1963
With expansion resulting in an explosion of offense, the MLB Rules Committee decides to increase the strike zone to the top of a batter\u2019s shoulders down to his knees. The results swing the balance of power so dramatically that in just five years and in spite of a four-team expansion looming, baseball will shrink the strike zone in order to inject some offense back into the game.<\/p>\n
1983 Advertisement<\/p>\n The Cubs were forced to make a rushed trade of\u00a0Scott Fletcher, Dick \u201cDirt\u201d Tidrow, Randy Martz\u00a0and Pat Tabler to the Sox for a\u00a0promise\u00a0not to take Jenkins, along with pitchers\u00a0Steve Trout\u00a0and\u00a0Warren Brusstar.\u00a0The Sox then flipped Tabler to Cleveland for\u00a0Jerry Dybzinski. After it was all said and done, Cubs GM Dallas Green was quoted as saying,\u00a0\u201cTo say I\u2019m relieved probably would be an understatement.\u201d<\/p>\n While traditionally there has been a reluctance for the Chicago teams to trade with one another, this marked the third deal made between the White Sox and Cubs in the 1983-83 offseason.<\/p>\n Fletcher\u00a0would be a key part of Chicago\u2019s 1983 division champions. But his bigger impact perhaps came during his second stint with the White Sox, in 1990, for the \u201cDoin\u2019 the Little Things\u201d White Sox, who shocked baseball by winning 94 games.\u00a0Fletcher\u00a0was a defensive rock at second base and executed small things exceptionally well \u2014 bunting, hitting behind a runner and to the opposite field, and driving in key runs.\u00a0Tidrow\u00a0did just about everything a relief pitcher could do in 1983, and\u00a0Dybzinski\u00a0stabilized a shaky infield in the early part of that same season. (Unfortunately, Dybzinski\u2019s baserunning error in Game 4 of the ALCS is what he is best remembered for.)<\/p>\n The White Sox starting staff was so deep in 1983, with\u00a0seven\u00a0pitchers on the roster who all won at least 10 games in a major league season, that\u00a0Martz\u00a0never really got a chance. He only made one emergency start that year, in a game at Detroit. The other pitchers besides Martz who won at least 10 games were\u00a0LaMarr Hoyt, Richard Dotson, Floyd Bannister, Britt Burns, Jerry Koosman\u00a0and\u00a0Steve Mura.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n In the end, Trout provided several strong starting years for the Cubs, offsetting the great value Fletcher brought with him to the White Sox. But there hasn\u2019t been a weirder \u2014 or more panicked \u2014 trade between Chicago clubs than this one.<\/p>\n And one year later, Hemond successfully plucked an unprotected future Hall-of-Famer through the compensation draft: Tom Seaver.<\/p>\n 1987 Noes\u00ed came to the pitching-poor White Sox off of waivers from the Texas on April 25, 2014 \u2014 already his third team of the young MLB season. Oddly, the White Sox had just seen him the previous April 20, crushing him for seven earned runs in the ninth inning of a blowout over the Rangers.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Nonetheless, the White Sox plugged him into the next night\u2019s game, on April 26. His next appearance was a start, and he logged 26 more to finish the season as a relative standout, with 0.9 WAR, 4.39 ERA, and 85 ERA+. Perhaps the most impressive about his 2014 was that despite his 8-11 record, the 73-89 White Sox went 14-14 in games he pitched.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s some crazy trivia. Noes\u00ed brought an 11-game losing streak to Chicago with him and added three more losses before snapping it with a win on June 3, 2014. To end his White Sox career, Noes\u00ed dropped his final three starts of 2014 and then went 0-4 during the 2015 season in Chicago; the White Sox lost all 10 of the games he appeared in, making the club 0-13 in all Noes\u00ed games to end his time with the team. In that stretch, Noes\u00ed carried an 0-7 record and 6.31 ERA in that losing stretch.<\/p>\n Noes\u00ed went to the KBO in South Korea from 2016-18 and turned his losing ways around, going 46-20 in that time. However, when he got a final look in the majors with Miami in 2019, naturally he went 0-3, with the Marlins going 2-10 in the games he pitched.<\/p>\n All in all, Noes\u00ed finished his major league career 0-10, with his teams going 2-23 in that time.<\/p>\n
The White Sox<\/a> and GM\u00a0Roland Hemond\u00a0outfoxed the Cubs<\/a> by hinting through the\u00a0media that they might select pitcher Fergie Jenkins after the Cubs left him unprotected in the free agent draft. Jenkins, the future Hall-of-Famer, was getting close to the magical 300-win mark in his career, and the Sox were entitled to compensation after losing outfielder\u00a0Steve Kemp\u00a0to the Yankees<\/a>.<\/p>\n
One of many flash points of the coming Rick Hahn rebuild, N\u00e9ctor Noes\u00ed, was born in Esperanza, Valverde in the Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n