WHITE SOX HEADLINES OF AUGUST

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1 WHITE SOX HEADLINES OF AUGUST 23, 2016 Young White Sox arms get chance down stretch Scott Merkin, MLB.com White Sox: Alex Avila will begin rehab assignment Monday in Triple-A Paul Roumeliotis, CSN Chicago Kenny Williams on White Sox: We ll get it together #WhiteSoxTalk, CSN Chicago White Sox sticking with James Shields in rotation for now Paul Skrbina, Chicago Tribune White Sox veteran Justin Morneau has hockey in his blood Chris Kuc, Chicago Tribune White Sox offense again has been a major letdown John Grochowski, Chicago Sun-Times Former suburban pitcher finds his calling in coaching Scot Gregor, Daily Herald Baffoe: Kenny Williams is talking, so you know it s going poorly for the White Sox Tim Baffoe, CBS Chicago Kenny Williams is doing White Sox fans a disservice with latest comments Lauren Comitor, The Athletic MLB Rumor Central: Will James Shields remain in White Sox rotation Doug Mittler, ESPN.com Young White Sox arms get chance down stretch With club out of contention, opportunity is knocking for developing pitcher By Scott Merkin / MLB.com August 22st, 2016 CHICAGO -- Chris Beck entered last Thursday's game in Cleveland during the seventh inning, with the White Sox protecting a one-run lead against the American League Central leaders. Beck was making career appearance No. 9 out of the bullpen, leaving venerable White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper to view the moment in a slightly different manner. "I said, 'Opportunity is knocking on his door right here,'" Cooper said. "Whoever we are bringing in is getting an opportunity to show us what they can do. "I'd like to win as many games as we possibly can and put all the work in on a daily basis with all the guys with whatever work that they need, which is no different than any other day during any other season. Give everyone the opportunities they are looking for and find out who can help us win. That's it. Who can help us win?" It seems hard to imagine a little more than three months ago the White Sox had a six-game division lead and postseason visions following a start. Now, they sit two games away from a Top 10 protected first-round pick in the 2017 Draft, playing home games on Tuesday and Wednesday against the Phillies, who are currently 10th. They have reached the "land of opportunity" stage at 59-64, although as Cooper pointed out, the White Sox certainly want to win. Young pitchers such as Beck, Michael Ynoa, Tommy Kahnle and Jacob Turner, who certainly could have played some part on a contender, are getting extended looks in the bullpen leading up to setup man Nate Jones and closer David Robertson.

2 These chances partially come out of necessity with the trade of Zach Duke to the Cardinals and injuries sustained by Jake Petricka and Zach Putnam. But it's also a function of the season's turn. Carson Fulmer, the organization's top prospect per MLBPipeline.com, who has pitched out of the White Sox bullpen this season, is being stretched out at Triple-A Charlotte to get big league starts in September. This situation might not have played out so soon if Chicago stood as a prime postseason contender. White Sox veterans fall in the same sort of opportunity stage, with general manager Rick Hahn and his staff assessing who fits into the plans moving forward, or who has value if the team moves toward a rebuild. It's not the scenario entertained back in May when the team was cruising, but it's the one it is handling. "The last few years can wear on you," Cooper said. "The only reason we come to the freaking park every day is for us to win, and when we don't, I don't think anybody is happy about it. "When you win, there's no feeling like it. When you lose, that's a whole other end of that spectrum. Right now, we are not where we want to be, but everybody from the top down is determined to get it right. I've seen the best of times, I've seen some difficult times. And right now, we've been in a tough time. But you gotta move on to the next day as best you can." White Sox: Alex Avila will begin rehab assignment Monday in Triple-A By Paul Roumeliotis / CSN Chicago August 22nd, 2016 Alex Avila will begin his rehab assignment on Monday night in Triple-A Charlotte. The White Sox catcher has been on the disabled list with a right hamstring injury since July 6. Avila went out for a rehab assignment on July 20 but suffered a setback. I probably tried to rush back a little too quick and wasn t ready, Avila said. It's frustrating. I d like to be back, but you have to let nature take its course." In late April, Avila landed on the 15-day DL with the same injury while running the bases in a home game against the Texas Rangers. Avila signed a one-year, $2.5 million contract with the White Sox in the offseason. Kenny Williams on White Sox: We ll get it together By #WhiteSoxTalk / CSN Chicago August 22nd, 2016 After starting off the season on a high note, the White Sox haven't had things go their way since then. The White Sox went from being one of the top teams in the league toward the beginning of the season to, currently, No. 20 in our latest MLB Power Rankings. White Sox Executive Vice President Kenny Williams commented on the year and what went wrong. "We've got to get some things together," Williams said on Monday at the Field of Greens golf outing. "As everyone knows by now, we started off very well. Unfortunately things kind of unraveled and we lost some key members of our bullpen which didn't help and kind of spear-headed that unraveling. "But we'll get it together and come out of this swinging."

