The season is long gone.  

The Twins have won the World Series twice since the last time you saw the Sox take the field.

Jerry Owens is still dead.
God didn't come through, like Josh Fields promised He would.

The cold winds are whipping off the lakefront (or in my case, the Sound), foreshadowing the lonely, gray, baseball-less days ahead.   Like any respectable armchair GM, you're on your 4th draft of potential 2010 rosters - 3 of which lead off with a guy you may or may not call "Chode" because you like that word and crave the context to use it.  The word; not a chode... you don't have much use for those.

 

Anyway, the Sox didn't exceed our expectations this year, but for most of the season, they put on a good show.   
We've already reflected on the games that made us proud to be Good Guys, but for this particular stroll down memory lane, I'm going no further than the SSS Archives. 

We all know that humor and friendships emerge from the pain and adversity of watching your beloved team collectively crap themselves, so here is an unrefined, uncensored, unclothed (you need to take your pants off for this) recap of some of the finer moments for SSS in 2009.  

Since I am only one woman and know I've overlooked countless mentionable comments and moments, please add to this with your own favorites (links, please! - ones that open in new windows!) in the comments section.

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Last off-season, prompted by a game in which I perceived the outcome to be effected by Ozzie Guillen's quick hook, I examined the evolution of Guillen's hook. I thought about taking it a step further in the dead time around Christmas again, but in flipping through the 2010 Bill James Handbook, I found they've done the work for me, though using a different methodology. 

I was given an an advanced copy of the Handbook in exchange for a review and a few links (full disclosure -- Suck on it, FTC!). Unfortunately, a review isn't forthcoming anytime soon. I'm just too damn busy. But I thought I demonstrate its usefulness by simply presenting Ozzie Guillen's capsule from the managers section.

Click to enlarge, and less blurify
Thanks to e-Gus for supplying a more readable image. Still missing the last columns, but that's just W-L percentage. I think you can live.

Ozzie has become a boring manager. He doesn't seem to have any extreme tendencies anymore. Bold (extra blurry) indicates league leader. Gone are the Slow Hooks, the Long Outings, Relievers used on Consecutive Days, and all those Sacrifices Attempted. The only area where Ozzie stands out now, having intentional walks blow up in his face, isn't directly under his control (unless he stops ordering walks altogether, which, hey, I'm not against). With a rotation of Peavy, Buehrle, Danks and Floyd, and a bullpen that features only two members you can reasonably count on heading into the season, I'd love to see Ozzie fall back into his '04-'06 pattern of letting the starters work deep into games.

Key (after the jump)

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• The Rookie of the Year Awards are announced today, so use this thread to celebrate, or, alternately, plot your murders of those other undeserving rookies and the BWAA members who voted for them. Edit: Gordon Beckham gets 5th place. Andrew Bailey wins.
  
• Kenny Williams thinks the National League sucks.

   

  "A guy going from the American League to the National League, no disrespect, but. ... "

  "There are guys in the American League who go to the National League and don’t do well," Williams conceded, "but there are not too many of them that I can think of."

• And Phil Rogers declares Brent Morel the White Sox third baseman of the future. I can't say I agree, but 18 months ago when he was drafted, I did like his swing better than Beckham's from their scouting videos. I still like Morel, probably more than most prospect experts, yet I wouldn't go so far as to call him the future of anything. He was blocked this year, when he probably should have received a mid-season promotion. He's still on the utility player track, though his ceiling seems like a Mark Teahen type, albeit with better defense.

Wrapping up the SBN Baseball Blogger Awards with the AL MVP voting. Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.

Results after the Jump, because they'll take up the whole front page

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The GM Meetings wrapped up today, and the baseball writers kept churning out content...

• Kenny Williams is busy being his usual brutally honest self

  "It's the same thing every year at this time of year," White Sox general manager Ken Williams said. "There is nothing to report."

• Williams also discussed the payroll, though without offering any specifics, sticking instead to the marketing and ticket sales side of things, and indicated that the Sox won't be players in free agency until later in the off-season.
• The White Sox released their spring training schedule, including 5 games with the Cubs and a trip to Vegas.
• Fangraphs uses UZR to rank Jermaine Dye as the 3rd-worst fielder over the last three years. Just think how much worse that would be if he played the wall like Podsednik, one of the few areas where Dye was actually pretty good.
• Schadenfreude link of the day: Wilson Betemit will reportedly sign with the Royals.

