Cup o’ Joe, side o’ dough: The business talk, it never ends

Hey, first off, to Trooper and all our other active and former military personnel here, thank you for your service. You put a lot at risk for the rest of us.

Predicting Every MLB Team's Starting Lineup and Rotation in 2022
Joel Reuter, Bleacher Report

What will the MLB landscape look like by the time the 2022 season arrives? It's a fun hypothetical to explore with numerous stars ticketed for free agency during the next two offseasons. Among them are Francisco Lindor, Kris Bryant, Max Scherzer, Trevor Story, Javier Baez, George Springer, Carlos Correa, Noah Syndergaard, J.T. Realmuto and Trevor Bauer.

In this thought exercise, Michael Kopech is our closer and one of the players listed above is on the White Sox. You might not be excited about who it is.

The clock is ticking on 2020 MLB season talks. Here's what could make a deal work -- or fall apart
Jeff Passan, ESPN

The long-awaited proposal from MLB on an economic plan for this year will be sent to the union early next week, multiple sources briefed on the league's intentions told ESPN. The posturing and preening of the past two weeks will subside and give way to a more productive fight -- the sort that answers the ultimate question: Will there be baseball in 2020?

I don’t think Passan is necessarily guilty of this, but the vast percentage of baseball writers, in reportage like this, put the onus significantly, or wholly, on players. Sportswriters must get paid an awful lot, to consistently side with ownership.

Injury-Shortened Sox Seasons: Jake Peavy lat derails 2010 for Chicago
Owen Schoenfeld, South Side Hit Pen at Sports Illustrated

Lost in the sea of winning was an iceberg that appeared on July 6, when front-end righthander Jake Peavy tore his right latissimus dorsi tendon in his lower back.

This is such a cool series from Owen — I mean a lousy topic, but fascinating. He’s covered Frank Thomas in 2005 and Carlos Quentin in 2008 already. Now it’s on to 2010 — and a cameo from a guy you might know from around these parts.

2020 OOTP sim: Sox starters extend the winning streak to three
Ashley Sanders, South Side Hit Pen at Sports Illustrated

Reynaldo López has been this year's 2019 Lucas Giolito after he had a 2018 Giolito season last year. Entering this afternoon's game and enduring a short bullpen stint, ReyLo held a 5-0 record and a 3.72 ERA. However, he had a challenging mound opponent in Jake Odorizzi (5-2, 3.07 ERA) to square off against for the third of this four-game set.

Ashley brings her usual sense of existential dread in her writeup of the sim Sox in the middle of quite a hot streak, led by terrific starting pitching. This simulated stretch for the .500 White Sox, crushing the Twins of all teams, represents the best of what the 2020 White Sox could have been, or could be.

Rivalry Recap: Minnesota Twins
Inside the White Sox

While there is no baseball being played, the Inside the White Sox Blog, as well as @whitesox on Twitter and Instagram, will look back into the archives to highlight some memorable moments between the Sox and the opponent they would have been facing on the schedule in… Rivalry Recap!

Mostly just an almanac sorta thing, but still, pretty cool to revisit highlights against a hated rival.

White Sox to pay employees in full through June as other teams institute cuts
Vinnie Duber, NBC Sports Chicago

As the economic realities that accompany an industry in shutdown become more and more apparent for teams across Major League Baseball, the White Sox remain committed to paying their employees.

Vinnie has the latest news on the White Sox falling in line with many other clubs (but not all, Angels) in deciding to keep staff intact through June. Notable is that the White Sox aren’t even reducing pay for employees, despite lessened hours.

Andrew Vaughn looks back at his first pro season
Brett Ballantini, South Side Hit Pen at Sports Illustrated

Here is part two of Jeff Faraudo's Cal Sports Report interview with 2019 first-rounder and former Bear Andrew Vaughn, to talk about how his first pro season went, and what it was like to experience a big-league spring training for the first time.

This is mostly a conduit piece leading to the conversation Faraudo had with Vaughn, but there’s some interesting stuff in both parts of Jeff’s interview. Andrew seems like a pretty sweet, decent guy.

Morning Music
I suppose it’s an odd choice for Memorial Day, a winsome tune set in dreary London (although I swear the license plate on the car reads Texas), but hey, there’s always room for another kickass woman in rock, right?

I mean, the promise of the Pretenders largely dissolved with the deaths of bassist Pete Farndon and guitarist James Honeyman-Scott in the space of less than a year, but to her credit, Chrissie Hynde kept on, basically dragging the bones of the band all the way into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.