Holy Misguided Man-Crush, Dr. Phil!

This past Sunday, Tribune "baseball expert" Phil Rogers continued his man-crush on that fallen angel of a Cleveland Indians GM, Mark Shapiro. When Dr. Phil isn't stumbling over himself to prognosticate a first-place finish for his beloved Wahoos, he's praising every last one of Boy Wonder Shapiro's deft and cunning moves.

The latest effusiveness, headlined Indians strip down and stock up, says Shapiro is doing a good job selling off the parts of his disappointing team. The sidebar goes on to detail resumes of the six players Cleveland hauled in for CC Sabathia and Casey Blake. As Dr. Phil pounds the war drum every bit as loud as that annoying Progressive Field fan who does so during games in Cleveland, he quotes Boy Wonder as saying acquired prospects Carlos Santana and Matt LaPorta "are both potentially core players for us in the future."

Uh, Phil? Mark? The Wahoos just traded two guys who were already core players, Sabathia and Blake, to get these new, younger, potential core players. Now that is brilliant general management.

Of course, the only thing Dr. Phil likes less than criticizing his man-crush is trading prospects. He's consistently skewered White Sox GM Ken Williams for trading away "the future" in order to, gasp, "win now." He recently praised Cubbies GM Jim Hendry for standing pat at the trading deadline and refusing to deal off a player the likes of forgotten blue-chipper Felix Pie for stopgap aid like Seattle Mariner Raul Ibanez, who in the week since the trading deadline is hitting .414 with two homers and 16 RBI.

That's why Rogers buried this little "oops" item regarding the Boy Wonder in the middle of his "Whispers" column on the very same day he was doling out praise for such masterful dismantling of a division winner: Rob Bryson, one of the prospects Cleveland got from Milwaukee for CC Sabathia, has been found to have a damaged labrum.

Last year's Wahoo 9 was within one game of the World Series, clearly the dominant emerging talent in the AL Central. If not for Detroit's zealous overspending for offense this past winter, the Wahoos could have been a universal first-place pick in 2008.

Yet no sooner had Cleveland battered Mark Buehrle on Opening Day than the club started spiraling down the toilet. Injuries played a role, as they always do, but many fault Shapiro for flanking his all-world center fielder Grady Sizemore with a bevy of beer league quality corner outfielders (where have you gone, Jason Michaels? Oh yes, he was released mid-season in another addition-by-subtraction move from Shapiro).

The guess here is that when Spring Training broke, Dr. Phil was content that the likes of Michaels and Casey Blake could hold down the corners for Cleveland, while he tsk-tsked afterthoughts on the South Side-turned-MVP candidates like the broken-shouldered Carlos Quentin and that old gray mare, Jermaine Dye.

Imagine what a mess the last-place Clevelanders would be if not for the amazing resurgence of 15-win hurler Cliff Lee? (Yes, that's the pitcher who Shapiro cleverly demoted to the minors in 2007.)

Dr. Phil's deft baseball analysis tabs the Boy Wonder as "brilliant," yet less than one year ago his team was one win from the World Series, and now his Wahoos are ticketed for the AL Central basement. But damn, that man can trade for prospects!

Rogers tore Williams a new one last season, and that was for finishing in fourth place. Shudder to think what happens if the White Sox ever hit the cellar on Williams' watch, although presumably if the GM continues his controversial strategy of "winning now" by dealing "prospects," that fall will be averted, year after year.

Anyone else detect which GM strategy is worthy of praise here?

--Brett Ballantini

Slobberin' to Criticize

Phil Rogers, the Tribune "baseball expert" who picked Detroit (currently the 26th-best team in the majors) to win the Central Division this year, is so desperate to drag down the White Sox that he creates two new presumed fictions in his "Whispers" column in Sunday's Tribune.

Rogers quite fairly trashes Detroit Tigers infielder Miguel Cabrera, whose marks of .218 with runners in scoring position and .107 in close-and-late situations are simply pathetic. But Dr. Phil can't resist tweaking the South Side faithful, whose money apparently isn't green enough to help rescue his flailing, conflicted "newspaper" out of a debt that has mounted to billions. Asks Phil:

Remember when White Sox fans were angry [Ken] Williams didn't trade for Miguel Cabrera?

Yeah, Phil, White Sox fans were positively freaking out over the fact that Detroit sozzled the Florida Marlins with blue-chippers and didn't so much as sneeze at absorbing twiglegged BP tosser Dontrelle Willis in the process. Yeah, there was some surprise that Detroit would feel a need to augment its Motown Murderer's Row with yet another big bat. Certainly after the Tribune and other media outlets painted White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen as nothing short of Cabrera's favorite uncle, best baseball bud, and personal Jesus all rolled into one, the Migster's swap to a division rival was a shock.

