Chicago baseball leadership may remain the same, regardless of ’16

The Chicago sports scene usually is focused on football by this time of year, what with both baseball clubs usually being out of the running. Only the hardcore (such as myself) care by the time Game Number 150-whatever of the regular season comes around.
 

Will Theo get bubble-gum card as a Cub?

But with the Bears playing in a funk (who knows if they’ll ever win a game), perhaps we should be paying attention to who will be leading our city’s two ball clubs in future seasons.

FOR THE CUBS, the guy who actually is the general manager’s boss learned he got an extension of his contract.

Theo Epstein, the Ivy League-educated guy who led the Boston Red Sox to a pair of World Series titles and a string of contending teams, learned he’ll get a raise – from $8.5 million this year up to about $10 million per season for the next five years.

Not quite the rate you’d pay for a star slugger or ace pitcher. But certainly good money that I’m sure most of us would consider to be an unattainable fortune.

That’s what Epstein gets for putting together ball clubs that won a division title in 2015, then followed it up with a 100-plus wins team that may well have a shot at winning the Cubs their first World Series title in 108 seasons.

HECK, IF THEY even make it to the World Series, it would be a first in 71 seasons for the Cubs.

 

Will he, or won't he, return?

So I suppose the Cubs should be excused for not waiting until after the World Series to give Epstein, their president of baseball operations, the big prize. He’s already accomplished far more than past general managers such as Andy MacPhail, John Holland and Dallas Green.

I particularly remember the latter as the guy who came from managing a World Series-winning team in Philadelphia (the first Phillies team to ever win the “big one”) to take over leadership of the Cubs. Remember that the Cubs were “coming out of hibernation!,” only to peak with that ground ball going through first baseman Leon Durham’s legs.

 

The reason he won't be fired!

Epstein has quite a negative legacy to overcome. He may well have overcome it, even if the Cubs technically fail and never actually win the World Series. He's big enough that he can get away with publicly backing Hillary Clinton's presidential bid (or so says the Sun-Times' Sneed), even though Cubs ownership has made it clear they're backing Donald Trump.

BUT EPSTEIN ISN’T the only person who has the potential to stick around Chicago.

For White Sox field manager Robin Ventura learned the same day that his fate is in his own hands. White Sox management has no intention of firing him – even though the bulk of the five seasons he’s been in charge have wound up being losing seasons.

As things stand now, it would take an absolute winning streak against Minnesota Twins this weekend for the White Sox to finish at .500. The Twins may be a weak ball club, but even they’re capable of winning a game occasionally.

The official line is that it’s up to Ventura himself to decide if he wants to return. His contract expires at season’s end, and he’s remaining quiet about his fate. No word on what he has been getting paid to manage in recent years – other than the presumption that it was far less than the $8.5 million he peaked at as a ballplayer during his stint with the New York Yankees.

WHICH MAKES ME suspect he’s getting pressured to quit. To give up. To walk away, in some sort of face-saving move. He’ll be able to deny that he was fired for his 373-432 win/loss record – a .464 winning percentage. Particularly pathetic because it started in 2012 with the White Sox as a contending team.

There are many White Sox fans who are eager to see him go. They want to see someone get their head chopped off as a gesture that someone is being punished for the losing Sox ways.

But it seems that Ventura gets bonus points for the fact that he is the greatest third baseman ever to play for the White Sox – which actually says more about the low level of quality that has manned the “hot corner” than it does about Ventura’s ball playing abilities.

It also means there’s the potential for more of the same in 2017. As in a Cubs team that contends for a division title and a White Sox team that stirs up dreams of an all-Chicago World Series – a fantasy that may take many more decades for our sporting scene to achieve! But may come sooner than the next Bears’ Super Bowl!

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EXTRA: Barry Bonds w/ White Sox; while Robin Ventura became Cubs star?

Major League Baseball will have its annual summer draft in a few days, by which teams divide up all the college and high school ball players to see who gets to play for which professional team.

You can go ahead and give all the analysis to try to figure out who the best amateur ballplayer is out there – one who could actually be good enough to make the Chicago Cubs worthwhile someday.

BUT THE REALITY of the draft process is that it is a crapshoot. An educated guess. Some ballplayers with all the tools and credentials never make it through the minor leagues.

