The personally appreciated White Sox of the 2010s

All hail the Matt Albers Game.

The 2010s were the first postseasonless decade for the White Sox since the 1970s, so it lends itself to reflexive negativity, as evidenced by the most forgettable and most-regrettable teams of the last 10 years.

But hey, the White Sox are ending the year with their most optimism-inducing offseason in years, so we may as well end the year on an upswing of our own. To accompany the All-Decade team and even the vibes score at 2-2, here’s the team of players I felt I appreciated more than the average fan.

Most of these guys won’t show up on any franchise leaderboards, but they’re the kind of players who, 30 years from now, I’ll remember for a skill, trait or moment that made them more fun to write about than they might’ve been to watch.

You might notice that this list didn’t include a DH. When looking at the previous lineups, it’s easy to understand the lack of enthusiasm for that particular spot.

Catcher: Tyler Flowers

  • Years: 2009-2015

Like jazz, if you didn’t know what to focus on, all you heard were squeaks, honks and other assorted nonsense. If you knew what his game was designed to accomplish, you could appreciate the beauty in the dissonance.

tl;dr: Tyler Flowers invented jazz.

Honorable mention: Donny Lucy. He was first and foremost Larry’s boy, but retiring to the avocado farm is a beautiful piece of poetry that deserves its proper place for anybody.

First base: Matt Davidson

  • Years: 2016-18

Jose Abreu owned the position for the decade, but among the part-time players, Davidson should outlast the competition. He achieved Tuffy Rhodes Status with three homers on Opening Day, and he’s the gold standard when it comes to position players pitching.

I thought the Rangers might explore making him a two-way player, but he only pitched once for their Triple-A affiliate in Nashville, with whom he spent the entire season. What a waste.

Second base: Tyler Greene

  • Year: 2013

He only played in 22 games, he only came to the plate 57 times, but what’s important is that he pinch-ran five times, and if GIFs were hits, he’d be Ted Williams.

Honorable mention: Yolmer Sánchez, who was for everybody.

Third base: Conor Gillaspie

Who else.

Honorable mention: Nobody else.

Shortstop: Alexei Ramirez‘s aversion to contact.

  • Years: 2008-2015

Even Ramirez’s biggest detractors would say he helped more than he hurt, but he annoyed some people by shying away from collisions at second base on stolen-base attempts. Those weren’t the most sporting efforts, but it made a lot more sense when realizing he just didn’t like being touched on the field in any sense. He might’ve allowed bases by letting the occasional throw get into center field, but he made up the deficit with creative slides and artistic double plays, and the fact that he never needed an injury replacement.

Left field: Moises Sierra

  • Year: 2014

He’s the only player to earn a 15-GIF farewell salute, partially because he was the perfect foil to Gillaspie.

Center field: Alejandro De Aza

  • Years: 2010-14

Like Ramirez and Flowers, De Aza had a flaw that was often difficult to overlook (poor baserunning decisions), but the White Sox signed him off the scrap heap and got two above-average seasons out of him, and he could’ve done more if he weren’t suppressed in Charlotte due to the Cold War between Ozzie Guillen and Kenny Williams. I was more willing to forgive his transgressions.

Also, he endowed the club’s Alejandro De Aza Chair for Low On-Field Pain Threshold, which is currently occupied by Yoan Moncada. A franchise is defined by its legacies.

And when we were lucky, he combined his trademarks.

Right field: Brent Lillibridge

  • Years: 2010-12

Even if he were only limited to the Thrillibridge Game at Yankee Stadium, and not the subsequently useful bench season from a guy who wasn’t expected to ever hit 10 homers in the season, he’d still make this list.

Starting pitcher: Scott Carroll

  • Years: 2014-16

Among ballplayers with personalities, there’s baseball funny, and there’s funny funny. Nick Swisher is an example of the former, a guy who says unusual things with a big smile and a lot of energy, with actual laughs a secondary concern. Carroll was an example of the latter, as he won me over before pitching a game for the White Sox.

He fought his way past a couple surgeries and those who overlooked a less-than-impressive arsenal to make his big league debut at 29, which he won in front of an emotional group of family and friends, and he bought himself a little bit of staying power to pitch his next idea, Doodle Hats.

Relief pitcher: Matt Albers

  • Years: 2015-16

I can’t recall another White Sox reliever matching Albers’ lows, at least for such a prolonged amount of time — an 8.83 ERA over 43 games! — but I can’t also can’t recall an ordinary mid-leverage reliever matching Albers’ highs. He had a two-month stretch that included a 30-outing scoreless streak, fierce gum-tossing, expletive-laden misnomers, and capping it off with the most improbable at-bat I may ever personally witness.

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asinwreck

Attending the Albers game at CitiField was by far my baseball highlight of 2016. I remember laughing my head off (even more so for his scurry home than the double) as the Mets fans around me sighed in resignation.

Eagle Bones

Great game to have been at. Not in the traditional “wow, what a great game!” sense, but more in the “I was there when this really weird and fun thing happened” sense. I recall watching the end of that game live and probably laughing harder than I’ve ever laughed because of a baseball game.

