What tangible news came out of this one?

First off, about Matt Lindstrom…

It came early in the weekend, but Lindstrom’s contract was formally announced as a one-year deal for $2.8 million with a club option for $4 million in 2014. With minimal commitment, Lindstrom was an acceptable flier at even $4M, so to slide that far under is encouraging. It sounds like the White Sox had the advantage of being Lindstrom’s preference. It’s nice to be wanted.

They’re waiting to see if they’re contenders

The long-rumored left-handed offensive upgraded doesn’t look like it will take place prior to Spring Training. Free agent markets have been picked clean, or certainly beyond the place where the Sox could secure a clear upgrade over their existing middle infield, or be given reason to give up on Dayan Viciedo, or craft a power-hitting third basemen out of thin air. It’s the White Sox own doing, but that doesn’t change the situation.

This line stuck out from JJ’s piece on the matter: “Hahn, though, was quick to offer a reminder that the White Sox don’t actually play the Tigers until July, when the need for a left-handed bat may be more clear.”

The White Sox have been public about relying heavily on their starting staff, but will apparently be waiting to see if it’s strong enough to leverage a divisional contender on before they invest further. The schedule allows for it, too.

There’s nothing certain about Paul Konerko

Konerko neither offered clarity about whether he planned on playing after 2013, nor did he offer a clean solution for his late-season struggles. In fact, the uncertainty about his struggles bleeds into his ideas about retirement. Konerko said that despite his early success, he didn’t feel comfortable all season-long in 2012, and another season like this past one…may or may not affect his decision…for the positive or negative.

“Sometimes balls are falling for you. Things happen and the numbers say you’re doing well and you just don’t feel good. That happens too,” he explains. “I’d say that’s more of what was going on during the beginning of the season. I could tell by the way I was hitting. I could just tell.”

So now we are left to ask the question: Was 2012 just a fluke year or was it the start of the final downward trend of Konerko’s career?

“That’s a good question. If I was listening to the interview, I’d say, well, that’s called a trend of what’s happening,” Konerko says. “I understand that. That comes with the territory. I can’t think like that.”

If there’s a failure of the White Sox development recently, it’s the inability to take the offensive burden off of Konerko as he ages. 2010 was supposed to be his last ride into the sunset before the team moved into a new direction, but three years later he is still the offensive bellwether of the franchise even as his physical ability to shoulder the role is becoming steadily more questionable.

The organization is getting out ahead of everyone’s hatred for Tyler Flowers

Rick Hahn tried to express his confidence in Flowers’ abilities to a throng of fans still hurt over Pierzynski’s departure, Flowers defended his own merits to waves of fans by his lonesome and answered questions about his pitcher-management, was lauded for his preparation by Chris Sale, and had Jake Peavy beg fans to show him leniency.

It was quite a show of unity for a player who’s playing style probably makes him the worst aesthetic choice to take over for such a fan favorite.

Key to the season is development from within

John Danks returning healthy and effective from rehab–and to a much lesser extent, Gavin Floyd getting it all together–is expected to launch the rotation to new heights. Dayan Viciedo developing is supposed to provide the offensive the impact bat that it failed to add from the outside, and Addison Reed needs to tap into his ability become a dominant closer to revamp a bullpen that Bobby Thigpen will be heading up.

What little untapped potential the  White Sox had in 2012 needs to be fully activated for any progress to be visible, but everyone at the Palmerhouse this weekend seemed pretty sure it was going to happen.

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After the last panel had wrapped, at 4pm, White Sox GM Rick Hahn and his kids were standing right by the front entrance as people streamed out. That’s not strange. What’s strange is that no one was talking to him, or really acknowledging his presence. After two days, people had more or less gotten their fill of Rick Hahn.

Panels

World Series Memories

The World Series panel featured Paul Konerko–who looked in shape, Aaron Rowand–who looked to be only recently retired, Joe Crede, and Jermaine Dye, who looked a bit more settled into retirement. There were, of course, familiar themes and stories from every commemorative DVD on the season ever produced, and Konerko repeated the disappointing phenomenon where the biggest moment of every player’s career is always “a blur” in their memories–in this case, his grand slam.

