dye one of the two best players he ever managed.[6] Dye was a member of the veteran core that ran the clubhouse; now it is two members weaker with both him and Jim Thome out of the picture.
Barring a Milton Bradley-esque explosion, it’s hard to think of a way Dye’s Sox career could have ended on a lower note.  He finished 2009 hitting .179/.293/.297 after the All-Star break, and his tailspin was one of the chief reasons why the Sox missed the playoffs.
Still, in his last home game against Detroit on Sept. 28, Sox fans gave him a standing ovation.  No matter how little he hit, no other response was appropriate.  The only World Series MVP in franchise history gets 88 years of leeway.
Especially when the only World Series MVP in franchise history could have – and should have – never played for the franchise to begin with.


[1] “He’s Mr. Integrity,” Chicago Sun-Times, Feb. 27, 2005.
[2] “What if the 1919 White Sox won the World Series fair and square?” is the first one, and I’m willing to wager that nothing will ever top it.
[3] “Williams in no mood for Dye’s frustration,” Chicago Tribune, July 18, 2007
[4] “’Good guys finish last,’” Chicago Tribune, July 10, 2008
[5] “Dye has mixed fellings on move,” Chicago Tribune, Aug. 11, 2009
[6] “Was this final Sox home game for Dye, Podsednik?” Daily Herald, Sept. 28, 2009.

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jasonc23

Beautiful, Jim.
When I think of JD, it will always be with an up and a down.
Up: A month or two into the 2005 season, my wife volunteered to buy some mini-posters for my then-2-year-old son’s room. I asked her to get something White Sox-related, and wherever she went, she said she could only find a little Jermaine Dye poster. He had just joined the team, and he had a pretty rotten first month or two, despite the team’s success, so I said something like, “I guess that’s fine, if that’s the best you could do.” Turns out my wife is pretty smart.
Down: In 2007, we were at my sister’s house, watching a Cubs-Sox game on TV with my brother in law. And about 160 times, a Cubs player hit a liner into the RF corner at Wrigley, and JD was nowhere to be found. He never showed up on screen, ever. 3B after 3B after 3B. That’s when it really hit home that his range was down to almost nill.
But really, the homer off Clemens to get the WS started and the bouncer up the middle to end it (pre-Uribe) still give me goosebumps. And 2006 rocked.

knoxfire30

One word “Professional” always comes to mind for me when I think of dye. He defined and gave meaning to the word.
On a side note I always thought it was the rangers who came calling on dye when he was taking a physical for the sox not the dbacks, and thats why the rangers still went out and got Hidalgo. Didnt the cubs sign jenkins that year or am I way off here, did a lot of drinking in 05.

cushinglee

I have a feeling that JD is going to be missed by White Sox fans a lot sooner than they think.
As for “woulda-coulda-shoulda”, I understand it within the context of your Dye eulogy, but that’s a game Cubs fans play. Every day of their lives.

sars

missed how? an unwilling-to-switch-to-DH right fielder that has posted double digit negative UZR numbers basically his entire time on the south side will be missed? i like dye. he’s a nice player. i will hardly miss him.

knoxfire30

dye with the combo of thome and their homer run production will definitley be missed this year, however everything else you said about him being god awful in right, slow on the bases, and falling off a cliff the last couple second halves of seasons, yea that wont be missed at all

newcomer

What if the White Sox moved to Tampa?

knoxfire30

what if kenny would have traded jose contreres for aj burnett at the deadline that year, something that was a lot closer to happening then most sox fans know
playing the what if game is pretty annoying and never ends

chisoxt

I remember in the late 80’s reading an article in the Chicago Reader by Phillip Bess, an architectural historian (and later a Notr dame professor), who proposed the idea for Armour Field. The interesting thing about the article was that it predated the arrival of Camden Yards, widely acclaimed and regarded as the first of the truly neo-traditional ballparks.
I do not not know if the specifics of the Armour Field idea were acually proposed to the Sox during the design phase of new Comiskey, but what I do know is that the HOK design team did pitch the concept of a retro-desgn ball park to Reinsdorf et al. Unfortunatley, while Jerry and crew have shown tremendous vision in various aspects of sports franchise management, stadium design was not one of those attributes. As I recall, instaed of looking far back to the design of Forbs Field, Crosley Field, etc, the team studied prototypes of some of the better seventies-style ball parrks to guide them in their design of new Comiskey. These parks included Royals Stadium, Yankee Stadium and the Big A in Aneheim. The resulting product was exactly what the Sox had asked for, and perhaps a bit less; the original design went overbudget and some of the external detail was removed from the original project work scope.

oralsoxpodcast

“He was good for extra-base hits on both ends – producing them on offense, allowing them on defense.”
Classic. A very well written eulogy for JD. I’ll miss his giraffe like strides in right…sort of.