Sawchik uses salary distribution graphs to make his point of the slow disappearance of mid-tier salary guys from the league, but we’d be wondering what was going on even without his help. As Jeff Passan points out, there’s a full major league roster worth of reliable, or at least playable veterans sitting around unsigned at the end of January. Across the league, teams are just more hesitant to pay market value for the assurance of competence when they could take a chance on finding it internally. Win or lose, they keep the payroll down.

It’s in this landscape that the White Sox offseason–able to trade elite talents under team-friendly contracts, but unable to move more traditional trade targets–makes a lot more sense. David Robertson has been less than stellar in his two years as White Sox closer, but still misses bats like a late-inning reliever. Yet the huge deals handed out for elite closers Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen and Mark Melancon–even the large deal for Brett Cecil–never trickled down into demand for Robertson, because once the elite tier was claimed, teams switched their focus to trying to staff their pen cheaply rather than pay for a consolation prize, let alone one owed $25 million through 2018.

Typically solidly above-average contributors for their career, down years for Todd Frazier and Jose Abreu combined with high arbitration figures have dragged them out of desirable territory as well. Frazier would normally be a worthy upgrade over Chase Headley, or a rebounding Pablo Sandoval, but even the Yankees and Red Sox would balk at paying $12 million to secure him without it being a franchise-altering upgrade. 2014 Abreu might draw a bidding war, but a simply above-average first baseman cannot create significant demand in a crowded market where Edwin Encarnacion is available at discount, and slightly inferior options like Mike Napoli, Chris Carter and Pedro Alvarez could be had for bargain bin prices.

Despite a strong rebound season at the plate in 2016 (.270 TAv), Melky Cabrera might have it the worst of all. He’s a plus hitter for his career, but is a solidly below-average defender in the outfield and does not have the power to project to first base or designated hitter. While the Sox may have needed offensive competence more than anything when they signed him, the increased focus on outfield defense means most teams would rather try to get equal value for cheap by putting a plus-glove in a corner and taking a risk on production from the bat. I would pick Cabrera to have better offensive seasons out of Jarrod Dyson, Mitch Haniger and Jorge Soler, but the Mariners will pay barely over a fifth of his salary to Dyson and Haniger combined to try to form a super defensive outfield, and the Royals will take the risk of Soler being sub-replacement dreck for the chance that he clicks and they have a cost-controlled slugger.

That the Sox are so pot-committed to these veteran role players is part of the reason I felt it made sense to keep pushing to fill their remaining holes, but it could double as the philosophical reason why they are rebuilding, if not a contextual one that optimizes the pieces they already had. The rest of the league is moving on from slapping market value band-aids to cover up the gouges on the roster, so the Sox are trying to build a new roster that can heal from within.

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Essentially, it’s a question of deception. The central data points identified are where hitters assess what is being thrown to them. These are the release point of a pitch, and the point where the ball is close enough that they must make the decision on whether to swing. This second point is labeled the ‘tunnel point’ and on average, is roughly 23.8 feet away from the plate. The archetypal great tunnel pitcher has a consistent release point, and their pitches look the same and cluster close to each other up to the tunnel point, ideally while still retaining a significant amount of movement after the tunnel point.

A running theory for me, is that the more granular we get, the more we will find specific revelations for some pitchers who previously seemed mysteriously greater than the sum of their parts, and in plenty of instances we will find that some factors are mostly irrelevant to the success of great pitchers.

While the bizarre and inscrutable nature of Chris Sale‘s delivery has frequently been cited as a reason for his success, it does not seem to fit the mold of tunneling. In 2016 he rated well below the median (among 162 pitchers with over 1000 pitch pairings), in the consistency of his release point, the closeness of his pitches up to the tunnel point, and the movement of his pitches after the tunnel point. This is just not the reason he is great, it seems, and it’s clearly not a one-size-fits-all measurement of pitching acumen, as arm slot changers like Rich Hill and old friend Zach Duke are going to get weird results with this too.