Would Cubs fans have forgetten Santo?

Which is why I found amusing a recent Sporting News story that gave the biggest draft-day screw-up for each major league team. As in a case where a team picked one player who never amounted to much, while a future star got picked later by somebody else.

Such as 1985 when the Chicago White Sox could have had a chance at Barry Bonds, the son of 1970s-era outfielder Bobby Bonds who went on to hit all those home runs – and tick off so many people with his surly personality.

Instead, the White Sox went with Kurt Brown, a catcher, who never made it beyond the minor leagues.

I FIND THE Cubs’ draft gaffe to be more amusing. It was 1989, and the Cubs actually won a division title that season while picking Ty Griffin, an infielder from Georgia Tech who also had played for the U.S. Olympic Baseball Team just the year before.

Griffin was supposed to be the guy who could have kept the Cubs competitive for years to come. Except that he never made it to the major leagues.

While the White Sox was able to get Robin Ventura, an Oklahoma State University star who became a White Sox star and is now their manager, because the Cubs took a pass on him.

Although the Sporting News’ study found that other teams’ worst picks wound up to the benefit of the Chicago baseball scene.

FOR BOTH THE Philadelphia Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals, their gaffe was in 1989 when they could have had Frank Thomas – but took Jeff Jackson and Paul Coleman respectively.

10-1 w/ Toronto this season

Then, there was 2010 when the Arizona Diamondbacks could have had pitcher Chris Sale, but instead picked pitcher Barret Loux.

Sale, of course, has become the White Sox’ top pitcher, and had quite a game last week in his comeback from injury.

As for Loux? He never signed with Arizona, but has played some minor league ball, and is now on the roster of the Iowa Cubs – albeit on their disabled list.

THEN AGAIN, THE reality of the draft is that some of the most interesting picks can come in the lower rounds from players who are presumed to be roster-filler, but wind up amounting to something significant.

Take the 1998 draft when the White Sox used the 38th round pick to take a pitcher from a junior college in Missouri. A year-and-a-half later, he was in Chicago to stay, and this year has a 10-1 record with a 2.10 earned run average.

Who'd have thought then that Mark Buehrle would amount to anything lasting in baseball?

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EXTRA: 2013 truly historic, in a depressing way, for our baseball fans

We can now forget about 1948 and the incredibly awful professional baseball that was played on both sides of Chicago that season.

The reason Robin is still employed in Chicago

For the record books will officially record 2013 as being even worse.

WITH THE CHICAGO White Sox being defeated Friday 6-1 by the Kansas City Royals and the Chicago Cubs going down to a 7-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, the two teams now have 192 losses combined.

The two teams back in 1948 had 191 losses. So with two games remaining for each club, this is now the worst combined record we fans of Chicago baseball have had to be subjected to.

Not that losing is unique to Chicago baseball. Both ball clubs have put versions of themselves throughout the past century-plus of play that were dreadful and disgusting and thoroughly besmirched our city’s reputation with their awful play.

But there usually is something of a split. One ball club is usually a bit better than the other. We don’t get subjected to the combined crud all at once.

ALTHOUGH IN THE case of White Sox fans who went into this season thinking there might be a slight chance their favorite ball club could somehow improve on last season’s performance (they almost won a division title), the disgust level is more intense.

Then again, White Sox fans usually get more disgusted than their Cubs fans counterparts – who this year seem more disgusted with the fact that Old Style-brand beer won’t be sold at the ballpark anymore than the godawful play of the Cubs.

Keep this fact in mind. I’m sure some Cubs fans are going to take some perverse pleasure in the fact that the White Sox have a chance to actually lose 100 games this season (if they lose both Saturday AND Sunday to the Royals).

But despite how badly the White Sox played this year, it wasn’t until a couple of days ago that it became definite that the Cubs would have a better record.

We all feel this way these days

THE CUBS ARE a team that could wind up losing 96 games this year – which stinks just as badly as the Delta House collective grade point average in the film "Animal House."

In fact, just as how the Delta GPA was the lowest in Faber College history (think actor John Vernon’s “Dean Wormer” character in a rant), Chicago baseball’s loss total was the worst in Second City baseball history.

