First or second move

The first acquisition of last year’s White Sox offseason was Steve Lombardozzi.  The second was selecting Jacob Turner off waivers.  Since moving to the bullpen, Turner does not look great, but has resembled a major leaguer in a way he certainly did not in his disastrous spot starts, allowing two earned runs, striking out seven and walking four in 8.1 innings. If you ranked a 25-man roster by importance, it would be hard for him to ever break out of the bottom five, but if you consider his waiver wire existence, having a hope to make the major league roster next season is a relatively long-term placement.

But perhaps this is being technically precise at the cost of being spiritually extremely incorrect.  When Rick Hahn told reporters last Thursday that “By the time we make our first or second transaction, publicly it will be fairly clear as to our direction,” it reminded me of the great feint of this past offseason.

To be more accurate about how that started, even flying past non-tendering Tyler Flowers and replacing him with Alex Avila, and Dioner Navarro, the first major moves were trading for Brett Lawrie and Todd Frazier, players who both had two more years of team control being added to a core of mid-20-somethings.  From that point, it could not have been much clearer that the Sox’ intentions were to be competitive in 2016.

But what looked like the beginning of the buildup of the 2016 roster, with most of the marquee free agents still on the board, was really the end of anything substantive.  They made a few waiver claims, brought on Mat Latos on a extreme buy-low make-good deal, signed Jimmy Rollins to a minor league deal, and after their position players had already made camp, they gave Austin Jackson the largest free agent contract of the whole offseason to be a defense-first centerfielder.

Or perhaps, they intended it to be even less, since Adam LaRoche‘s retirement did a great deal to clarify his role, and locking down the everyday centerfielder in early March would be unusually fly-by-night even for the White Sox stated philosophy of being open to all options at all times.

The point in dredging this all up, is to point out that clarity of intention about the organization’s direction does not equate to actually moving in that direction.  They want to build back their international operations after the Wilder scandal, and have made strides to do so, but still shy away from incurring fines for going over budget like other teams.  Similarly they want to let their organizational depth build up, but have to serve the cause of trying to compete without pursuing big-ticket free agent targets, which could double as the explanation for why they cannot compete either.

The Sox just dealt the Seattle Mariners–another perennial also-ran, but one that looks to be having their occasional good, but not quite good enough season–a crucial blow by taking three out of four this past weekend.  They sent out Chris Sale, Jose Quintana and Carlos Rodon all near the height of their powers, and looked, as they often do, like a team with a suffocating core that is just a few tweaks from being a truly loathsome playoff matchup for anyone.  The direction that needs to be taken, with this still affordable and excellent groups, as always, could not be clearer, but what the Sox are able to do with them is always a mystery.

Lead Image Credit: Caylor Arnold // USA Today Sports Images