The Rotating Good Player

 There's a term in politics, the 'rotating villain', someone who, at a particular moment in time, for whatever reason, gets to be the person whose moves directly slow the process of a party's progress. It's merely the way of the system, as if there were no rotating villains there would be no power in the hands of the voter. Obviously I can't point at specifics, because this is a baseball card blog that caters to a wide audience in a blogosphere that has remained nonpartisan, perhaps thankfully. But this happens a lot, and it happens naturally enough that there's no real thought to it. Sometimes it's just your turn to be the guy, y'know.

Looking at the 2024 White Sox, I'm noticing the exact opposite phenomenon. The White Sox have become so terrible that it's become impossible for there to be more than one good player on the team at one time. I think about how the season began with the incredible start by Garrett Crochet, and then promptly he inflated his ERA to 6.40, right around the time that Erick Fedde started pitching really well. Right now Fedde's having his best season to date, proving that the season he spent in Korea managed to fix his rhythm. He's 2-0 with a 2.60 ERA and 39 Ks, which seems pretty insane considering that the team has 6 wins overall so far, and Fedde's responsible for two of them.

But aside from Fedde, the nearest positive performer right now in Chicago is relief piece Jordan Leasure. After that nobody on this team has a WAR higher than 5, and the third highest WAR on the team belongs to the currently-injured Yoan Moncada, who arguably does the 'look, I'm gonna have a great start and immediately get injured' schtick better than Anthony Rendon does. Everybody's either hitting purely alright, like Gavin Sheets and Eloy Jimenez, or pitching serviceably, like Steven Wilson or Chris Flexen. Nobody's really excelling at anything on this team, other than Fedde for the moment. But I'm not even sure if he'll be a full season talent or if the other shoe will drop, like Crochet.

I look at Andrew Benintendi, who's beginning to heat up and now leads the White Sox in RBIs with...with 12 [Marcell Ozuna has like 30]. Benintendi is a solid enough player, and has gone from a multi-faceted hitter with Boston and KC to a middle of the road guy who can occasionally hit for power. But he seems to be hitting up, and I assume the spotlight will fall on him for a little bit. And then, by the rate this team's been going, he'll probably cool off and it'll be down to someone else. And they'll just switch off like clockwork til they finish with like 120 losses. 

This is what bottom feeding baseball is. It's not pretty. It just keeps going. There's occasional relief but it's just awful to get through. And I hope there's a great dynasty on the other side for White Sox fans. I just don't want it to take 3 more years of this kind of play.

Coming Tomorrow- A custom I've had saved since March, since the guy got injured in Spring Training. Thankfully he's had a decent enough start since.