However, beyond Crede’s retirement being announced in the most bleak way possible (“I’ll probably never swing a bat again”), Konerko did drop an anecdote I had never heard before, regarding the level of focus the team had at the time. He recalled an Astros player reaching first base during Game 1 and beginning to chat him up, as is typical in normal games. Konerko said that the player asked him how he was, and remarked at the beauty of the opening ceremony, prompting Konerko to conclude “Alright, if we just play, we’ve got these guys. They’re just happy to be here.”

The crowd applauded the incisive cold-blooded judgement of their captain.

Record-setters

This panel covered the topic of “record-setting” in minimal detail. But if someone simply decided, “Let’s throw Bill Melton, Tom Paciorek, Frank Thomas, Greg Luzinski, Harold Baines, and Ed Farmer on stage, and then name it something,” well, then, more power to them.

It wasn’t much more than 40 minutes of banter between the guys. Frank Thomas cited Baines as an early mentor to him as a major leaguer, and claimed that “People think he doesn’t talk, but he only talks to who he wants.” Baines, in easily his most talkative moment of the day, downplayed his role. Additionally, Melton and Luzinski talked about being terrified of the fireballers (Nolan Ryan and J.R. Richard) of their day, Thomas razzed Farmer for scouting him as an amateur but still recommending that the Orioles select Ben McDonald with the first overall pick of the draft, and Tom Paciorek recalled flipping off Vin Scully. Fun times.

After the panel

Thomas was grabbed for about five minutes by the beat writers after the panel, but dropped quotes that launched easily a half-dozen columns, simply because he–as the kids would say–went in on PED users.

“They put up some big numbers, but they were fake,” Thomas said, in a calm voice that suggested that he had thought of this statement beforehand. He reaffirmed his hope and confidence that he would be a first-ballot Hall of Famer next year, and also explicitly endorsed Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, and Craig Biggio as non-PED associated colleagues that he felt should join him.

Frank has a real foothold for Hall voting as this anti-PED crusader, but he’s also been talking this way for too long for his stance to be anything but genuine. If he was really one of the few clean players of his era, it’s not hard to understand his bitterness.

Pitchers having fun

Jack McDowell was lopped onto a panel with John Danks, Gordon Beckham, and Jake Peavy–who arrived around 10 minutes late, and thus had his empty chair submitted to the standard wave of Manti Te’o and Clint Eastwood jokes from host Richard Roeper.

They started off on an odd tangent of decrying the expansion of media coverage. Peavy did have a picture of him chugging Jaegermeister at a charity bar event make the rounds when he was in San Diego, and I can’t imagine many athletes see Deadspin’s rise as a positive, but for the most part, this was a panel full of players that use the media very effectively. Except for, of course, McDowell.

McDowell’s incident of flipping off Yankee Stadium provoked a discussion of times where each player “snapped.” Peavy claimed that all of his “snaps” come out on the mound for everyone to see, while Beckham testified to destroying a few water coolers. Danks brought up his most famous “snap”, which had him yelling at Jose Bautista in the midst of a shelling in Toronto, at which point Peavy jumped in and reminded everyone that the Blue Jays were stealing signs. Just in case you thought that story was dead, or wonder why the Sox seemed to relish winning in Toronto so much last season.

Talking bad about other teams didn’t stop there, as Danks, Beckham, and Peavy quickly brought up Jose Valverde and Chris Perez as examples of annoying closer celebrations. McDowell’s contempt for closers in general then emerged, “You’re celebrating like you did something, when all you did was not screw up a win your team gave you for 8 innings.”