And who could blame Phil for his outrage over the White Sox not being able to just go out and get whatever player they wanted? After all, his employer has committed more than $300 million in salaries to players, deserving or not, in just the past two offseasons. Apparently, if you're not rocking free agency old-school Yankees style by dumping $18 mil a year on an outfielder who is as mobile on the Shrine's green grass as a tree sloth, you're not doing much to GM a ballclub.

But as dumb as Rogers' Miggy-baiting was, worse still was the low blow on Williams and his son, Wichita State outfielder Kenny Williams Jr.

Rogers claims that a "draft source" called the White Sox's sixth-round plucking of Junior "a reach." (Far be it for us to expect real detail here, Phil, particularly when you're dissing the GM's son.) Dr. Phil cites no statistics or context for either the source's dismissal of Williams Jr. or his own decision to pad his column with a blind attack on Williams himself. Of course, this is nothing new; citation is Rogers' Kryptonite.

And worse, Rogers completely ignores the drama behind the situation. In its draft-day story, the Associated Press reports that, essentially, the entire White Sox draft war room had to persuade Williams that he shouldn't pass up picking his son in the sixth round.

All Rogers had to do in order to offer a more legitimate analysis of the pick and duck the sort of criticism he's getting here was read the wire story that everyone and his hamster had access to within hours of the pick.

Because it's pretty clear that research and reporting aren't Dr. Phil's strong suits, the Chicago Cubune Watch will make an exception and run to his aid before he slags Williams or his son off in a second straight "Whispers":

• This season, Williams Jr. hit .325 with 16 stolen bases for Wichita State.
• White Sox scouting director Doug Laumann calls Williams Jr. "somewhat of a project" and a "high-risk, high-reward guy."
• Laumann says Williams was not in the draft room when the White Sox picked his son, saying the GM really struggled with having him join the team. Reading between the lines, all indications are that Williams disassociated himself from the pick--at least as much as a GM can on draft day.
  

This does not in any way sound like the sort of nepotism Rogers implies when he chastises the White Sox for having picked Williams Jr. "in a round that matters." Still, to have cited anything more than the anonymous mumblings of a "draft source" would have legitimized Dr. Phil's praise or condemnation of the pick.

Shame on him for lazily extending his apparent personal vendetta against Williams, and moreso his sham newspaper for allowing such pseudo-journalism to run unabated, week after week, year after year.

Why is Dr. Phil so agitated? Shouldn't he celebrate the lone successful GM in the city of Chicago?

And by the way, memo to the Trib editors--next time Phil inserts one of his presumably fictional, anonymous sources to discredit the ballclub across town, at least change the dopey label "draft source." They're called scouts.

(And if they're not scouts, why the hell is Rogers "quoting" them in the first place?)

--William Melvin and Brett Ballantini

Who's Got the Power?

A week ago in Phil Rogers' "Power Poll" feature on ChicagoSports.com's "Hardball" blog, the 14-10, first-place White Sox ranked No. 4. The 16-9, first-place Cubs ranked No. 3.

Both teams had a rough week. The White Sox took the collar, losing the five games between polls, and falling to second place. Dr. Phil rightfully spanks the punchless Sox down to No. 11 in his poll. He also makes the incongruous comment that the White Sox have no run producers in the minors save for Josh Fields.

Dr. Phil, there's a guy on the White Sox named Carlos Quentin. White Sox GM Ken Williams acquired--the overeager might go so far as to say stole--him from the Arizona Diamondbacks for a Single-A first baseman, Chris Carter. Well Phil, on Sunday there were 11 players in the majors with an on-base + slugging percentage of better than 1.000. Astoundingly, only one of those players was in the American League.

His name? Carlos Quentin.

Quentin's the guy who made a preposterous throw from left field, on the fly, to double off a Tiger at first base early this season. He's already been hit by seven pitches this season, but he's such a bad-ass he doesn't wear any of that Barry Bonds armor to the plate. If Quentin was on the north side, fans already would be wearing some form of offensive T-shirt to "celebrate" him. So Phil, look him up; he's in the White Sox media guide, really.

Quentin is brought up not to deflect attention from the hapless White Sox offense. After all, saying this ballclub is the 11th-best in the majors is a fairly big stretch at the moment. But Rogers and his gratuitous shots at the White Sox GM are way out of line. Even in a short skinny as part of a space-filler of a power poll, Rogers can't resist letting loose on Sox brass.

