Ongoing Attempts, August 8, 2024: From fun to the absolute worst

The Chicago White Sox are hopeless. They have distanced themselves from other terrible teams, those like the Colorado Rockies and Miami Marlins. They have a historic losing streak and a chance at a historically bad season.

At this level of bad, you might expect that the White Sox have been at the bottom of the league for a long time now. You might expect years of ineptitude, a franchise that has been without hope for many seasons.

That's not the case with these White Sox, at least not really. We have known for the last couple years that the White Sox were a dysfunctional mess. But before that, and even with grumpy old Tony La Russa sucking the funny out of the room as the manager, the White Sox still felt like an exciting team.

Take a quick look at that 2022 roster. Dylan Cease was there dealing, with his mustache in all of its glory. Luis Robert and Eloy Jimenez were yucking it up in the outfield and putting up good offensive numbers. Tim Anderson was batting .300 at the top of the lineup. Liam Hendriks was closing games. Johnny Cueto and Elvis Andrus were there having fun. It hadn't all come together yet, but that team had potential to be exciting.

Between injuries, La Russa, and perhaps some early signs of the demise ahead, that team arguably underachieved with an 81-81 finish. Maybe some cracks were revealing themselves, and even with exciting young talent, maybe this wasn't the start of a winning generation of White Sox teams. But did anyone really think that this would be the obvious worst team in baseball less than two years later?

Baseball teams generally change their fortunes over a period of years. Some teams still surprise us, but less so on the extreme ends of the league. If asked a couple years ago, you might have reasonably guessed at some of the other worst teams in the league this season. Maybe you would have said the White Sox, if for no other reason than the karma of Jerry Reinsdorf talking La Russa out of retirement to manage. But even if some of the warning signs were there, this has been a harsh and relatively quick fall from grace on the south side.

Do you want to manage the White Sox?

In a move that was obvious but probably won’t make a huge difference, the White Sox finally fired manager Pedro Grifol. His tenure was likely hopeless from the start. In part, that seems like it was due to Grifol being in over in his head. But the other part of the hopelessness equation was the sad state of this franchise.

That will now be someone else’s problem as the White Sox try to find a new manager. Grady Sizemore, known to many people my age as one of the highest rated players on video games during his playing days, will have the gig on an interim basis. Maybe Sizemore will be a good coach, but for the time being, this feels like a flailing move from a flailing franchise.

Big league jobs are scarce. People with aspirations to manage a Major League team don’t have the luxury of being picky. That said, it’s hard to imagine a less appealing job at the moment. A bad owner, a gutted roster, and a historic level of losing. That’s a tough sell.

Shrinking leads in the standings

The first place teams across baseball this season have remain uncharged for long periods of time. Many divisions have been top heavy, holding steady with seven and eight game leads between first and second place.

Just as the calendar is shifting towards the back half of the season and there are hints of fall, some of those commanding division leads are starting to shift. Take the AL Central. Having lost seven straight games and both ends of a double header against the Minnesota Twins yesterday, the Cleveland Guardians only have a 1.5 game lead.

And don’t look now, but the Los Angeles Dodgers are no longer cruising to another division title in the NL West.

Injuries tell a big part of the story. The Dodgers will have some help coming for their pitching staff and Mookie Betts returning to the lineup. But even with those wrinkles, I wasn’t expecting this to be a close division race. Things will certainly be more interesting down the stretch if it remains in play.

Ultimately, I’m still weirdly finding myself rooting for the Dodgers in the interest of watching Shohei Ohtani in the World Series. That’s without mentioning the recent return of Freddie Freeman to the team in the midst of a terrifying health situation for his three-year-old son. So, go Dodgers?

Everything OK, Atlanta?

The Braves lost their sixth straight game on Friday night, courtesy of none other than those hapless Colorado Rockies. Atlanta will headline any stories about the rash of injuries across the league this season. Even so, they were supposed to have the depth of talent on both sides to contend anyway.

They still might, but it’s proving to be quite a challenge. And in the midst of that losing streak, one gets the sense that it’s starting to feel bleak.

There’s plenty of time for Atlanta to right the ship, even with a battered roster. But as a longtime Rockies fan, let me tell you: any more losses to this team are going to make the situation feel more and more dire.

• You just can’t trust those bullpen guys. I mostly abandoned any ego or take-committed feelings upon my retirement from the blogging game, but one beat I have always been right about: relievers are impossible to predict. Your latest example: one year removed from an all-star season, Giants’ closer Camilo Doval has been sent down to the minors.

• Kyle Schwarber lit up the Dodgers. He launched four home runs in their series this week, and he was hitting them all over the field. Entrenched as the lead-off hitter in Philly, he’s got an 148 OPS+ this season and is well on pace to add another 40 home run season to his career.

• At least it would make things interesting for the White Sox. In running down five candidates for the manager job, R.J. Anderson floats the possibility of an Ozzie Guillen return. I’m sure he would handle the growing pains with the usual poise that we associate with Ozzie.

• Jackson Holliday, take two. The expectations we place on top prospects to be great right away can be a little absurd. That was a reality check during Holliday’s first stint with the Baltimore Orioles. Things are going much better since his second call-up, as Jay Jaffe writes over at FanGraphs.

• So this is why people chase the high ones. CJ Abrams hit an absurd home run on a pitch that was about face level.

The series are starting to feel more important. It will be the playoff stretch before we know it. This is the fun time to be a baseball fan. Unless you’re a White Sox fan, that is.