On topics more relevant to the 2013 team, Peavy begged (his words) fans to give a fair shot to Tyler Flowers as he replaces A.J. Pierzynski, John Danks reaffirmed that he had not had any setbacks in his rehab and would starting throwing breaking pitches during his three-times-a-week mound sessions, starting on Monday. Beckham cited his .254 BABIP as a reason to be optimistic about his performance next season. I doubt many people followed along, but it was still fun to see.

After the panel, Danks said “he would be disappointed” at this point if he was not deemed ready to make starts in the first week of the regular season, but understood the level of caution being exercised, and defers to it, since he’s never had this sort of extensive rehab before. He didn’t seem to mind being interviewed that much.

Pen Pals

I had to sit out the Pen Pals session on Saturday, but Larry from South Side Sox had the main takeaway from the panel being new bullpen coach Bobby Thigpen‘s extensive rapport with nearly every member of the current relief corps, especially Nate Jones. There was a case to be made that Jones was overworked last season, and Thigpen will be able to manage that a bit better.

Winning Ugly Reuinion

There should be a post on the 1983 Winning Ugly panel on CSN Chicago Sunday that has far more of me thinking about that season’s White Sox than I possibly have in life. I love history as much, or more than the next guy, but it required a lot of new investigation to dive that deep into a team I never experienced personally.

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @JRFegan

But while there was a cautious optimism for an upcoming season that most feel will be fraught with troubles, nothing too outlandish was promised or boasted.  Sure, Adam Dunn thinks he’ll bounce back, and Don Cooper wants 200 innings from every member of the staff (despite the fact that there were only thirty-nine 200 IP guys in baseball last year), but all that stuff sounds overly optimistic now.  How harshly will history really judge a team that asked “Why not us?” in their pre-season weekend pep-session?

For contrast, and to provide some statements that look genuinely silly now, let’s search the records of SoxFests past to find some real gems to be picked over with hindsight.  If we wanted, this whole post could just be filled from stuff from 2011; giddiness over Adam Dunn, World Series aspirations, etc.  But to provide a cheerier beginning, let’s start with SoxFest 2008.

“Talking about the big free-agent fish that wriggled off the hook, [Ed] Farmer asked the fans how many would have paid the $90 million spent by the Angels for Torii Hunter.

Not one fan raised a hand. Farmer then posed the same basic question, only this time he asked how many fans would have offered Aaron Rowand the $60 million given to him by the Giants. A significant number of fans quickly raised their hands.

…

“You don’t have a center fielder,” the fan yelled from his seat in the Red Lacquer Room, not completely satisfied with the options of Jerry Owens and Nick Swisher. “I want a center fielder.”‘

Yeesh, guy.  Way to put Kenny off of listening to the fans for life.

In a sense, though, the fan was right.  Center field remained a hole in 2008 that was filled piecemeal for the rest of the year, and in a competing year–as Prince Fielder just proved–most fans are perfectly willing to see their team overdo it to fulfill a need.  Sandblasting a soup-cracker is permissable if it ends in a title.  And besides, the 2010 Giants brought home the trophy with Aaron Rowand’s disastrous deal still on the payroll.  He’s an albatross you can win with!

I was able to find one mention of Quentin, with Ozzie saying that he, “may get time versus tough left-handers”.  His role gradually expanded over time, as it were.

That’s a fun contrast to 2007, which is just full of horrible famous last words.

First, there’s the caption on the picture of the recap article

“GM Ken Williams and manager Ozzie Guillen like the makeup of the bullpen.”

2007 White Sox relievers: 5.49 ERA, 4.49 BB/9.

“If there was a theme to this year’s initial question-and-answer session at SoxFest…it was implicit trust in the architect of the 2005 World Series championship and the man who ran the show on the field.”

Really, what’s the point of implicit trust if you’re not going to incinerate it like a blowtorch?  You can’t collect interest on it.

“If we continued on without making any adjustments, I believe in the next couple of years you would see a 90-loss type team.”

“Specifically, this particular year,” Williams forgot to add.

Kenny was right, but just not committed enough to his concept.  He ducked out at the right time on Garcia and McCarthy, but hung on to the dying embers of Podsednik, Iguchi, and Contreras in ’07, while Pierzynski and Dye had down years as well.

