Southside Showdown Preseason Roundtable Pt. 1

With the podcast up and on its way, the roundtable format might be on its last legs, since its easier to get the whole staff on the same topic via Skype than with harassing emails.

But for at least one more time, the staff was gathered up to get their feelings on the offseason, their expectations for the season, and to confirm that everyone is still alive. Due to the length of having everyone weigh in, this will shamelessly be broken up into three pieces.

Apparently the offseason is over. What did you think of it?

Kevin: I wasn’t that thrilled with the off-season, but I really wasn’t expecting much.  I mean, you had the fringe Chase Headley rumors and the Kubel rumors (I was not a fan of trading for Kubel), but nothing even came close of coming to fruition.  I was happy with the resigning of Peavy (and even more so after what Anibal Sanchez and Edwin Jackson got on the open market).

Nick Schaefer: I actually predicted much of how this offseason would go. I guessed that the White Sox would decline Peavy’s option and extend him for big money and short years. I predicted some sort of cheap stopgap option at 3B, and even suggested Jeff Keppinger on 2/$10 million. I thought they might be able to sell from the bullpen rather than add, but Lindstrom is super cheap and totally worth the risk.

In short, I’m happy with the offseason. I’m not really happy with the team as a whole, but that’s not because of this offseason. They did about as well as they could have (although adding Eric Chavez for 2/$5 million or whatever it would take to beat Arizona’s offer would have made for a pretty sick, cheap 3B platoon). The problems stem from decisions made long ago. The organization is an ugly mish-mash of parts after a bunch of short-sighted decisions piled up on each other. The last few drafts have given cause for optimism, but it’s just going to take a long time to wait out some of the bad contracts and valueless draft classes before we get to the other side of this.

James Fegan: They executed their rather frustrating, but measured plan to perfection. They could easily nab more value than they paid for with Peavy and Lindstrom, the Keppinger acquisition gives them a stopgap that they can shift around the diamond in case Beckham or Morel proves worth of actually playing full-time, and their decision that it’s time to eschew a commitment on a 37 year-old catcher to give a pre-arb player in his physical prime a chance is hardly the radical thinking it’s being made out to be.

But the team seems to be in stasis, and there’s nothing exciting about Rick Hahn dutifully calibrating the hibernation tank. I suppose that having a 15% chance of winning a division year-in, year-out is a lot more fun than other teams are having during their rebuild, but the Sox will have to spend up when the time comes to make sure it’s just as effective as well.

Look for part two at lunch time

Follow James Fegan on Twitter @JRFegan