3 White Sox sticking with James Shields in rotation for now By Paul Skrbina / Chicago Tribune August 22nd, 2016 James Shields has been a tale of woe and whoa since joining the White Sox in early June. That's the right-hander's seesaw story, and the Sox, at least for now, are sticking with him. Manager Robin Ventura said after Shields' latest implosion Friday during which he allowed seven runs, eight hits, three walks and three home runs in 4 2/3 innings of a 9-0 loss to the A's that Shields hadn't yet worked his way out of the rotation. He's scheduled to start Wednesday against the Phillies, though his days in that role this season could be numbered once September call-ups arrive. The team is stretching out Carson Fulmer at Triple-A Charlotte, and several others could make spot starts in Shields' place. "He's having an off period," Ventura said. "There's stuff there. You can see it. "There's times where a team will hit him around and he has been able to fight his way back. He's had the roughest stretch when he first got here, and he seemed to calm those waters and figure it out. He has the ability to do that." But will he? Shields' roughest stretch arguably wasn't his first three games with the Sox, in which he had a ERA and allowed 24 hits, including five home runs, in 8 2/3 innings after he was acquired from the Padres. That doesn't include the eight hits, 10 runs and four walks Shields yielded in 2 2/3 innings in his last start with the Padres, prompting the team's executive chairman and co-owner, Ron Fowler, to label the pitcher an "embarrassment." No, Shields' worst stretch could be the one he's on now. In four August starts spanning 14 innings, Shields has a ERA. Worse, opponents are batting.452 against him with a OPS. He has given up nine home runs, walked eight and struck out just five while allowing 33 hits and hitting three batters. His worst outing Aug. 7 against the Orioles left him screaming into his glove time and again. He lasted 1 1/3 innings, allowed eight runs and six hits, walked two, hit two batters and watched the Orioles launch four home runs. "I was pretty much bad all around," Shields said. "I didn't do my job." Dioner Navarro, who also caught Shields for five years with the Rays, has been searching for answers. "I'm trying to get the guy to help us out because I know he can," Navarro said after Friday's loss. "I guess everything is going wrong." And it comes on the heels of everything seemingly going right for "Big Game" James, who looked in July to have rediscovered the moxie that earned him that moniker. That on-again month saw Shields hold hitters to a.189 average. His ERA was 1.78, and he allowed just 24 hits and five home runs in 35 1/3 innings. Walks continued to be a problem, though; he had 11 against 16 strikeouts.