Continuing the SBN Baseball Blogger Awards

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Zack Greinke	Kansas City Royals	28	1	-	143
2	Felix Hernandez	Seattle Mariners	-	17	6	57
3	Justin Verlander	Detroit Tigers	-	8	9	33
4	Roy Halladay	Toronto Blue Jays	1	2	11	22
5	CC Sabathia	New York Yankees	-	1	2	5
6	Jon Lester	Boston Red Sox	-	-	1	1

Not much happens at the GM meetings. But this year those meetings are taking place in Chicago -- an unnamed hotel near O'hare, actually -- which means the local Chicago rags can afford to send their writers to cover the relative non-event. So we've got a lot to link to for a week after the World Series ended:

• There was a reason I refused to put Scott Podsednik in the See Ya Later group and called him a cock-a-roach (in my best Tony Montana voice) on Facebook, he's not going to go away that easily. Those talks that seemed to be dead last week, have, according to the ubiquitous sources, "heated up."
• One player who will be gone, is Jermaine Dye. Some speculated that he might be brought back on the cheap to play DH, but JD, while not specifically ruling out the Sox, insists on ruining some as-yet-to-be-determined team's defense.

  "There are a number of teams I've heard already that would love to have me,'' Dye said. "I know one thing, I will not be DHing. You can put that down. If a team wants to try me out at first base on an every day basis I'll do that. That's something I feel will be easy to learn. But as far as DHing that's not for me. Teams shouldn't call if that's their plan.''

• Bruce Levine seems to think the Sox are going to hang on to Bobby Jenks, and gets the Chicago GMs on the record about instant replay.
• Kenny Williams echoed my sentiment about Alexei Ramirez:

  "I personally thought it was terribly unfair, the criticism (Ramirez) got," Williams said. "Of course, the lapses are somewhat frustrating, but I expect those as a young player. I expect those coming from young players. That's part of the development."

• Williams also joined in raising concerns about the leaking of players names who've been placed on the waiver wire.
• And Joe Crede still wants to play for half a season.

Larry already posted this one in the last thread's comments, but not everyone is brave enough to venture in there.

Rk	Player	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Elvis Andrus	Texas Rangers	6	9	6	63
2	Andrew Bailey	Oakland Athletics	11	1	3	61
3	Jeff Niemann	Tampa Bay Rays	3	5	3	33
4	Rick Porcello	Detroit Tigers	2	7	2	33
5	Brett Anderson	Oakland Athletics	5	1	3	31
6	Gordon Beckham	Chicago White Sox	1	2	8	19
7	Nolan Reimold	Baltimore Orioles	1	-	1	6
8	Matt Wieters	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	3	6
9	Brad Bergesen	Baltimore Orioles	-	1	-	3
10	Ricky Romero	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3
11	Travis Snider	Toronto Blue Jays	-	1	-	3

Because we need a fresh thread. That last one was starting to smell pretty rank.

Rk	Manager	Team	1st	2nd	3rd	Pts
1	Mike Scioscia	Los Angeles Angels	9	8	3	72
2	Ron Gardenhire	Minnesota Twins	9	5	1	61
3	Don Wakamatsu	Seattle Mariners	6	3	8	47
4	Joe Girardi	New York Yankees	2	4	2	24
5	Ron Washington	Texas Rangers	1	4	4	21
6	Terry Francona	Boston Red Sox	1	1	3	11
7	Jim Leyland	Detroit Tigers	-	2	4	10
8	Joe Maddon	Tampa Bay Rays	-	1	1	4
9	Ozzie Guillen	Chicago White Sox	-	-	1	1
10	Trey Hillman	Kansas City Royals	-	-	1	1

Two days ago, as the Yankees marched on to yet another purchased World Series title, the White Sox appeared like they could take any number of routes to fill out their '10 lineup. I had planned on writing an SSS Official Off-Season Plan as I have in the past -- quick synopsis: upgrade IF defense by negotiating with the devil. Buy Adrian Beltre, shift the left side of the infield one space right. Find a cheap scrapheap corner outfielder. I was thinking Xavier Nady (also a Boras client) and re-up with Jim Thome -- but Kenny Williams had other ideas, wasting no time in reshaping the '10 roster.

Jettisoned (for sure): Jermaine Dye, Josh Fields, Chris Getz; (maybe): Scott Podsednik (I'm never going to write off his return)

Returning: Mark Kotsay

Newcomer: Mark Teahen

We basically knew all those moves Thursday morning, but it still wasn't apparent how the Sox would use Teahen. My own thought was that it would mean an end to our years of having a lumbering, full-time DH on the roster. In that scenario, Teahen would have played 3B/OF and Pods probably would have been back as well, rotating with any number of players through the DH spot. But Kenny erased that notion by naming Teahen the White Sox 3rd baseman of the immediate future.

What does it all mean for the '10 roster?

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