The purpose of competing in the majors is to have the best major league roster you can. A terrific Single-A hitter like Chris Carter is an asset, but he's not a major-leaguer who earns you major league wins. Quentin's OPS+, is 177, essentially meaning he's hitting 77% better than the average American Leaguer. The next-best White Sox hitter is Joe Crede, whose OPS+ is 119. Quentin is by far the White Sox's best hitter through the first month, and he was essentially shoplifted out of the Diamondbacks organization. But your readers would probably rather read your fiction pieces about win-win trades with Arizona you're spinning as lopsided, so keep the cheap shots coming, Phil.

Oh, and the Cubs? They didn't have a very good week, either. They went 2-4 (and then lost Sunday night's game, which was completed after Phil posted his power poll), falling to second place. Funny, while Rogers admits the Cubs are "spinning their wheels" and have no closer, he can't see dropping the Cubs even one spot in his poll. His beloved bumblers choke away two series, one home and one away, to their two closest division rivals, but they're still the third-best team in the majors.

Another crisis averted. This is a the guy who Cubs manager Lou Piniella referred to as irreplaceable in the Tribune lineup?

--Brett Ballantini

How Did They Choose Those Letters?

Two fan letters are published on ChicagoSports.com. One, from a fan who extols the faith of Cubbies fans who have waited 100 years for a World Series win. The other, from a fan who feels he should be given the Cubbies as his birthday present.

The White Sox fans' letters? The first is from someone who's giving up being a fan because of high player salaries. The other letter is from a fan who can't believe we "gave away" Jon Garland and that Ken Williams "gave" the Angels Torii Hunter, and is published about, oh, two or three months too late.

-- Brett Ballantini

With the L Flag Flying, Trib Takes Shots at Sox

The Tribune's new Employee Stock Ownership Plan means that Tribune reporters Josh Noel and Emma Graves Fitzsimmons stand to benefit directly from the sale of the Cubs. So they stand to benefit directly from the notion, presented as unsupported fact in their story today, that the Cubs have a huge base of suckers ensuring continued Cubbie income:

There's considerably more interest than there was in the White Sox at the same point during their World Series run in 2005, he said.

"It's just a whole different demographic.... You're drawing from a wider base."

The guy they're quoting is a professional scalper. If you're a black guy scalping a single ticket on Waveland Avenue you can expect to end up in handcuffs, but if you're scalping thousands of them behind a company name you're an expert in the eyes of the Tribune (which has been known to indulge in some scalping itself), especially when you're taking a dig at the White Sox and perpetuating the myth — which has never been proven — that the Cubs have a larger fan base.

You see why the Tribune ignored the 1.75 million people at the Sox victory parade: that's actual numerical evidence that refutes their self-serving assumptions.

Meanwhile, Tribune baseball expert Phil Rogers manages to blame White Sox General Manager Ken Williams for the woeful woo-woo Cubbies' woeful woes:

Ken Williams is an equal-opportunity heartbreaker.

His heavy-handed management of the White Sox, post-World Series, is having consequences on both sides of Chicago. His deals contributed to the Sox going backward, instead of back to the postseason, and now one of them is threatening to stop the Cubs too.

Even with the Cubs in yet another tailspin to disaster, the Tribune continues to wage war against the first general manager in nine decades to bring a World Series trophy home to Chicago. Actually, come to think of it, they're probably waging war on Kenny precisely for that reason. Envy.

Or maybe Rogers is just embarrassed because he picked the Cubs to win it in four saying: "Zambrano, Lilly, Marmol and Howry are too much for a team with a pop-gun lineup. The Cubs' power hitting has shown up at the right time."

A pop-gun lineup. What a genius. Why does this pop-gun baseball expert still have a job?

Finally, here's a snide remark from supposed Sox fan Ed Sherman:

You could look at it a couple of ways. Either a number of Cubs fans have switched their alliances to the White Sox since 2003, or the combination of putting a playoff game exclusively on cable and starting it at 9 p.m. resulted in a big drop in the local ratings. Just a guess, but we'll go with the latter.

The fact is, in 2005 and 2006, the White Sox passed the Tribune-owned Cubs in every statistical measure of team popularity, including viewership on Tribune-owned WGN. But you can see how hard that is to accept for Tribune reporters/Cubs investors, even the ones who claim to be Sox fans.

If it's not woo-woo with these guys, it's boo-hoo.


Brett Ballantini contributed to this post.