Everyone Has Arrived At White Sox Camp!

Things are starting to take shape at Sox camp, as everyone who hadn’t shown up yet, showed up Tuesday. Paul Konerko, Carlos Quentin, Alexei Ramirez and Lastings Milledge were the final arrivals.

Konerko spoke at length about, well, everything, but namely re-signing with the Sox and the team’s outlook. Here are some excerpts:

On being back with the Sox

"It feels like I never left, because I didn’t. It was a lot of unknowns and uncertainty with myself and the team a year ago. Now that I’m here it feels like just another normal year and there have been a lot of them in a row here. It feels like home, but yeah, it got a little dicey in the offseason."

On the lineup

"You break down lineups and you look for some speed, some power, balance. It’s all right there. The bottom of the lineup, whoever we put down there is pretty formidable. We look like we’re probably, in the middle of the lineup, kind of one guy deeper than a lot of teams. Maybe whoever is going to hit sixth for us would probably hit fifth for a lot of teams. It’s all there but as you know it’s on paper and doesn’t mean anything until you go out and do it. I know that’s cliché but it’s true. You have to go out and it all has to click together. We felt good about our lineup leaving here last year and we didn’t get it going so there is always work and an unknown about how things are going to transpire. Last year the talk was that there was no big left-handed bat, there was no real DH. There was talk. This year there isn’t anything you can point a finger at and say we’re really deficient in that area so I guess that feels good."

On the team to beat in the division

"To me, you guys know me, the team to beat is the Twins. Whoever wins the title from the year before is the champion until they get knocked off. What I think about what’s being said or what anybody thing is irrelevant. We’ll get an answer 6 ½ months from now. That’s how it is. It’s pretty black and white."

Do you see what he did there with that last quote? A little subliminal message to let you know he thinks the old Black and White will win the Central this year.

Apparently back in Chicago the Opening Day starter ordeal is getting everybody all riled up, butlet me tell you, it’s a non-issue. Mark Buehrle was just paying homage to Danks’ 2010 campaign when he said Danks should get the nod for opening day. Danks said today that Buehrle deserves it and it should be that way until the day he dies (or takes off the Sox uniform). Of course, he threw in some jokes about being able to outrun Buehrle’s fastball, but it was all in good fun.

Ozzie Guillen said he hasn’t settled on a starter for April 1, but hopes to within the next few days.

I fall on the side of the fence where I believe Danks is the best pitcher the White Sox have, but it’s a respect thing, and Danks is 100 percent aware of that. Buehrle has done enough for the organization to earn the right to usher in the new season by being the first on the mound, and that’s what I think Ozzie will end up deciding, too.

I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know what that meant because I knew that at that moment I hadn’t talked to the White Sox at all and I thought that this is a business and you have relationships with people and you don’t know how it’s going to end. You would figure that maybe they would talk to me before, at least to talk about what I’m looking for and if it’s possible to work out a deal. But sometimes when your card is pulled you find out the hard way. So I didn’t know which one it was. I think that day or the next day they let us know they still wanted to work something out. I felt good about that. It didn’t mean something was going to get done but I felt like there was hope still to come back so that was good.