4 Though he has been quick to acknowledge when he has been bad and sometimes why (pitch location, walks, giving up home runs) Shields offered no such explanation for his string of strong July starts. He said his health is fine too. "Maybe luck? I don't know," he said after holding the Cubs to four hits and no runs in 7 2/3 innings July 26. "Honestly, there's not much of a difference when I'm pitching now compared to what I was doing before. The only (explanation) I can give is staying ahead of hitters and having better fastball command." No "woe is me" from Shields. White Sox veteran Justin Morneau has hockey in his blood By Chris Kuc / Chicago Tribune August 22nd, 2016 When he was a kid, there was something about having an object hurtling toward him at 100 mph that appealed to Justin Morneau. The White Sox veteran grew up in New Westminster, British Columbia a stone's throw from Vancouver and had a passion for baseball and hockey. On the field, he was a catcher. On the ice, a goaltender. "That says it all," Morneau said with a laugh. Like most kids growing up in Canada, the dream was to play professional hockey and someday hoist the Stanley Cup. At the same time, Morneau was adept at catching and hitting a baseball and thus a twosport star was born. "When baseball season ended, hockey season started and when hockey season ended, baseball season started," Morneau, 35, said. "I really had a love for both of them." Morneau is likely the only big-league baseball player whose lists as one of his childhood idols Andy Moog, a longtime NHL goaltender who played for the Oilers, Stars, Bruins and Canadiens in the s. "I always wanted to be a goalie from the time I was 5," Morneau said. "The first time I put the pads on, I wanted to do it. My dad didn't let me until I was 11. He kept figuring I'd grow out of it, but I never did. He finally gave in. I don't know what it was, but I loved Andy Moog from the time I was little and as I got older it was Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek. It was a real obsession in the winter time." "The 5:30 in the morning practices. I wouldn't have to set my alarm," Morneau added. "It was fun to me to get up at 4:30 and go play hockey before school. That's how much I loved it." Morneau was good enough to be on the roster as the team's third-string goalie of the 1998 Portland Winterhawks who captured the Memorial Cup as champions of the Canadian Hockey League. In describing his goaltending style, Morneau said with a laugh, "I was all over the place. I was learning to play goalie when everyone was starting to play the butterfly so I kind of taught myself how to do it. And then I attempted to do a little Dominik Hasek and I turned out just flopping around like a dying fish." But there was something about being between the pipes, much like being behind the plate, that appealed to Morneau. "I liked that I could control the game," he said. "A lot of the game depended on what I did and the same thing with catching, you control the game and control what pitches are called and the whole field is in front

5 of you. You're kind of the general. In hockey, you could be the difference-maker in every single game that you play and I liked that challenge." Morneau eventually came to a crossroads and had to determine which sport to focus on to make a run as a professional. He ended up in the dirt. "I knew I was better at baseball," Morneau said. "And being a goalie, there are only 60 guys in the league. When I was drafted (by the Twins in 1999), I was a catcher and there were always options to move to first or DH. There were a few more opportunities in baseball. If you're only one of two on a team, it's pretty hard. "If I wasn't good enough to make it (in hockey) when I was 16 or 17, it's hard to imagine that you'd be good enough when you're 20 or 21. I don't know if the writing was on the wall, but it was kind of put in front of me that... baseball was probably the wise decision. I loved playing both of them so it wasn't like it was a second choice to play baseball." Four All-Star Game appearances and being named the American League's most valuable player in 2006 would seem to indicate that baseball was the correct choice. After missing the first half of this season while recovering from left elbow surgery, Morneau signed with the Sox and is hitting.275 with four home runs and 15 RBIs. These days, Morneau's ice time is limited to skating with his 4-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter. He has had them in skating lessons since they were 3 and Morneau said hockey "is something that will be big in our house." Morneau counts Hawks defenseman Brent Seabrook as a close friend but said he won't be changing allegiances from the Canucks to the Hawks. "I'm a fan of a lot of the guys on the Blackhawks, but being a Canucks fan that would be like an anti-fan cheering for my team from Vancouver and then switching to Chicago," Morneau said. "It was the same thing in Minnesota: I told the people, 'If you grow up in Minnesota you're a Vikings fan and if you move to Wisconsin you're not going to become a Packers fan.' It's the same thing here, if you're a Bears fan and all of a sudden you start living near Green Bay, you're not going to become a Packers fan. I'm loyal to my roots." White Sox offense again has been a major letdown By John Grochowski / Chicago Sun-Times August 22nd, 2016 The White Sox entered this season hoping their augmented offense would boost them into the playoffs. Instead, all the offseason changes they made have boosted their scoring only marginally. The Sox have risen from 3.84 runs per game last season to 4.01 this season, but the American League average is up from 4.39 to At.52 runs below the AL average, the Sox basically have stood still after being.55 below the AL average last season. Here are a few numbers behind the Sox offensive doldrums: Third baseman Todd Frazier: Frazier has brought power, with a team-leading 31 home runs, but the rest of his offensive game has dropped off. Frazier had a.255 batting average,.309 on-base percentage,.498 slugging percentage and.806 OPS for the Reds last season. With the Sox, he has dropped to.212/.295/.454/.749. His 4.5 runs created per game aren t far off his 4.8 of last season and 4.9 for his career. A lineup of nine Fraziers would be expected to average 4.5 runs right on the AL average.