Somehow, I suspect many Chicago baseball fans are going to have the same reaction as Delta pledge Flounder when they recall this season! If they recall it at all – it is officially the worst combined effort in my nearly half-century of life.

Soon to be among unemployed?

So now, we’ll spend this weekend seeing if the White Sox actually hit the 100-loss mark (which would be one game better than the Cubs’ 101-loss record of 2012).

NOT THAT I’M taking much pleasure in that fact. Losing stinks, no matter what form it takes!

There’s also the fate of the management. The White Sox let it be known Friday that manager Robin Ventura will be retained to fulfill the final year of his contract in 2014. It seems that near division title of ’12 balances out the disgust of this season. Next year will determine whether Ventura ever gets a managerial post with another team when the day comes that he is finished with the White Sox.

And as for the Cubs, my gut says that manager Dale Sveum is gone come Monday.

He’ll get the blame for the stink of two Cubs seasons that no one in their right mind should have expected anything from. Except that Cubs fans are delusional enough to think that Joe Girardi would ever contemplate leaving a New York Yankees managerial post to be a part of the Cubs.

TEAMS THAT LOSE 101 and (possibly) 95 games are dreadful. And that may be the ultimate commentary about the 2013 version of the Chicago White Sox and however many games they wind up losing – they played themselves down to Chicago Cubs-level baseball.

Ugh!!?!

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Am I alone in thinking that Alexi Ramirez’ lost home run in the sixth inning of Friday night’s loss to Kansas City is somehow symbolic of how disgusting the 2013 season was for the fans at U.S. Cellular Field? I still can’t contemplate the catch Alex Gordon made of that home run, or the sound of White Sox broadcaster Ken “Hawk” Harrelson having to “take back” his home run call after he had put the run on the board!

EXTRA: Ryne a Phillie or a Cubbie?

RYNO: The Phillie-in-training

Ryne Sandberg is a product of the Philadelphia Phillies organization.

He signed out of North Central High School in Spokane, Wash., back in 1978, played with assorted Phillies minor league affiliates and got in his first major league appearances with Philadelphia near the end of the 1981 season (one hit in six at-bats, 13 games played overall).

AND ON FRIDAY, the Philadelphia National League ball club named the 53-year-old Sandberg as their new manager. He gets to finish out the season, which thus far hasn’t been much better than either of the Chicago ball clubs.
 

RYNO: The Cubbie all-star

Sandberg finally gets to achieve his dream of being manager of a major league ball club. It would seem that the Phillies can claim to have promoted one of their own to the top spot – someone who has been with the organization at every level.

If only it weren’t for those couple of decades that Sandberg spent with the Chicago Cubs – both as an infielder whose play was good enough to get him into the Baseball Hall of Fame and as a manager of Cubs minor league affiliates. Maybe we can pretend the “Cubs” never happened! Although acquiring Sandberg as a minor league throw-in to balance out a trade of aging Phillies shortstop Larry Bowa for younger Cubs shortstop Ivan Dejesus was one of the few times the Cubs did something right!

Yes, there are those Cubs fans on Friday who are disgusted that one of their favorite team’s most popular ballplayers is now in charge of another team – and that they’ll have to see him as “the enemy” when the Phillies come to Chicago Aug. 30-Sept. 1.


TRAMMELL & WHITAKER: Ought to be in Hall

PARTICULARLY SINCE SANDBERG made it clear during his time in Chicago he wanted to be manager of the Chicago Cubs, which the new ownership made it clear they wanted no part of.

Could Sandberg really have been any worse than Herman Franks, Jim Essian or Jim Lefebvre in terms of leading the Cubs to dismal won-loss records? Probably not.

But there is one reason that Sandberg probably is better off never having been responsible for the home team lineup card at Wrigley Field. He would have had a lot of losses to his record, and that could have diminished his reputation.


VENTURA: Was '12 or '13 the fluke?

Just think of Alan Trammell, the one-time Detroit Tigers shortstop whom some fans think also belongs in the Hall of Fame (along with his counterpart second baseman Lou Whitaker).

HE LATER GOT a chance to manage the Tigers for three seasons – including that atrocious season in Detroit when the Tigers lost 119 games Which ought to put the trashy seasons we’re seeing this year in Chicago into perspective; one-time White Sox third baseman-turned-manager Robin Ventura isn't anywhere near as awful this season, and was far better last year.

