Watch CBS News

Levine: Barring White Sox Miracle, Time To Start Thinking About Next Season

By Bruce Levine--

CHICAGO (CBS) -- The numbers speak for themselves. The Chicago White Sox may not be eliminated from the playoff picture, but with 42 games left in the season, reality is close to setting in. There will be no playoff mentions of this team without some sort of miracle finish in the neighborhood of .750 baseball.

Playing the 162 games out as a professional will be the standard statement you get from players on teams that aren't contention this time of year. And for the White Sox, playing in a city with baseball's hottest team on the North Side has to make it doubly galling to be playing out the string eight miles south of Wrigley Field.

The state of the franchise's direction is unknown going into 2017. A total rebuild has been talked about. A continued patching together of position players, one more time, can always be the direction when you have young controllable rotation pitchers.

A new manager is also a distinct possibility going forward. Robin Ventura has handled the club this year without a contract beyond 2016. The fact that the team hasn't had a winning season since 2012 doesn't bode well for the present relationship to continue, unless there's an abrupt turnaround now.

"We are 10 games out of the wild card," third baseman Todd Frazier said. "We are 11 or 12 out of first place. We look at it as being just one big run away. We still talk about it now. We have seen it done before. We just have to win. That is it, at all costs."

Ventura didn't have the talent to win in 2013 and 2014. In the last two seasons, management felt it put together talented enough teams to make it to the playoffs. Some of those moves failed with the release of a number of players.

To Ventura's credit, he has handled some petulant behavior patterns by a few on his roster with professional responses and protection of the players. This is both a plus and a minus in the world of baseball self-importance. Accepting bad behavior and covering for people who have little self-awareness usually ends up with the manager falling on his own sword (unless, of course, that group wins).

Players play for their teammates, careers and putting up numbers. Parts two and three of my hypothesis go hand and hand. Not putting up numbers means a short career in this business.

"If you think you're out of it, why bother with everything from spring training on?" always-feisty outfielder Adam Eaton said. "If you're only going to play 100 of the 162, it makes no sense. Unless you are eliminated from the race, you are still going to play games as hard as you can."

"It is not crazy to think you can come back and win a playoff game. This game is crazy. You have seen the up downs we have had. We won 20-something games in a month. We could do that again."

Bruce Levine covers the Cubs and White Sox for 670 The Score and CBSChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter @MLBBruceLevine.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.