6 First baseman Jose Abreu: After hitting 36 homers in 2014 and 30 last season, Abreu has slid to 16 so far this season. He s still the Sox top overall offensive threat with a.785 OPS, 115 OPS+ (which adjusts for ballpark and normalizes so 100 represents an average hitter) and 5.0 runs created per game, but those are down from.850, 134 and 6.1 last season. Second baseman Brett Lawrie: Limited by injuries to 94 games and 384 plate appearances, Lawrie has produced at his normal levels when he has played. Since his.953 OPS in 171 plate appearances as a rookie with the Blue Jays in 2011, Lawrie s highest OPS is.729 and his lowest is.706. His.723 in his first season with the Sox is what he does. Outfielder Adam Eaton: Eaton s offense is off a bit, with an OPS of.770 after a.792 last season. His OPS+ is 112, down from 121 last season. Catchers Dioner Navarro and Alex Avila: Last season, Sox catchers (primarily Tyler Flowers and Geovany Soto) combined for 19 homers with a.230 batting average,.293 OBP,.376 SLG and.669 OPS. The Sox hoped to improve on that when they signed Navarro and Avila. Injuries have limited Avila to 149 plate appearances, with three homers (one as a designated hitter) and a.720 OPS. In 290 plate appearances, Navarro has five homers and a.599 OPS. Overall, Sox catchers are at seven homers and.222/.307/.324/.631. Shortstop Tim Anderson: The 23-year-old rookie has a.277 batting average and some pop with seven homers. But he has only seven walks in 266 plate appearances, and his batting average is heavily dependent on balls in play. His.368 BABiP is 69 points above the AL average. Speed will buy some extra BABiP, but 69 points above the league average is rarely sustainable. Anderson s 3.9 runs created per game represent a step up from the 3.2 of Alexei Ramirez, the shortstop last season. That s an encouraging sign for Sox fans, but there haven t been enough steps up to meet their hopes of an offensive breakthrough this season. Former suburban pitcher finds his calling in coaching By Scot Gregor / Daily Herald August 22nd, 2016 Ask any player in the minor leagues for the ultimate goal, and 99.9 percent are likely to say making it to the majors. Certainly, the right-handed pitcher was thinking about performing on baseball's biggest stage as a kid growing up in Arlington Heights and Glendale Heights. That mindset didn't change when Zaleski was a star pitcher at Driscoll Catholic High School in Addison and at Indiana State. But after being selected by the White Sox on the 30th round of the 2004 draft, reality started setting in. "I always felt I would make a better coach than I would an actual pitcher, just because I didn't have the stuff a lot of the other guys had," Zaleski said. He did have enough stuff to spend 11 seasons in the minor s -- all in the Sox's system. But even when he was at the highest minor-league level, Class AAA Charlotte, for a staggering six seasons, Zaleski never got the call to join the White Sox.

