White Sox Projected to Finish Last

The folks over at a big-name magazine publication (we’ll call them Forts Illustrated) have just released their 2012 baseball preview issue and upon flipping through the pages I came across something that was both shocking and depressingly understandable. If the title isn’t enough of a giveaway FI has the Sox finishing last in the American League Central division. After last season who can blame them?

Any article that begins with “It’s going to be a long year for the White Sox” and is not followed by “because their batting order will be hitting a lot of home runs” will not be good news. That’s how this one went. The “Enemy Lines” section slams Peavy for being injured, slams Dunn for not producing, and slams Dayan Viciedo for being “not the most athletic guy in the world” which we all know is the same as saying “you look like you’re pushing about two and a half bills there, Dayan.” All of which are, as I said, depressingly understandable. You hate to see your big guys (sorry Dayan) perform way under their capability and you hate to have pitchers with ace-type stuff go down to a weird injury.

If you can look passed the jabs at each player you’ll see a couple encouraging words. For example “John Danks is coming off a terrible year, but he and Gavin Floyd are legit starters.” Whatever that means. “Chris Sale could be real good, but he still throws like a reliever. It’s a good arm, and it’s lefthanded, but he goes on adrenaline instead of establishing all three of his pitches.” Again – these statements are tough to swallow but necessary. The team was bad last year.

If the recent offensive output by the Sox is any indication of what we might see when the season kicks off in a couple weeks I think we as Sox fans have reason to be optimistic. Granted the team scored fifteen runs on Opening Day last year and went on to have the season that they did, I think it’s nice to take success game-by-game and then sit in our rocking chairs on the front porch and complain in Novemeber.

Two weeks, ladies, gentlemen, and Alex Rios. Are you ready?