In an age of declining ad revenue, shrinking news holes, and buyouts galore, a dedicated general baseball columnist is not something most newspapers can afford. Most newspapers. Some can afford such a luxury, or think they can, even as they’re shoving other very qualified employees out the door.

Say hello to the Chicago Tribune.

See, the Tribune pays Phil Rogers to write about baseball. He doesn’t just cover local professional baseball; he’s the paper’s national baseball columnist, meaning he gets to go to all the big baseball thingies and put national baseball stories in a local context. The idea itself is not so bad. It’s the execution that’s the problem. Because when Rogers writes things like his column today, it’s hard to see what, exactly, Sam Zell’s number crunchers are paying for.

The column, titled “White Sox Are Cubs’ Worst Nightmare,” seems innocent enough. Rogers believes the Cubs wouldn’t want to face the White Sox in a World Series. OK then. I can dig it. Why?

In baseball, more than any other sport, it’s unwise to draw attention to yourself. First-round draft picks who come with hype often turn out to be Corey Patterson or Kip Wells. The trades that don’t make big headlines, like the White Sox’s deal for Carlos Quentin, often turn out to be a lot better than the ones that are analyzed in day-by-day detail for weeks, like the Mets’ addition of Johan Santana.

Hmm. This seems like a fallacy of emphasis to me. Could it be that big signings and trades that work out are less hyped because we are less surprised by them? That, say, Alex Rodriguez — who Rogers needlessly snipes at in a second — and his successful Yankee career wouldn’t receive as much emphasis as Carlos Quentin because everybody expected A-Rod to be really, really good?

Can’t-miss players miss all the time. Ditto can’t-miss teams.

Just as often, I would argue, can’t-miss players don’t. Ditto can’t-miss teams. (Did Phil watch last year’s World Series, by any chance?)

Just ask those New York Yankees. [...] Headlines, sadly, are like Alex Rodriguez. They can’t hit in the clutch.

I’m not sure why Rogers feels the need to bring up Alex Rodriguez here. Nor am I sure how “headlines” are supposed to hit in the clutch. Oh well. The “clutch” trope is so tired it barely bears repeating. But since we’re here, Phil, A-Rod is the best player of his generation, and saying he can’t hit in the clutch is not only small-sample size nonsense, it’s actually statistically wrong. Of course, Rogers wouldn’t know that. It’s not like he has a job that might require him to occasionally think about baseball statistics.

Anyway, I got distracted. Let’s get to the real meat of this column, where I’m waiting for Rogers to tell me why he thinks the White Sox are a bad matchup for the Cubs:

There’s little doubt the Lou Crew is not only the best team in Chicago but the best in the majors. No lineup is as deep as the one that goes from Alfonso Soriano through Jim Edmonds and Reed Johnson. No rotation is as talented and as durable as the one that begins with Carlos Zambrano and runs through Jason Marquis. No bullpen has more impact arms than the one with Kerry Wood, Carlos Marmol and Jeff Samardzija.

But the Cubs won’t want any part of the White Sox in October. If this is going to be the year the North Siders scratch their 100-year itch, it won’t include a matchup against the Sox in October.

OK, so Phil the Thrill thinks the Cubs are the better team. Good to know. I agree, but not wholeheartedly. The Sox are very close. So why will they, the White Sox, being slightly worse than the Cubs, win again?

The Cubs were expected to make it.

Wait. Is this a reason?

The White Sox, leading the American League Central by two games and almost even with Boston on the wild-card landscape, would be surprise guests—the worst kind from the perspective of other teams. A team with almost nothing to lose.

“A team with nothing to lose.” This makes them better at scoring and defending against runs … how? Still waiting.

Wouldn’t it be just like the Cubs to put together arguably their best team ever and have it lose the World Series to a White Sox team that had been picked for third place or worse? More to the point, wouldn’t it be just like the White Sox once again to outplay their crosstown neighbors with the bigger fan base, superior resources and historic ballpark?

As far as I can tell, the White Sox were never forced to “outplay” the Cubs in their awesome 2005 World Series run. They outplayed the rest of the AL, and then they outplayed the Houston Astros in the World Series. Just as it is every single other year, the White Sox had almost nothing to do with the Cubs’ failures in ‘05, just as the Cubs had nothing to do with the White Sox’ success. Same goes for 2008.

So again, Phil, we’re still waiting. Why do the White Sox beat the Cubs in a seven-game World Series. Is it pitching? Hitting? Relief? Fielding? At what areas of the game should the White Sox expect to be better at baseball? Simple question. You basically asked it yourself. You’re running out of column inches. Now answer.

With Orlando Cabrera settling in at the leadoff spot and the arrival of Ken Griffey Jr. coinciding with a return to form by Paul Konerko and Nick Swisher, the Sox are playing as well as they have all year. They are pitching well again—compiling a 3.98 staff ERA in August after marks of 4.44 in July and 5.14 in June—in part because lefty Clayton Richard and right-hander Lance Broadway have more than filled Jose Contreras’ spot. They go to Boston this weekend with a chance to be measured head-to-head with the defending World Series champion Red Sox, who are in what has become a three teams-for-two playoff spots battle with the White Sox and Minnesota. Most analysts favor Chicago’s Sox to last into October.

And the answer is … Ken Griffey Jr.! And that the White Sox play Boston this weekend. Tremendous. Never mind that Griffey has hit .266/.368/.359 with 1 HR for the White Sox since coming over from Cincinnati (and that at this late stage of his career his defense is atrocious). Or that “playing Boston” is usually not seen as a boon to a team’s World Series chances. Or that “most analysts” favor the White Sox.

No, what Phil is really getting at here is psychology. The Cubs are expected to win, and thus are at a disadvantage, because they’re the Cubs, and didn’t you know the Cubs choke? Their fans are, like, way too intense! Duh! And the Sox are the perennial underdog which means they have the upper hand. Of course. But if you accept the premise that the Cubs are a better team than the White Sox (and I’m not 100 percent sure that’s true), isn’t that enough to slightly favor the Cubs in a World Series? Usually, being the better baseball team is a good thing.

It’s merely August, so it’s bad enough Rogers decided to write a column about a presumptive Chicago World Series. The chances of it happening are pretty slim. But what’s much, much worse is writing that column, saying one team is better but won’t win, because why? Because I just know it the Cubs will choke because they’re favored so that’s bad duh Billy Goats and Bartman BAHHHH, and then giving absolutely no reason for that bleating sheeplike circular logic. And then publishing it in a newspaper.

Chicago is a great, great sports city. Maybe the best in the country. It deserves a better class of baseball columnist.