How many Tigers fans can reminisce about Trammell and the ‘80s teams (a World Series victory in ’84 and a division title in ’87) without also remembering the year their team came within a single game of losing more than the 1962 New York Mets?

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Not sure who gets to “championship” level first – Guillen or Ventura

I’m starting to wonder if the Chicago White Sox are determined to make me look like a “genius” when it comes to baseball prognostication.

For I’m the guy who used this very weblog last November to predict that Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen would have a championship-level ballclub before either Chicago team would.

THE CHICAGO CUBS have done their part to make me look like I know what I’m talking about. But it has been the White Sox who threatened to make me look bad.

For while the Marlins are in last place in their division, and there is speculation in Miami that Guillen could lose his job at season’s end because of the dismal performance, the White Sox are in a pennant race.

Sort of!

I don’t know what to make of this ballclub that seems absolutely determined to throw away what could be a playoff-bound team and turn itself into a second-place team that nobody will remember.

AND NO, WHITE Sox fans aren’t like those of the Cubs. Nobody will remember 2012 with the same “aura” that Cubs fans think the 1969 team deserves for collapsing in September to the New York Mets.

This was literally a team that managed to go from a 3-game lead over the Detroit Tigers one week ago Monday to a team that is on the brink of baseball destruction -- they've literally lost their last five ball games.

A 3-game lead with 2 ½ weeks in the regular season to go ought to be safe. It ought to be a case of just running out the clock, so to speak. Just keep playing winning ball.

Which certainly didn’t happen this weekend with the White Sox this weekend in Anaheim, Calif., with the Los Angeles Angels showing why they still deserve to be thought of as contenders in their division while the White Sox have us scratching our heads wondering, “Wha’ happened?”

TWICE THIS SEASON, the Tigers have managed to “catch” the White Sox and tie them, only to have the White Sox suddenly surge back into the lead. Could the third time be “the charm” for Detroit? Or do the White Sox really have what it takes to put Guillen’s spirit in their past?

The only reason Detroit isn’t in first place all by themselves right now is because the Minnesota Twins managed to whomp on the Tigers in the first of two games they played Sunday, then pull off a second victory in extra innings. Thank the almighty for the Twins that the White Sox can claim to have a one-game lead over the Tigers.

My prediction would turn out to be completely wrong if the White Sox win their division this season, while the Marlins lose so badly and Guillen winds up having to take the blame for a dismal season (which really shouldn’t be blamed on him, but will be anyway).

I make that latter comment not because I’m an Ozzie-apologist, but because I comprehend the scattershot approach to baseball often taken by the Marlins’ organization.

THIS IS THE team that employed one-time Chicago Cub catcher Joe Girardi as their manager for a season and he did well enough to be National League manager of the year. Yet he got fired for displeasing owner Jeffrey Loria – the same man who now is looking for someone to blame for the crummy ballclub that likely turned off people from wanting to visit their new stadium.

And as for those who will want to claim that Guillen will be gone because of what he said earlier this season about Fidel Castro, that’s nonsense. A 66-87 won-loss record as of Sunday is more significant than anything else. It’s the old baseball adage proven true – you’re only as smart as your batting average (or earned run average, or winning percentage).

But what about the White Sox and if they manage to fall short this season?

One-time third baseman-turned-manager Robin Ventura will be back in 2013 regardless of what happens – although many of the veteran ballplayers likely will be let go as part of a cost-cutting/youth movement.

WHICH COULD COMPLICATE Ventura’s chances of overseeing a winning ballclub in future seasons. This season may well turn out to be Ventura’s best chance of turning his White Sox stint into a winning ballclub.

That makes me wonder if there’s still a chance my 2011 post-season prediction can come true!

For Joe Girardi went on to manage the New York Yankees, who won a World Series title under his leadership in 2009 and remains the head of a perennially-contending ballclub.

Could Guillen wind up going somewhere else and leading that team to a championship before the White Sox can finally get their act together for an entire season – instead of five-sixths of one like they seem to want to do in 2012?

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Ventura best ballplayer, Sveum most experienced (sort of) manager. Matheny most likely to succeed during ‘12?

