Brawl for big-name stars could peter out into whole lot of Chicago nothin’

Harper, along with Machado (below) … 

It’s becoming the big joke this winter amongst certain baseball people – that the Chicago White Sox are spewing a whole lot of talk about how they’re trying to win over the two big-name ballplayers available through free agency, yet all they’re really going to do is sign one of those star players’ brother-in-law.

It’s true. The White Sox have managed to pull off a trade – acquiring Yonder Alonso from the Cleveland Indians.

OF COURSE, THE two big names that are getting baseball teams all aroused are Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals and Manny Machado of the Los Angeles Dodgers; the latter of whom is married to Alonso's sister.

.. are the big names baseball teams are dreaming of

Both are stars who’d be capable of rejuvenating just about any ball club. The White Sox have gone about stirring up a lot of speculation that they’re willing to make serious bids to try to acquire at least one of the two – if not both.

Yet you have to admit it would be oh so typical if it turned out that the White Sox didn’t manage to acquire either. Which would make their acquisition of Alonso come off as quite pathetic.

There is one big reason why the White Sox are so eager to engage in such talk – they need to do something to show the fan base that their talk of wanting to some day have a winning ball club has a basis in reality and is not just wishful thinking.

Are Nova and Alonso (below) … 

BECAUSE THUS FAR, all the youthful talent is NOT holding up to the stories of being on the verge of turning into future stars. Yoan Moncada, who when he was Boston Red Sox property was regarded as the best ballplayer in all the minor leagues, has turned into a .235 hitter for the White Sox.

While supposed future star pitcher Steve Kopech has managed to injure himself, underwent surgery and likely won’t play ball at all during 2019, and Eloy Jimenez has suffered a quad injury while playing baseball this winter with the Cibao Giants of the Dominican League.

Meaning the tales of Jimenez becoming the rookie star of the White Sox for 2019 may have to be postponed – if not tabled altogether.

… the ones the White Sox will settle for?

If the Chicago Cubs rebuild of the early 2010s was the example of everything going right and resulting in a World Series title in 2016, we have to wonder if the White Sox rebuild is evidence of everything going wrong.

WHICH IS WHY gaining a big-name star would be beneficial for the Chicago Sout’ Side ballclub. Particularly if it were to turn out that they acquired Harper – who during his time playing ball in the District of Columbia never made a secret of it that he’d like someday to play for the Chicago Cubs.

On some level, it would be a psychological victory if the White Sox were to gain the guy who could have been a Cub – if only the Cubs weren’t crying broke; in large part because they blew their own money on the big-money deal they offered pitcher Yu Darvish.

Is Darvish the reason Cubs can't compete?

The deal that got the Cubs a 1-win, 3-loss record with a 4.95 earned run average in eight games (only 40 innings pitched) before his own injuries became too serious for him to continue playing.

Then again, could it turn out to be that all the White Sox’ talk of trying to gain Harper is what ultimately motivates the Cubs to try to figure out a way to “do” the big bucks needed to acquire Bryce – who seems determined to want to get the biggest contract ever in baseball history!

Dominican League injury delays Jimenez?

PERSONALLY, IT WOULDN’T bother me in the least if Harper were to choose to go elsewhere – largely because I actually think Machado (a Miami native of Dominican ethnic origins) would be the better fit for this rebuilt White Sox team.

This is one that supposedly can have Cubans (Moncada, Jose Abreu and Luis Robert) as its stars, with a whole slew of other peloteros from Latin American nations, including Jimenez. Machado of Miami might be a better fit and wouldn't have the attitude that has a lot of baseball fans thinking Machado is not worth the fact that HE wants to get the biggest contract ever in baseball history!

Is Moncada really just a .235 hitter?

But one way or another, those two big stars are going to wind up somewhere and likely will get contracts giving them enough funds that (unless they get stupid and waste money) will enable them to never have to work for real for the rest of their lives.

And if it turns out that neither Harper nor Machado choose to come to Chicago, well then White Sox fans will just have to settle for the brother-in-law and the one-time New York Yankees pitcher Ivan Nova as their off-season acquisitions leading into 2019.

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The biggest ‘bust’ of Chicago baseball; and no, we don’t need Morgana jokes

We’re at the passing of the Memorial Day holiday weekend, and it means that baseball fans can now seriously study the standings and figure out if 2018 is a season with a serious chance at a championship.

Would Cub fans prefer Yu in Texas?

Or a year that will amount to little more than a stinkeroo!

MORE THAN ONE-quarter of the season has passed. It’s blatantly obvious that 2018 will be the painful part of the experience in watching the Chicago White Sox do a thorough rebuild of their ball club into something resembling championship quality.

