Folks, if you have been watching the White Sox recently, you know that the most exciting reason to watch (save for Chris Sale starts) is the 22 year old JuCo product from Tuscaloosa, AL.  It has been absolutely thrilling to watch a homegrown White Sox hitter actually come to the majors and look like he knows what he is doing…………but of course, being a White Sox fan and viewing twitter, the inevitable occurred…..

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  This list goes on………..but White Sox Twitter is clearly terrified that their favorite new player is doomed to the failures of another former favorite new player…………I AM NOT!

WHY??

Emotionally

Gordon Beckham has caused me enough strife, and I won’t allow him back into my emotional White Sox experience……….not only did he fail spectacularly, but he hung around 35th and Shields way too long, got to play way too much and was much too beloved for a majority of that………I’ve got a good head of hair too, but that doesn’t mean people should love me even when I suck…….oh and then after I thought he was finally gone, they pulled him back in!  

Analytically

 They are two different players, Beckham was a completely finished product when he was drafted, in fact he hit 28 HR and played SS for a top college program as a Junior in 2008 and somehow wasn’t picked #1 overall.  On the other hand, Anderson was a JuCo kid, who had mostly played basketball until a couple of years before shooting up the draft board and being drafted #17 overall in 2013.  The developmental paths are very, very different, and although Anderson has downside, he has a lot of upside as well.  

Mentally

I remember an early Gordon Beckham slump when he was on local radio being interviewed and his answers to questions about the slump and approach etc were concerning.  On the other hand, according to hitting coach Todd Steverson, Tim Anderson has some things to work on at the plate, but his fear level is 0.  For those of you that have read “Moneyball”, GB is Billy Beane and TA is Lenny Dykstra (without all of the financial fraud).  That makes me feel good.  

Visually

As noted previously, Gordon Beckham has great hair, and I think his handsome southern gentleman self may have distracted me (I know it distracted female fans as some still love GB, even after 5 pretty terrible season here).  According to Hawk, “He has that good face” and you would hear, “he looks like a ballplayer”………….on the other hand………what we were missing was that he had a long ass swing.  Anderson, to me, seems to have a very quick swing, seems to be able to react on the fly during a game and he doesn’t have a particularly obvious baseball look.  He looks like a good athlete, who looks like he can play well, but still doesn’t quite know how to play.  That’s reassuring, because it seems like he has upside and he’s malleable enough to change when necessary.   In closing, I hope this article is as cathartic for you as it was for me and allows you to lay Gordon Beckham’s terrible White Sox career to rest for good and  to move onto what should be a lovely Tim Anderson era.  

– BeefLoaf