7 "No, not at all," Zaleski said when asked if he was ever bitter. "I laugh about it with my friends, family and all the coaches I've gotten to know throughout my time here. I didn't really have the stuff to pitch at the major-league level. "I was OK with that. I was happy enough that they kept inviting me back to spring training and giving me an opportunity to continue to pitch. I was fortunate enough to make a team every year. That's not easy." While pitching for Charlotte, AA Birmingham, high A Winston-Salem, low A Kannapolis, even for Joliet in the now defunct independent Northern League, Zaleski started realizing his ultimate goal in the game: coaching. Now 34, Zaleski is nearing the end of his first season as pitching coach for the White Sox's Advanced Rookie Great Falls affiliate. "I really enjoy this," he said. "I think this is one of my callings. Even when I was pitching, I could see what was going on with another guy's delivery, understanding what pitch should be thrown to certain hitters, analyzing mechanics and all that kind of stuff. I'm grateful to the White Sox for giving me the opportunity to share all the knowledge that I've learned throughout the years." Current Sox starting pitcher Carlos Rodon was promoted to Charlotte in August of 2014, two months after he was the No. 3 overall pick in the draft. As luck would have it, Zaleski's locker was right next door. "He was in professional baseball for a long, long time and he knew so much about the game," Rodon said. "Good dude, an awesome teammate. He was always having fun, and he just enjoyed being in the game. You could kind of see he was going to be a coach." Being in the game as a player, and now coach, has been extra special for Zaleski because he has always been with the Sox. "It's exciting," said Zaleski, who now makes his off-season home in West suburban Plano. "When I got drafted, I was really happy about it, my family was ecstatic about it. I grew up a White Sox fan. My whole family was die-hard White Sox fans. "Just to be able to continue working for a great organization like the White Sox is phenomenal. They've been great to me every step of the way." Baffoe: Kenny Williams is talking, so you know it s going poorly for the White Sox By Tim Baffoe / CBS Chicago August 22nd, 2016 (CBS) I mean, it s not like you didn t know the Chicago White Sox were a sick old dog ready to expire in the backyard any day now. Fourth place in the American League Central, 13 games out of the division lead and 8.5 out of the second wild card aren t so much a secret as a bleary-eyed exercise in feeling icky looking at the standings once or twice a week. But in case you need that little bottle of energy shot to perk your annual August Sox fatigue up to ire executive vice president Kenny Williams has got you. We haven t heard from Williams since the aftermath of Chris Sale Origami Night at U.S. Cellular Field. After being diplomatic having to publicly discuss his petulant pitcher, Williams noted, Now, at one point in my career, you probably could ve gotten me to comment in a very different way. I m sure it would be more entertaining for all except for me and us.

8 Whoa, was this a new Kenny? No more hardass stepdad or the guy who speaks from an authority that emasculates his general manager? Say it ain t so. It ain t so. Some in the White Sox organization spent a Monday s off day at a charity event on a golf course (metaphors be damned) and probably contemplating mankind s purpose in the universe. Williams was there, and microphones found him. We ve got to get some things together, Williams told CSN Chicago. As everyone knows by now, we started off very well. Unfortunately things kind of unraveled and we lost some key members of our bullpen which didn t help and kind of spear-headed that unraveling. But we ll get it together and come out of this swinging. If you understand what getting it together means or coming out of what swinging would entail, I d appreciate an explanation. Such vagueries aren t typical of Williams. Usually he spills something more specific like undercutting general manager Rick Hahn on the vision of the team last November but what s quite consistent here is that when Kenny Williams speaks to the media, you know it s going bad for the White Sox. He s become the tangential character on a bad reality show (I repeat myself) whose entertainment value is that he might scold and curse the main characters and then disappear for a few episodes. When he s on camera, things have hit the fan and been sprayed all over the room. More evaluation, more evaluation from all angles, Williams explained his Trump-esque foreign policy going forward. When I say all angles, there s more than just the major league club. There s the minor league part of the organization we ve got to be concerned with and all the staffs and the things that go into what you see as the end product on the major league side of things. All the staffs and things may or may not include Hahn, whom Williams continues to not defer to when discussing the direction of the White Sox. Hence the recent rumor that those two were at odds regarding that direction at the trade deadline. Colleen Kane of the Chicago Tribune wrote last Tuesday: Earlier in the day, David Kaplan of WMVP-AM 1000 and Comcast SportsNet said on the his radio show that. a source told him of a disagreement between executive vice president Ken Williams and general manager Rick Hahn about which direction the team should go at the trade deadline, with Hahn favoring a rebuild. Kaplan then refuted his own words on TV, saying chairman Jerry Reinsdorf told him the front office was 100 percent in lockstep about the club s direction at the deadline and moving forward into the offseason. A Sox source called Kaplan s words about the clashing philosophies in the front office absolute nonsense. Regardless of the rumor s validity, we re going on several years now of not being able to shake the assumption that Hahn is operating only so far as Williams slacks the leash. Reading between the lines, Hahn has hit the silent alarm button to let us know this travesty of a team isn t much on him. Where we re at right now, essentially in the middle of the pack, is not acceptable and not where we want to be, Hahn said at the beginning of August. Our approach of trying to keep things together, of trying to contend each year, hasn t gotten us to where we ve been able to have sustained success or achieve at the level we want to. But Williams says everyone at 35th and Shields is going to get it together and come out swinging.

