“If we get to the point of looking to add or subtract, it’s going to be based upon what we’re able to receive in return and it being at a certain level that makes sense for us long term,” (Rick) Hahn said. “If we get to that point, we’re going to be pretty popular. We already have received a fair amount of phone calls and I suspect that will continue unless we turn this thing around and start being the ones on the dialing end of things.”

Think of a way that White Sox GM Rick Hahn would benefit from announcing to the press in mid-June that his team will be selling–and aggressively so–at the trade deadline.

Would the fans he convinced that the team was headed in the right direction for a rebuild reward him by buying more tickets to watch the in-transition version of the club?

Would the players react positively and enhance their trade values after having the concern that they might be traded added to their plates? Could they be absolutely trusted not to raise a stink at their stated goal for the season that started 11 weeks ago being scrapped?

Would it become easier for his manager to do his job with it publicly established that he’s just around to make sure everyone goes through the motions?

Are there any GM’s in the league who are curious about dealing the White Sox some uber-prospects but too shy to call Hahn on the phone unsolicited?

Probably not.

If anything, these questions are extreme examples, when really it’s hard to figure out an explanation of how it’s ever beneficial for GM’s to ever tell the truth to anyone besides their spouses (even then it’s a calculated risk). Which is not to say that the quotes that hard-working guys on the beat pulled from Hahn were less than worthwhile or inaccurate. If anything they were notably straight-forward. Hahn sounds like he doesn’t want to sell until he has to and has every intention of waiting until he does.

That’s both because it doesn’t benefit the White Sox to act any sooner than this time next month and because rebuilding and fire sales are wholly unenjoyable processes that are to be avoided whenever possible. As much as gutting, overhauling and rebuilding has seemed necessary, or at least inevitable for the franchise for a while, I’ve seen the world of breathlessly replaying a 12-second clip of a 20 year-old hitting a home run in a half-empty podunk stadium while half-sleeping through games played by the major league, and I don’t want it. Nor do I covet the draft night becoming the biggest night of the season.

Rebuilding is a horrible pall to place on a season, let alone multiple ones. So while the White Sox continue to careen toward a reality that short-term thinking has made them deserving of, I cannot feel a pang of sympathy for the desire to put all this off for so long.

Why not one more month of talk of “pulling off a turnaround” and “having the necessary talent?”  The bad times will be officially here soon enough.

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Did they notice? Did they bother to check and see that he just didn’t hit the ball hard anymore?

Alexei Ramirez isn’t slugging under .300 yet, but that’s kind of like setting a stack of papers by Lake Michigan and immediately boasting that they haven’t blown away yet. Ramirez has homered twice in his last 400 plate appearances, his on-base percentage and walk rate have collapsed–likely for related reasons–and three years after winning the Silver Slugger award, he’s one of the worst hitters (64 wRC+) in a lineup where that’s a bone-chilling distinction.

When Alexei Ramirez was a 26 year-old rookie in 2008. He hit 21 home runs in just 509 plate appearances. He didn’t seem likely to repeat the feat, his power obviously was more functional than huge and his total seemed inflated by how simple it can sometimes be for a right-handed hitter to yank a ball into the left field bullpen at U.S. Cellular Field. But he clearly had enough to turn-and-burn on mistakes and force some caution out of opposing pitchers. When he hit 48 home runs over the next three seasons, it fit in well enough with the common conception of his abilities. Maybe you didn’t realize it then, but these were very good days in terms of getting offensive production from the starting shortstop.

In that 2010 Silver Slugger season, FanGraphs’ pitch values rated Ramirez as below-average against fastballs. It’s a statistic with a fair amount of variation and doesn’t take sequencing into account. I don’t like to cite it until it starts reaching extreme conclusions. Which is what it did when it cited Ramirez as the third-worst fastball hitter in baseball in 2011. Or the very worst in 2012. There are enough stragglers this season that Ramirez is only 14th-worst, but there’s plenty of more compelling evidence these days.

From Texas Leaguers, this is Alexei’s spray chart against fastballs in 2008. Note all the success he has turning on heaters to left field.

Also from Texas Leaguers, here is Ramirez against four-seamers this season. I realize not everyone grew as fond of Alexei as I did over the past five-plus seasons, but this thing hurt for me to look at.

There’s no pull and no power. There’s only one ball that made it to the warning track in this picture. Ramirez cannot get around on high velocity anymore and he certainly was never going to thrive driving the ball to center and right field. It will also not surprise you to know that Ramirez’a walk rate has collapsed while pitchers pound the zone with fastballs they don’t think he can punish.

At age 31, it’s hard to come up with an explanation sunnier than that Ramirez has lost the bat speed that once made him a dynamic, or even capable offensive player.

The glove is clearly still there, but that’s not much comfort with $29.5 million owed to Ramirez in the next three seasons after this one. The White Sox’ perilous lack of infield depth simultaneously explains why locking up a productive middle infielder through his late 30′s seemed like the only sane option at the time and why Ramirez will likely remain a regular even after Carlos Sanchez arrives.

But like so many of the entrenched White Sox position players, things look bleak for Alexei going forward barring a late-career adjustment that would provoke a far happier post than this one.  So yeah, maybe stop batting him second.

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And yet, Viciedo reached out and hammered a hanging slider off the outside corner past the diving reach of Astros center fielder Brandon Barnes. As Viciedo’s handiwork slowly rolled up Tal’s Hill in center, Adam Dunn, Paul Konerko and Conor Gillaspie all lumbered home to seal the White Sox offense’s biggest inning a week. The four-run sixth and 4-2 victory over the hapless Asstros snapped yet another four-game losing streak for the Sox, who avoided the preposterous shame of a four-game sweep in Houston.

If I were Joe McEwing, I would have tried to break Viciedo’s hand with a high-five too.

The decisive blow from the maligned and tailspinning left fielder was only the climax of a series of improbable events. Earlier in the inning, a 27-bouncer off the bat of Paul Konerko rumbled under the glove of Astros starter Bud Norris, through the grasp of shortstop Ronny Cedeno and dribbled out of the infield for an RBI single. It was the second of what would be four-straight two-out hits to steal a win and quality from Norris, who entered the sixth with only 69 pitches.

His counterpart, Jose Quintana, was far less efficient. He labored through 104 pitches (four of those coming on an intentional walk to Chris Carter for whatever reason) without getting out of the fifth inning. The combination of an out-of-rhythm Quintana and a Carlton Fisk-aping Hector Gimenez behind the plate led to a game that ran over three-and-a-half hours despite only featuring six runs.

Nate Jones stepped in and blew away Chris Carter–who Robin Ventura really didn’t want to face Quintana–to clean up the fifth, but allowed two-straight leadoff singles when he came out for the seventh. A platooned combination of Matt Thornton and Jesse Crain modeled for the train shows, struck out the side and snuffed out the last Astros’ scoring threat.

Thornton striking out Jason Castro might have been the most impressive element, since the Astros catcher continued his four-game rampage with two more booming RBI doubles. Castro went 7-16 in the series with four doubles, two home runs and seven runs batted in. Good God, the humanity.

Team Record: 29-38

Box Score

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