It’s not something that could have taken place in the rational plane of existence, but if Kenny Williams had sold high on Jermaine Dye after the 2006 season, he’d have a fringe case for immediate enshrinement in the Hall of Fame for a single moment of brilliance.  It would also have been a posthumous honor, after an angry mob torched his office.

—–

2005 was surprisingly positive in tone given that the White Sox had just said goodbye to two boffo corner outfield mashers with nothing but a mason jar full of scrappiness and a bullpen arm to show for it.  The fans were really eating the promise of small-ball and grinding out games by the spoonful, and given how things went, who could blame them?

Tadahito Iguchi was actually not signed yet at the time of SoxFest, and Williams displayed his now trademark coyness in response to pleas to sign him.

The only other reaction smacking of last year’s Jerry Springer-like rowdiness came when one fan asked Williams about the possibility of signing Japanese second baseman Tadahito Iguchi. Numerous fans yelled for Williams to find the money to bring in the Japanese All-Star second baseman, leading the general manager to remind the crowd they have never seen him play.

“Funny how that works,” said Williams with a wry smile, when talking to the media about Iguchi after meeting with the fans. “This Iguchi person we’re talking about, I just assume he’s good because people like him so much.”

People were still referencing Jerry Springer back in 2005?  Man, time is a funny thing.  The contract Iguchi signed (2 years for $4.95 million guaranteed) wasn’t insignificant, but was right around what the team committed to Shingo Takatsu, so it’s hard to believe Williams was wringing his hands about the expenditure at the time.  And hey, look what I found digging around on the internet.

You can kind of predict how SoxFest 2006 went after that.

Of course no looking back on SoxFest statements with short shelf lives without touching on 2010.  The fateful moment where Ozzie was placed in the GM’s chair, and made a decision on Jim Thome that not only reflected his philosophical divide with Kenny Williams, but also greased the track to their split.

On Saturday afternoon, Guillen had said how he wanted to have a decision finalized regarding the possible addition of Jim Thome by the time he left for Miami on Sunday evening. On Sunday, in response to the first fan’s question, Guillen said that he moved his flight from 4 p.m. Sunday to Monday afternoon.

The Thome debate continues on for at least another day.

“It’s a funny thing. I’m doing this for the respect of Jim Thome and the fans and for what Jim Thome has done for the game,” said Guillen

This is like watching a horror movie, where you’re shouting at the screen and the characters can’t hear you.

Omar Vizquel would stand as the lone utility infielder if the White Sox stayed with 12 pitchers, a highly improbable scenario. And Guillen played the respect card on Sunday as another reason why the return of Thome would mean 11 pitchers.

“I put this on the table, too,” Guillen said. “Let’s say we are down 11-0 in the sixth inning and I want to give a guy a day off. Well, I’m not putting Vizquel in there.

“They did it to me and I’m not going to do that to anyone else. It’s [disrespectful] to put a Hall of Famer there, so we need someone else to cover that role. It’s the same for Andruw Jones. I might get him some at-bats, but I’m not going to put him in the outfield in that situation. I have more class.”

I have all the optimism in the world for the White Sox future return to greatness, but I don’t think the day where they can afford hinder their roster for ancillary concerns about veteran bench players having convenient and comfortable roles is ever coming.  Of course, why Guillen was ever even put in this position is probably the greater question.

Perhaps that’s not the best example of hindsight, since adverse reaction to the decision to pass on Thome was widely available in the immediate.  What it should remind us is that SoxFest exists not as a frank and sober assessment of all that has transpired a since the close of last season, but is rather an attempt to rationalize it all as purposeful, positive, and the next step toward greatness.  History can often prove this to be a fairly futile pursuit, but if fan reaction to the horrors of 2011 and the cautious optimism of 2012 is any indication, people appreciate the effort.

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @ JRFegan.  Also check out his full-time, daily blog, White Sox Observer