9 I still don t know what that means. But I know that because Kenny Williams said it, the state of the White Sox isn t good. Kenny Williams is doing White Sox fans a disservice with latest comments By Lauren Comitor / The Athletic August 22nd, 2016 The White Sox had a day off Monday, one they could probably enjoy coming off two straight wins and ace performances from their top two pitchers. It was a beautiful day for golf, so it was good timing the Sox had their annual Field of Greens celebrity golf tournament, which raises money for pediatric cancer research. But it wasn t all pleasure and no business on the course, as White Sox executive vice president Kenny Williams had to answer questions about his dismal team. Or rather, skirt around those questions and pretend like everything s OK. Williams is basically that meme with the dog sitting in a burning room, saying, This is fine. The song Everything Is Awesome, from The LEGO Movie, probably plays on a loop in his head. Let s break down what Williams said, starting with his final little vote of confidence: We ll get it together and come out of this swinging. It s probably a bad idea to use a baseball metaphor when your team is bad at baseball. But what s even worse is the thought that the White Sox can get it together and just hit their way out of their doldrums. FanGraphs projects the White Sox to end the season with 77.9 wins, which would mean they d win about 18 of their 38 remaining games. They have a 0 percent chance of winning their division, a 0.2 percent chance of winning the Wild Card, a 0.1 percent chance of winning the divisional series and a 0 percent chance of going any further. While it s still mathematically possible for the White Sox to make the playoffs, the odds aren t in their favor. A 47 percent winning percentage down the stretch isn t exactly ending the season on a high note. That obviously wasn t the case at the beginning of the season, when the Sox got off to their start. Williams naturally brought that up, citing bullpen injuries as the main cause of the team s unraveling. (The bullpen injury excuse is a favorite of one Hawk Harrelson, who undoubtedly entertained whichever foursome he was paired up with Monday. If they hear about the schedule one more time ) Williams also pointed to more evaluation from all angles as one of the organization s priorities: When I say all angles there s more than just the major league club, there s the minor league part of the organization we ve gotta be concerned with. And all the staffs, and all the things that go into what you see as the end product on the major league side of things. You know we ve got to get some things together. It s unclear who or what exactly Williams plans to evaluate or why that hasn t been done already, but I bet the staffs didn t enjoy hearing that. It s never been a secret that the White Sox farm system needs work, but mistakes have been made at the major league level as well. And things aren t as gloomy in the minors as Williams made it sound. Last week, Jon Greenberg touched on some bright spots in the White Sox organization, including this year s second round draft pick Alec Hansen, who struck out 70 batters in 10 starts with a 1.03 ERA in rookie ball and is getting promoted to the organization s Low-A team in Kannapolis, N.C. Hansen was named to the MLB Pipeline Prospect Team of the Week on Monday.

10 So there s optimism to be found in the organization, but it s been misplaced by Williams. Sure, it s possible that the big league club could have been more successful this season had they had four Tim Andersons, or had all those rookie debut injuries not occurred. But you can t change the past, and the future will be more of the same without some kind of action. On Monday, Williams gave White Sox fans something they re all too familiar with false hope rather than what they want to hear someone taking accountability for this White Sox team. MLB Rumor Central: Will James Shields remain in White Sox rotation? By Doug Mittler / ESPN August 22nd, 2016 The Chicago White Sox are keeping James Shields in their rotation for the time being, but that could change when the calendar turns to September. Rumor CentralShields absorbed another pounding in his last outing on Friday, allowing seven runs and eight hits over 4 2/3 innings in a 9-0 loss to Oakland. The 34-year-old Shields has a dismal ERA in four August starts, and opponents are hitting.452 against him in that span. Shields is scheduled to make his next start Wednesday against the Philadelphia Phillies, but his role could evaporate once September call-ups arrive. Paul Skrbina of the Chicago Tribune reports the "team is stretching out Carson Fulmer at Triple-A Charlotte, and several others could make spot starts in Shields' place. Shields, acquired in a June 4 trade with the San Diego Padres, has struggled for most of the season, but he appeared to have turned the corner with a 1.78 ERA in five July outings. Shields is in the second year of a four-year, $75 million deal, although the Padres are on the hook for about half of the remaining salary.