All Day Q&A: Brett Ballantini of CSNChicago.com

Truly, if this season ends as it has proceeded for the first five months, both Ken an Ozzie probably need new jobs, KW likely just bumped up to make room for Hahn.

But if choosing just one of the two, it’s Ozzie, if only because he has managed this season as if he hasn’t wanted to manage this season. The offenses are numerous and well cited on SSS.

What is a little scary is that it seems sort of clear that while an accomplished manager he simply doesn’t “get” it this season—or acts like he doesn’t get it. Rios at cleanup front and center, and just the latest of his blackout moments.

Peavy is going nowhere. His contract kicks up what, $3 million more in overpay and there are huge question marks about his future (personally I think with some rest and lessons learned this season he’ll be solid in 2012).

Flowers is almost assuredly backup to A.J. and possibly even platooning, even in the face of A.J. pouting over playing anything less than 95% of innings.

You’d have to look at CQ as the fulcrum of offseason deals, given that if there is any position of strength for the Sox it’s in right/corner OF power. Dayan will produce similar to CQ at about what, a quarter the cost? Just not a lot of other strengths to deal from on the team.

Pena is goner than gone. I wrote that the minute he was hurt he’d pitched his last game with the Sox. Said the same about Jenks last year, so I’m getting to be good at vulturing Sox pitchers.

This team, like it or not, is All-In for 2012 too, so there is room for Buehrle back. And he’s earned the money every season of this last extension. Safe cash there to get him to re-up on his terms (length of contract).

So if I had to handicap I’d say Mark is back and rotation returns intact.

If not and Thornton is not dealt, Sale is in. If Matt is gone, I think they put off Sale in the rotation one more year.

another pitcher, probably reed or shane lindsay. more reinforcements likely to arrive monday/tuesday.

The “I don’t have anyone better” is severely weak when Rios boasts an OPS worse than anyone on the team.

and you’ll see that Ron Blomberg was a past day Homer Simpson, eating some 45 lobster tails in one sitting, plus.

then reading and snickering, then reading and giggling, then reading and laughing out loud. then not reading and fucking pissed.

or a reason yet to revealed…long month ahead

ozzie has a lot of faith in his players, one of his strengths as a manager. rios’ and dunn’s inexhaustingly insipid has indicated that being a player’s manager can be taken too far. much, much too far

Or I guess more appropriately, did you have a juicy story but didn’t write it because you knew your editor would shoot you down?

i have not met any player savvy on advanced stats.

Danks knew he didn’t suck like an 0-8 pitcher but still was menaced by the 0-8 on the scoreboard

gordon beckham said this year that he had never heard of WAR before a mocking rant on how fielding stats would PENALIZE him for his range and also some jibbajabba about BABIP. So it’s a bacon fail on advanced stats

I write under the premise that no one reads. Generally that hasn’t been significantly disproven outside of Coop, who occasionally will sitaspell with me and tell me how wrong I am about something. Usually he has not quite read me closely, but when he has the time to read and something doesn’t sit well with him, he is not shy.

What I figure is that if I am wrong about something or out of bounds, I welcome being told so and, if I was wrong, to correct. So it is not a struggle for me.

That said, I am not a “gotcha” journalism guy and generally am not out to sink the team with my told you sos or cleverness. If you know me at all, I am a lifelong White Sox fan, which contrary to Padilla and Cowley’s constant unfounded jibes about cheering in the press box actually makes me much TOUGHER on the team than a “non fan.” (My gamer for MIN finale was particularly bitter and woeful, and I doubt anyone else was so harsh, instead accenting the comeback or some such.)

But that said, it makes no sense for me to want to run down the team or sport that gives me my living. My first sports job was in basketball at Basketball News, which was then the barely-alive and truly ugly stepsister of Pro Football Weekly. Our publisher would write a column for each magazine, and unfailingly it was negative. That just doesn’t make any sense to me, because sooner or later a reader will say yeah, hell with this lockout and this crappy league, he’s right, basketball sucks! Or, at the very least, find a new sport or team or publication to follow.

There was one positive publishers note written during my tenure there, a memoriam of Wilt Chamberlain, and I won’t say I wrote it, but I was a Research Assistant with capital letters. And I’m still proud of that one.

Can’t fathom this is a passive aggressive battle between the two, at least as far as the roster is concerned. Ozzie just has too much faith in his veterans and DEFINITELY didn’t like the one option he figured would pave Viciedo’s way to the majors, and that’s in place of Pierre. He reminded us of that a few times, eh? In fact, he’s still reminding us of that and I want to say, you know Oz, Pierre still isn’t all that great shakes, you know?

The house, eh, he and his family love Chicago. I imagine they could flip right back to Miami pretty easily. If somewhere else, Chicago could still be the home base. I wouldn’t read too much into the house purchase aside from the fact that all things equal, Ozzie wants to be in Chicago.

but I think KW’s general philosophy of minor leaguers as fodder to get major leaguers (Peavy deal, ad infinitum) permeates the team. Some of it is practical—there are simply less viable minor leaguers to play, because they are often dealt (or recently the players drafted maybe just weren’t any good)

If players might not even read the daily beat writer clips provided them, I doubt they do much searching outside of that coverage to read.