Now that the Chicago Cubs have let it be known that Dale Sveum will become their new field manager, it seems that the ballclubs that people across the state of Illinois root for all have new leadership.

Except for maybe those few far northern Illinois types who curmudgeonly root for the Milwaukee Brewers. Then again, I’m willing to ignore Wisconsin until their residents can come to their senses on Gov. Scott Walker.

BUT FOR NOW, back to baseball.

Where the Cubs announced that Sveum will leave those Brewers to become the manager, running the team on the field for new baseball boss Theo Epstein – who’s going to be able to claim a serious baseball coup.

For it seems that Epstein’s old ballclub, the Boston Red Sox, seriously thought they were getting Sveum to run their ball club.

But the Brewers’ hitting coach decided that trying to break a loser tradition like the Cubs have is preferable to getting involved in that insane asylum of a ballclub that perpetually finishes second to the New York Yankees (2004 was truly an aberration).

SOME WILL SNICKER. Some with pooh pooh the situation. While I can’t help but wonder about the new managers for the Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox.

Which will draw their own comparisons. Because on paper, the Cubs got the most experienced manager – which isn’t saying much.

For Sveum had a brief stint at the end of 2008 as acting manager of the Milwaukee Brewers. That’s it.

But that is more than Cardinals manager Mike Matheny, who was a minor league instructor for the ballclub as his reward for being a part of that Cardinals team of ’04 that got overwhelmed by the Red Sox in the World Series that year.

EVEN THAT IS more than Robin Ventura of the White Sox, who hadn’t been in professional baseball at all since hanging it up as a ballplayer in 2004.

But that is his reward for being the White Sox’ best third baseman ever – which is saying even less than calling Sveum the most-experienced manager of the trio. It is a sign of just how awful the White Sox have been at the “Number 5” position during their century of existence.

There’s a reason why White Sox team historian Rich Lindberg once wrote a team history (just prior to them winning their first division title in 1983 under manager Tony LaRussa) that was entitled “Who’s on Third?”

I kind of find it hilarious that all three of these managerial slots are going to guys who have never managed a major league ballclub before. That’s going to be a lot of rookies in the dugout – although those of you who want to believe the “conspiracy theories” that LaRussa will wind up in some sort of “adviser” position with the White Sox to help guide Ventura may want to think differently.

THAT’S ALSO A lot of white guys getting chances to prove themselves, at a time when the sport faces charges that it doesn’t do enough to advance the opportunities for non-white guys who can no longer get their bats around quickly enough on a 95-mph fastball for base hits.

So what will the cheap rhetoric be like come 2012 as all of our baseball fans try to find new ways to taunt each other?

I can sense that the White Sox will be the ones to boast of how talented their manager used to be on the field (although like many other Chicago ballplayers, he got his only crack at a World Series playing elsewhere – 2000 with the New York Mets, in their losing effort to the Yankees).

Sveum, who played for the Brewers and a few other ball clubs, and Matheny, who was a reserve catcher for the Cardinals, can’t come close.

YET I’M SURE Cubs fans will claim they got the guy who was desired by those carmine-colored sox, as opposed to the pale hose manager who likely wouldn’t have been even considered by any other ballclub.

It will be the source of our bickering for the next year – that and trying to argue which ball club has a better reject that we wish we could get rid of – Alfonso Soriano of the Cubs or Adam Dunn of the White Sox?

Both of them have monster-contracts that make them untradeable unless their Chicago team wants to pay virtually their entire huge salary to play ball elsewhere.

But if Dunn can come even close to matching those stats of yesteryear (which he did as recently as 2010 with the Washington Nationals), things could be very interesting at U.S. Cellular Field in ’12. Much more than at Wrigley Field.

BUT LET’S BE honest. It may well be a long-shot for both teams.

It could turn out that Matheny manages to take the World Series champion Cardinals and keep them in contention to the point where they make a serious challenge to repeating.

Why do I get the feeling Matheny will be the big winner here. Him, and perhaps former Cubs infielder Ryne Sandberg.

Wouldn’t it be funny if the Baseball Hall of Fame member were to somehow get the Milwaukee Brewers managerial post and lead the Cerveceros to their first league pennant in 30 years?

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