And as for the Chicago Cubs? Their fans are delusional enough to think they’re in the midst of a New York Yankees-style dynasty, although it shouldn’t be a surprise if the Wrigley faithful get a season with barely a winning record, but one that falls short of a playoff appearance.

The year 2016 is as over-and-done with as is 2005. Chicago’s two seasons of World Series-winning ball clubs in this century are a thing of the past.

And as for who’s the sorriest excuse of a ballplayer toiling away in Chicago? I say it’s a split.

THE 80-GAME SUSPENSION that White Sox catcher Welington Castillo got for use of performance-enhancing drugs regarded as steroids brings some shame to the Sox – particularly since he’s the first Chicago ballplayer to get caught in a steroids-related scandal and wind up suspended.

A fact I don’t doubt is giving Cubs fans something to snicker about – particularly since talk about steroids and Chicago baseball usually becomes a rant about the fraudulent ways of one Samuel Peralta Sosa and those '90s-era home runs he hit in Cubbie blue.

But let’s be honest. For all the digs one might want to take at Castillo, no one expected him to be capable of doing much. Castillo was the nine-year baseball veteran whom the White Sox acquired because somebody has to catch the ballgames this season – and the baseball prospects whom the team thinks will be the catcher come the better days of 2020 (they hope) is still lingering in the minor leagues.

Would Castillo's suspension look better in Arizona?

Whereas Yu Darvish of the Cubs was the big-name pitching acquisition the team obtained to bolster the ball club. He was supposed to be the piece that would ensure the Cubs would be a legitimate National League pennant contender once again this year.

INSTEAD, DARVISH HAS become a disappointment who can’t last long into ballgames (and certainly doesn’t win them).

He’s also in the midst of his second stint on the disabled list. It’s only been 50 games into a 152-game season, and Darvish has been taken down by the flu and tendinitis.

Certainly not the durable “ace” of old who can be counted on to “take to the mound” every five games and keep his ball club competitive.

Moreso than anything or anyone else, Darvish is having the season that will be most memorable for 2018 being an utter disappointment.

IT’S NO LONGER possible to say that it’s early and things will turn around in coming games. Yet only the most delusional of Cubs fans think that Yu won’t turn out to be the bust of Chicago baseball, if not all of Major League Baseball for the year.

So big a bust that it’s a wonder we’re not getting more jokes about Morgana – the one-time busty “kissing bandit” of baseball who used to charge onto playing fields in mid-game to give a smooch to some unsuspecting ballplayer (and whom some players used to say had extremely greasy lips).

Can anyone top the memory of Morgana?

We’re getting close to the point where many of the local sports fans will be focusing more on the Chicago Bears, and the “story” on the South Side will be the brawl with the Baltimore Orioles and the Kansas City Royals to see which team will finish season ’18 with the American League’s worst record.

And the Second City’s baseball fandom will focus on the possibility of the Cubs holding on to competitiveness long enough to match up with the White Sox’ potential for future greatness that we might actually get a “City Series”-type World Series some time around 2020 or ’21 -- which would be a "first" in about 115 years.

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Differing circumstances for pitching pair not toiling on opposite sides of Chi

Yu Darvish is the Japanese/Iranian star ballplayer whom the Chicago Cubs picked up for this season – expecting him to be a star pitcher who helps the North Side ballclub get back to a second World Series in three years.

One-time Japanese star; now just a Cub

Instead, he’s become the 2018 baseball bust for Chicago – no wins and three losses in six games he’s pitched, with an awful earned run average of 6.00 thus far.

ADMITTEDLY, IT’S STILL early in the 2018 season (not quite one quarter of the way through a 162-game schedule), but now he’s on the disabled list. And for something that is bound to make him the subject of mockery from many a true baseball fan.

Yu has the flu.

Yes, Darvish missed his Tuesday start against the Miami Marlins after being diagnosed by a doctor with the parainfluenza virus. Which is the way the Cubs made sure to word it on their official statement confirming that Darvish is now on the 10-day disabled list – retroactive to Monday.

We won’t see Darvish pitch again this week or early next. We definitely won’t see him pitch when the Chicago White Sox make their annual trip Friday through Sunday to the North Side ballpark for an interleague series.

OF COURSE, WE’RE not going to see Danny Farquhar pitch either. In fact, we won’t see him pitch again at all during 2018.

But unlike Darvish who has the flu and (admittedly) probably feels a little bit drowsy and has nausea, Farquhar has a much more serious condition to cope with.

Farquhar is the ballplayer last month who was pitching for the White Sox and collapsed in the team dugout.

Could he be back for 2019?