Lurker Laura

In a similar vein, I was at the game in 2011 when the Sox won on a walk-off balk, Adam Dunn batting. It wasn’t nearly as funny as the Matt Alberts game, but it was really weird, and I did laugh out loud when it happened.

yinkadoubledare

One of the things I like about baseball is with more games and a sizable roster you get these goofy/stupid memorable things more so than other sports and it’s one of the things I like most about it.

Medium Hurt

I was at that game with Margalus, but had to leave around the 10th or 11th inning to go teach a night class, so I missed the Albers triumph. Probably the biggest regret of my baseball watching career. Still love Jim’s wrote-up of it, though. 

Eagle Bones

De Aza was the first guy I thought of before opening this article. Just a solid player who was never great, but was a useful contributor and probably never got his due because of his shortcomings and how visible they were at times.

Also, I was literally just thinking about the Conor Gillaspie Valentines Day card post this morning. Can we please bring that back this year? One of your finer works during the down years Jim. Also I forget the particular name, but I seem to recall one poster made a bunch of his own custom Sox valentines and posted to the site (many of which were hilarious and NSFW).

ParisSox

I always dreamed of gif’ing De Aza’s face on James Brown’s body on a video of Brown doing his “going off the stage sick and his helpers putting a cape over him to help him off” routine.  

SkeeterSkeeterman

The funniest post yet … a couple other thoughts … one of the things I miss from SSS is larry and his witty and sobering comment style. I wish he’d come out of retirement and join us here. He treated me like his 75 IQ score brother; taking extra gentle care of me the few times I posted. Also thanks so much for reminding me of Scott Carroll.

polishwith

seconded. that dude was entertaining as hell.

As Cirensica

The de Aza GIF in this article, and Alexei’s rolling in home plate after been “hit” by a ball are my favorite White Sox funny GIFs ever.

Trooper Galactus

Honorable mention for 3B: Dan Johnson, whose three homer game at the end of the 2012 season guaranteed him a roster spot for the subsequent year.

lil jimmy

” He was first and foremost Larry’s boy,”

larry

Eagle Bones

Not bottom 5 (team draft performance in 2010s)!

The bottom 5:

30. Reds
29. Brewers
28. Yankees
27. Royals
26. Phillieshttps://t.co/K0JVnjSbK4

— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) December 31, 2019

Trooper Galactus

They drafted Sale, Anderson, Reed, Semien, Bassitt, Devenski, Rodon, Bummer, and Fry, just to name a few guys who have had notable success in MLB. While there were some bad misses in the first round and a few of them wound up succeeding elsewhere, their drafts were generally not devoid of value and the last few have produced some decent prospects for us.

Eagle Bones

Wow, like you said, they’ve done pretty decent by hitting on a couple of these guys, but wow I did not expect them to in the top 5.

The teams that drafted (and signed) the most productive talent of the 2010s…

1. @astros
2. @whitesox
3. @Marlins
4. @BlueJays
5. @Mets https://t.co/K0JVnjSbK4

— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) December 31, 2019

lil jimmy

By golly, I’ve been told endlessly how bad they are.

As Cirensica

Don’t get misled, the White Sox had to be there because of drafting at the top pretty much for the entire decade and mostly Chris Sale.

Eagle Bones

Still pretty impressive, they’ve just managed to squander what they drafted (either by trading it or not filling in the massive gaps around it).

lil jimmy

you are misled. They get no credit for the last five picks, they have had no production. Before that 13, no pick, 13, 17, Then Rodon.

GoGoSoxFan

Clearly Baseball America is fake news.

Milky✌️

CTRL+F, Scott Carroll 2 matches found. Okay, article is legit.

shaggy65

Great article and great memories!

I especially love:
1. All the Sierra gif’s. Not only is his contrast with Gillaspie, but also the fun with Abreu. I forgot how much fun Young Jose was.
2. The way Hawk prounced “Lilly-bridge”
3. That Scott Carroll video is hilarious. I somehow missed it back in the day, but I could watch looped footage of him for hours–hitting a “home run” and heading for the outfield…

Matt Albers memory was when I went to a game, expecting to likely be seeing chris sale live for the last time…only to see Albers warming up. The baseball gods agreed with my disgust and brought a massive storm in, which interrupted the game and we left early. Sale of course was traded a few months later.

I got one of those funny t-shirt jerseys that sale hated oh so much though so I guess the memory is still worth something.

Happy New year everyone.

burning-phoneix

I was always surprised they non-tendered Davidson. He was a decent bat and was better in hindsight to the underwhelming PAs we trotted out in 2019 at the 1B/DH position.

Anohito

Great list of Sox who were definitely memorable in their own special ways. Love seeing Lillibridge here. I’ll still remember I was at the game he his lillibomb was the 10,000th home run in Sox history.

Trooper Galactus

Remember the kid who had an emotional breakdown when his dad told him the team traded Lillibridge?

jacob-daugherty

I was at that exact Lillibridge game. I was on the Right field line in the 18th row with a bunch of Yankees fan. That game was a lot of fun to be at.

craigws

What I am taking from this is that Donny Lucy was ultimately overwhelmed in his battle against the Nazis.