Someone who does shine in these measurements is human metronome Jose Quintana. Among 162 pitchers with 1000 pitch pairings (essentially the same size group of starters we had for command and control metrics), he was 10th in 2016 for the smallest divergence in his release point (Derek Holland was 11th). He’s less remarkable (4oth) in terms of break-to-tunnel ratio, which would score him highly for either having his pitches tightly clustered at the tunnel point or having a lot of post-tunnel break, but he has the 14th-smallest release-to-tunnel ratio, which theoretically means it’s harder to distinguish his pitches from one another from the release point to the tunnel point. Promisingly, Holland was 12th.

While Don Cooper is known for cleaning up deliveries, extremely consistent release point doesn’t seem like the big byproduct. Sale was routinely below median at release-to-tunnel ratio throughout his career, Carlos Rodon is the same way, Mark Buehrle was often slightly above-median but unexceptional. Cooper’s big 2016 success story, Miguel Gonzalez, was among the worst in the league (152nd out of 162) in 2016, a noticeable dip even from his last few seasons.

Even if we reduce the minimum to 500 pitch pairings to rope in relievers, only David Robertson emerges as solid late-movement guy, ranking 106 out of 385 in break-to-tunnel ratio. Nate Jones, tilting his arm way behind his head like a great terror, somehow nearly cracks the top-50 in release point stability. Addison Reed, notably, topped all of baseball in 2016 for the smallest space differential of his pitches at the tunnel point, which is a consistent trend through his career.

I don’t know, guys. There aren’t big trends here, other than the absence of big trends, suggesting that tunneling is a unique, person-to-person skill rather than the product of a system approach. Clayton Kershaw is pretty much great at all of this stuff, though, which is the great constant in all pitching analysis.

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Using a similar process to how they isolated catcher impact on extra strikes being called, they have isolated pitcher impact on the same result. In addition, Harry Pavlidis, Jeff Long and Jonathan Judge say that Called Strikes Above Average (CSAA), provides a serviceable guide to what pitchers are the best at hitting their spots. Pitchers who can consistently dot the edges of the zone with precision, will accumulate the most extra strike calls, the logic dictates.

Zach Davies, Josh Tomlin and Kyle Hendricks were three best pitchers in terms of CSAA in 2016, lending to the notion that soft tossers whose survival depends on avoiding the heart of the zone will dominate this category. Chris Sale and Jose Quintana were both above median in CSAA among the 144 pitchers who threw over 100 innings in 2016, but not exceptional, and the Sox don’t really have someone who fits the Davies mold on their starting staff.

Of course, it’s not hard to think of one recently. 2008 marks the year that the impact of PitchFX becomes readily apparent, and the rate of additional called strikes shrinks to something familiar to what we see now. It’s from this year through 2014 that Mark Buehrle finishes in the top-30 among pitchers with 100 or more innings every year, including finishing fourth in 2013 and pacing all of baseball in 2014.

With that affirming nod to our bias, let’s deal with more recent and current Sox starters. Sale was 41st in CSAA in 2016; unremarkable, but still solid and the best on the staff. But with his three pitches with ideal useful spin, and 15th-best called strike rate (after a big one-year jump reflective of his philosophy switch), he still fits the mold of a pitcher with elite stuff who does very well when he pounds the zone. Quintana is typically who we paint as the command specialist of the group, but he finished 40th in called strike rate and 45th in CSAA, so my takeaway from this is that we likely underrate how good his raw stuff is, and how effective his low-to-mid-90s and curveball combination is. He peaked at 29 out 145 pitchers in 2013, but his arsenal has only been strengthened since then.

Alternatively, the best thing that can be said about Carlos Rodon‘s CSAA is that it improved this year to 139th out of 144 after being dead last by nearly half a percentage point. That Rodon’s worst in baseball CSAA was -1.46 percent, you can see how bad being half a percentage point than the rest of the league is. Rodon is pounding the zone at least (34th in called strike rate in 2016) which is noticeable jump from his scattershot rookie season, but command rated so poorly puts him in a weird group at the bottom of the totem pole.