Rushed to the Rush University Medical Center (located not far from the site of the original West Side Grounds where the Cubs used to play ball more than a century ago), he was diagnosed with a brain hemorrhage caused by a ruptured brain aneurysm.

BUT WE LEARNED this week that Farquhar was released from the hospital and is now resting at home with family.

The bad news is that his neurosurgeon says he has therapy to undergo in coming months, and that he’s through playing baseball for 2018.

But the statement the White Sox issued also made sure to say that the neurosurgeon believes there’s a good chance that Farquhar someday will take to a pitcher’s mound and play baseball again.

As in he could be back for Spring Training of 2019 in Glendale Heights, Ariz. He could be back with the White Sox at some point when all the supposedly star prospects will have developed and could be a part of a contending Chicago White Sox ball club.

THE POSITIVE SPIN for Danny is that he may miss out on a 2018 season that, in all likelihood, is going to be one of drudgery on the Sout’ Side of Chicago – a .281 winning percent and fewer than 10 victories during the season as of Tuesday.

If (and when) that day comes when Farquhar is called upon by the White Sox to pitch, I’m sure it will be a moment of a great emotional joy for fans everywhere (except, of course, for those deluded enough to root, root, root for the Cubbies).

Perhaps it is one of the reasons why I’m finding the White Sox more appealing, even in this particular era when the Cubs are deluding themselves into thinking they’re a ball club of historic significance like the New York Yankees and some fans are buying into the hype that it will be interesting to see how the Farquhar saga plays out.

Won't see either Danny or Yu this weekend at Wrigley

As opposed to the Cubs, whose “big money” pitcher is missing some ballgames because he has a headache and “the sniffles.”

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I was kidding, Quinn apparently isn’t

I was joking about the other day when I hinted that Chicagoans might pretend that White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy was JFK and stuff the ballot box – so to speak – in favor of getting him on the American League All-Star team.

But it seems that some people took such an idea seriously.

BECAUSE AMONG THE stunts being employed on the Internet this week to get more people to pick Peavy to be the final member of the team is a video message from none other than Gov. Pat Quinn.

Who apparently has seen how both President Barack Obama and the Daley family has been able to bolster their public credentials by rooting for the Sout’ Side team.

His video message proclaims himself to be a “die-hard” fan of the White Sox and of Peavy – which in-and-of itself shows you that something is off. Since the hard-core of White Sox fandom have been so appalled by Peavy in recent years that we’re still wondering if his performance this season is a fluke.

Will we seriously see a significant number of people picking Peavy, just because Pat Quinn tells us to?

THIS IS THE man whose approval ratings are so low that we have to wonder how he ever got elected in the first place (a mediocre opponent who repulsed Chicagoans is how, but that’s a topic for another day).

It just strikes me as laughable that anybody’s attempt to stuff a ballot box would include the image of Quinn. I’m wondering how many people will be so bored that they will disregard it.

Or will hear what Quinn has to say, and decide to pick somebody else just out of spite?

We’ll see for sure how all this turns out come Thursday, since this is the day that the “final all-star” is supposed to be announced. All those people being able to cast multiple votes on the Internet will not be able to do so after today.

WE’LL ALSO HAVE to see just how it works out to see that White Sox and St. Louis Cardinals fans are ganging up – with Sox fans being asked to pick Peavy and David Freese (the World Series hero last year) of the Cardinals to be the last member of the National League All-Star team.

All those Missouri and Southern Illinois baseball fans are being asked to reciprocate with a vote for Peavy.

Nonetheless, I’m not sure if that truly is enough to win something as superficial as this (which usually are the things we take the most seriously, sadly enough).

For even though Quinn tells us that Peavy has the most complete games in the American League and has held hitters to a .215 batting average this season, I wonder how many of those fans in Japan want to see their national sensation, Yu Darvish, pitch in the game.

DARVISH OF THE Texas Rangers (not the lawmen of old) also is among the ballplayers in line for the final spot on the American League roster – which will (hopefully) slap the National League all-stars silly when they play come Tuesday in Kansas City.

He will get that nationalistic vote. And his appearance on the team would boost Major League Baseball’s desires to gain more international fans. Peavy might well be standing in the way of progress!

Although as we prepare to find out just who gets to be on the All-Star Team, I must admit to having one question.

If we have the image of Peavy as John Kennedy – winning an election due to (ideologues desperately want to believe) stuffed ballot boxes from Chicago – then what does that make the Chicago Cubs?

ARE THEY THE equivalent of an unshaven Richard Nixon, looking deathly ill on national television?

That would certainly explain a lot about the quality of play they have shown this season!

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