I will speak generally regarding my peers, and I don’t believe there is a lot of following the blogs. As you have seen often, and recently boiling to a head with the Viciedo debut, bloggers are still “them” and writers are “us” in their eyes. Which I think is a shame, because as much as I might not want to admit it, some of the most compelling and interesting White Sox writing comes from “outside.”

Speaking for myself, I am not “expert” any more than many of you, and I’m smart enough to realize that. I focus a lot on listening as a reporter, rather than shouting or shoving. So yeah, I keep up with the blogs and never hesitate to pass out credit when a tip or idea was borne out of that writing. I try to keep a twitter dialogue going with people and while there are occasional goofballs, 90% or more of my twitter interaction is sharp and smart and fun.

One of the supposed pluses of Rick Hahn’s pending GM job somewhere is that he’s an advanced stats guy, as you all well know…

that I hope I can get done before it becomes worthless (if KW leaves). But my sense is that KW is upper half, maybe 10th overall at the moment. Going into this season I might have said 5.

But in spite of his good marks in general, this year has not worked out well, with maybe just one bright spot in Humber and some real dark ones in Dunn and Rios.

But that doesn’t explain it being nearly September before a call up. A bit of a pass because Dayan has been banged up some since the ASB, but double fail for Ozzie and KW on Dayan.

but Leyland. Jerry likes Leyland more than LaRussa.

Neither are likely. Unless that’s just my wishful thinking…

Elotes. That was a ballpark tradition. I am a veggie burger guy, loved a Connie’s slice, but if there was one sole go to food, nachos with jalapeños.

i sure hope not

Cleveland is brown. And not brown in the positive, boognish, Ween way. But brown, like rust brown.

Yes. Adam Dunn can recover. I believe he will recover.

The Sox have three more years to give him to try. What more can they do? This marriage is not going to be busted up by irreconcilable differences.

If he can’t? Well, allow me to introduce you to: Alex Rios.

remember, cowley is not a beat writer any longer.

and say that I have told Joe this many times and even reported as much on “his” Score radio station, that if he and I were ever to have a talk show. It would never end on time—it would always end early, in fisticuffs, in some form of Jim Everett-meet-Jim Rome fashion.

That said, his latest attack on the beat writers, claiming his completely trumped up story about Ozzie is some kind of “news” that wasn’t being reported, is horses hit. Utter horses hit. So that does tick me off. But hit anyone? Not really my style.

cant wait to hear.

Let me fudge the answer and say Rick will be working as a GM in Chicago on Nov. 20. On the South Side, if the White Sox finish with low 80s wins or worse, and/or comfortably out of contention. On the North Side if the White Sox bristle up and win this thing.

Rick is sharp as hell and is definitely a bridge between the KW school and the Billy Beane school. I think that could be a very strong combination moving forward. I see a lot of success for him in the future and I could see him staying as an assistant only if the job is contractually promised to him in future (like KW is forced up the food chain in 2015 and Rick gets the gig…)

worse than maggs and miguel tejada and ichiro. yes all 3 HR, 35 RBI and .270 BA of ichiro. think the mariners would trade suzuki for pinto? ichiro would be a great cleanup guy for ozzie

Pregame. I asked about it and Ozzie rehashed the joke he told when I asked postgame WED, that if he makes contact like he did in the dugout he’ll be great.

Unusual for Ozzie to walk down the hall to summon a player for a private meeting in office, however they entered and exited with smiles. So the news couldn’t have been too awful or appropriate (as in, Alex, we’re sending you home for the season…)

Because the timing of what Ozzie did, more so than even the mettle of WHAT he said, offended the hell out of me. And he deserved to be called out on it.

I wasn’t expecting to be called a Kenny guy for it, because I’m not. This was independent of any Team Ozzie or Team Kenny stuff. This was right or wrong.

But thank you for the kind words. I got a lot of them, from a variety of directions. Nice to not always be writing in a vacuum

He’s making $6 million next year.

Ozzie pregame said he has loved how Flowers has caught games. If you want to take that as Ozzie not liking how A.J. catches games, you are free to.

Never. Well, almost never.

Well OK, I can only wedge about $100 of words into any given story, so I always have a line of words and lingo taxiing their way into my stories.

Some of my peers are a bit disdainful of overstyling the writing but you know what, I don’t care. I don’t keep score, either.

I want to keep myself interested, and if that means overdoing it and annoying, so be it. But if inserting more cowbell or Canyonero or bustle in the hedgerow into a gamer is wrong, I don’t wanna be right.

or drug muling

Turkish Prison.

what a weird job that must be, its gotta be weird waking up and saying “well I most likely am going to be getting into an argument with Cowley and thousands will be listening”

i’m with Tdogg, lets get some info!

So I would argue Wilder as a big, bad factor over the last drafts. Of course, if Bacon continues stalling…

So I am definitely the wrong gut to ask on this one.

of kicking him in the nuts when he returns to the dugout from his latest failure.

in fact, supportive. Too supportive?

I mean, several times A.J. has had very supportive things to say about Dunn and his struggles. A.J.

The team definitely has these guys’s backs.

He just seems like a creepy dude that would blossom in truly weird situations.

or Dairy Queen with Lillibridge.

That leaves me to go resale clothes shopping with him.

If Omar’s out, I’d play Wiffleball with Juan Pierre.

much like you.

Well, not anything like you. You weren’t much of a fixture.

But yes, his upside is still Credeesque, minus Scott Boras.

in the 1933 World Baseball Classic. They came in last and none of the players were ever heard from again.