It’s filled with a collection of guys with stuff so electric that their command shortcomings don’t matter–Noah Syndergaard, Jake Arrieta, Yu Darvish and Max Scherzer are all in the bottom-15 in baseball in CSAA–and guys with big stuff who cannot seem to get out of their own way: Matt Moore, Dylan Bundy, Nate Eovaldi, Shelby Miller. The White Sox are staking a lot on Rodon being in that first group, and his 3.45 DRA in 2016 certainly suggests he’s already there. The “elite stuff” tag only works for Rodon if he develops a changeup that actually makes him dominant against righties, but this a different matter than what this data is showing us: Rodon’s command has upgraded from “very bad” to “fringy,” which is a level where others with his profile have been successful.

It’s hard to find a nugget for why Miguel Gonzalez was effective in 2016 in here. We know he has mediocre stuff, so filling up the zone (28th in called strike rate) with no command (125th in CSAA) seems like a recipe for more bombs than we saw in 2016. Perhaps this is how the difference in his stuff from standing tall with Cooper is the difference between him hanging in a major league rotation and being on the waiver wire. James Shields is reversed: he lived out of the zone (140th in called strikes) with decent command (50th), but trying to explain his grizzly season probably goes beyond simple statistical norms.

Sliding the inning minimums down to catch some of the new Sox prospect arms, Reynaldo Lopez is unsurprisingly below average at CSAA (281 out of 385 with over 40 innings) given that he’s fireballer with questions on his repeatability. While Lucas Giolito‘s 2016 debut was mostly disastrous and his 398 chances at the major league level does not even meet the sample size barrier discussed in BP’s article, he filled up the strike zone well enough (48.1 called strike rate) and was almost perfectly average in terms of command (-0.01 CSAA).

It won’t be until we’re desperate for content in mid-May that the benefit of a new measurement to point at excitedly will really reap content rewards, so pleased stay tuned, or spend your time bemoaning what became of John Danks‘ command.

Lead Image Credit: Jeffrey Becker // USA Today Sports Images

We tend to get more blindsided by someone less interesting, like Hector Noesi in 2015 or John Danks in 2016, just falling apart, because we overlooked their underlying decay in the rush to write them off as “fine” and move on.  This is an analyst problem, but it doubles as a White Sox problem, since they have regularly been able to stand up to the rest of the league in roster spots 1 through 10, while taking a shellacking in spots 16 through 25.

So here’s a roundabout way of finally getting to Miguel Gonzalez, who began as a Spring Training minor league deal, debuted as a desperate backup option, had some moments of unease early on, and then transitioned into a nice back-end starter groove at the start of July so smoothly that there was barely any thought put into the assumption that he was “fine,” and would be in the back of the rotation going forward.

Gonzalez’s 135 innings of 3.73 ERA was good, but not good enough to draw quibbles that it was belied by a 4.65 DRA and that his 2016 cFIP was a below-average (albeit career-best) 104. Gonzalez even pitched so poorly on June 25 that the Sox managed to lose a game in which they hit seven home runs, but a 2.72 ERA over his last 13 starts appears to have blotted memories and concerns from that day out. And if it hadn’t, a rebuild would have done the trick.

Gonzalez has always boasted more command and confidence and cojones than actual stuff, has never so much as broke 7.0 K/9 in a season, and has never controlled contact in a way that would lead to pleasing metrics or hope for stable performance. He made his living attacking the zone with low-90s heat and dealt with the days where the barrels found everything as they came. Gonzalez’s biggest swing-and-miss offering has always been his splitter, which still left him without a great second offering to throw in the zone. That kind of fringy profile puts him in danger of a collapse if just a slight complication arises, like the late-2015 velocity dip that Cat Garcia noticed, which led immediately to him getting crushed down the stretch and being put on the outs of the Baltimore roster. 1-to-2 mph is enough to place most No. 4 starters into a crisis, and Gonzalez is certainly no exception.

Perhaps that’s why he was more willing than others to accept the approach of his new team as dogma. Don Cooper’s preference to have his guys “stand tall” and remain upright as much as possible through their delivery is well known, and Gonzalez told me early in the season it was a focus in the bullpen sessions. Sure enough, scouts say that was present through his strong close to the year. The delivery tweak allows him to get more torque in his hips, and while the velocity bump is slight (Less than one mph, but more importantly there was no second half fade), it gave him a crispness to his stuff he had lacked and sorely needed, particularly his slider.

Enigmatic for most of his career, Gonzalez’s slider became his primary breaking pitch again in 2016, giving him a bender more suited to his attacking approach and allowing to be more selective with his splitter as a wipeout offering. The fix is a physically sustainable, cleaner motion and Gonzalez is well-conditioned at age 32, but it’s not wholly transformative.

While he’s worked to earn the $5.9 million going into his pockets next season, he’s still right-hander with average velocity, low strikeout rates and unremarkable secondaries, who is a setback away from being a liability. A spike in walk rate early on will signal trouble is afoot with his delivery, and expecting more than another year or two of steady production seems unwise, which is academic since he hits free agency after 2018 anyway.

So, like most players not on their Top Prospects list right now, the Sox should be looking for opportunities to move Gonzalez. Unlike others, there’s no angst about Gonzalez breaking camp with the club, because grit-and-guile No. 4 starters are not something other teams should admit they have to trade for until they are forced. Gonzalez won’t bring back a haul but he should bring back value, and any value is worth the small cost of snatching him up when he had none and revitalizing his career. It won’t be enough of a contribution to put Gonzalez in the annals of franchise history, but during a stretch that has seen the Sox great attraction sent away, seeing a scuffling veteran come into the organization and turn out just “fine,” is a small joy that can no longer be brushed aside.

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Since Quintana is the best player on the trade market, and the return for him would likely vault the White Sox to having the best farm system in the game, so normally this would make for five-alarm top billing news if we were not already a month into uninterrupted Quintana trade chatter, intense demand for his services wasn’t essentially guaranteed, and all momentum to move the more time-sensitive, less valuable veteran pieces on their roster had dissipated.

While Hahn cleaned up with two blockbuster deals at the Winter Meetings, Cee Angi argues that expectation for similar returns indicative of an extreme seller’s market might have stalled progress over the last month, as teams have waited out the slow-moving free agent crop and looked for other options rather than pay massive prices for the Sox talent.

A Quintana deal is all the Sox need to have a top system and make their teardown look like a successful venture, but wringing value out of David Robertson, Todd Frazier, Nate Jones, Jose Abreu and more could be the difference between a great system and a generational one, with a young core so strong and deep that a sizable contending window is nigh-inevitable, even with payroll constraints.

2. Even talking about the trade market feels like needlessly loading up on vegetables when the White Sox announced the far more grabbing news that they are giving away a Hawk Harrelson alarm clock on May 13 of next season.

⏰ pic.twitter.com/12xq5unXI9

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) January 17, 2017

Besides being ingenious on its own, the positive response to it reveals that Hawk’s character and exclamations are still innately charming and unique, it’s his declining energy for the less flashy yet necessary aspects of play-by-play work that have dragged at his work and public perception. The man himself cannot be reduced into an alarm clock, but a way to preserve Hawk the character, and de-emphasize Hawk the pre-game notes preparer, and Hawk the sabermetric analyst, could provide more enjoyment for everyone. There is also a 1917 uniform night on the promotional schedule, which should got smoothly provided the things are actually comfortable to wear this time. But so far, there is no mention of a Uncle Rick Queso Fundido giveaway, which makes this all seem like a big tease.

Rick Renteria is showing us how to make his famous queso fundido! Stay tuned for the full video

3. I’m not going to waste time being curmudgeonly about the Michael Kopech video…

First day of max velocity throws for @MichaelKopech5 …. Is 110mph good?

…by asking whether the pitch he threw was actually a strike, pointing out that his running crow hop max throw exercise does not translate directly to an actual in-game delivery, or belaboring the point that we already know that Kopech throws very hard, and that real enthusiasm should be reserved for progress with his changeup, improved command and falling walk totals.

But the rebuild will be long, dark and full of terrors. Exciting dispatches from the minor league will be very brief interruptions from the daily drudgery of a big league roster in transition, and Sox fans should indulge in stupid joy of raw tools while they can. What else is there to do?

4. Not at all thematically related to the concept of lost prospect promise, the White Sox agreed to a minor league deal with Cory Luebke. The 31-year-old left-hander and former supplemental round pick had an excellent rookie season in 2011, posting a 3.08 DRA in 139.2 innings between the bullpen and the rotation in San Diego. Since then, he’s had two Tommy John surgeries and countless complications around and in between them. Luebke dominated for the Pirates Triple-A affiliate in 2016, striking out 29 in 18.1 innings, and then was completely dominated in turn once he was called up, allowing a 9.35 ERA in 8.2 innings with a 123 cFIP.

The health record is abysmal and the stuff is obviously going to be diminished, but this a prototypical rebuild flier. It’s a worthy use of the Sox time.

5. Tim Raines’ last shot at the Hall of Fame gets announced this afternoon. Per the Hall of Fame tracker of the great Ryan Thibodaux, Raines is at 88.6 percent of the vote among public ballots, which puts him at good but far from certain levels, considering the expected drop that comes from anonymous voters.

Raines will likely go in as a Montreal Expo, as he spent his prime there, but he gave the White Sox five good years, and should be remembered among their successful investments in a past-their-prime veteran. He hit .283/.375/.407 and stole 143 bases on the South Side. His best year at the plate came during the Sox best season of the decade, as he hit .306/.401/.480 in 1993. Not bad for a speed player in his 30s.

When the rebuild was first signaled, I thought it was basically Christmas for Carlos Sanchez, Leury Garcia, Rymer Liriano, Tyler Saladino, Garcia, and every graduated but blocked or stalled mid-tier White Sox prospect. But while these are opportunities are to be handed out pretty freely, the Sox sending out the polished but low-ceiling Jason Coats showed they are a least a little bit choosy on how they dole out 2017 plate appearances. While we understand hoping that stalled, older prospects to break out is a long shot, just how much of a longshot is something worth nagging Ethan Spalding into running queries for.

Avisail does not turn 26 until June, and Liriano is just eight days younger. Leury turns 26 in March, as does Matt Davidson. Omar Narvaez and Sanchez are both a year younger. They are all longshots, but Garcia is the one that stretches the parameters the most. To that end, inspired by Garcia, who sits at 1.1 career WARP at this point, here’s the highest career WARP for players who at age 25, had 2 WARP or less.

So, obviously there’s plenty of hope here. A lot of late debuts, or guys that flopped in very brief debuts, went on to be fringe Hall of Famers. But age has always been a factor cited by those still hopeful for Avisail, whereas our cynicism has lay in how much he has already struggled at the major league level over his 1,551 major league plate appearances. So, here’s the same search with the added condition of anyone included has to have reached 1,500 plate appearances by age 25.

There’s a lot less hope here, and not just because Garcia is already on the top-20 by these parameters and is placed right next to Dayan Viciedo by a twist of fate. Cliff Floyd is a decent enough ray of hope, since he debuted early at 20, hit inconsistently while dealing with injuries and his fits of progress on offense were undermined by defensive struggles, but Jose Guillen, a total toolshed who was totally confounding until settling into a nice prime in his late-20, early-30s, seems perfect. Michael Brantley‘s early career offense was bad, but he was hampered by a need to be moved out of center in a way that Avisail never was.

But much of this group is not a good comparison with Garcia because he cannot recoup value by becoming a plus-fielding shortstop like Dick Groat, Omar Vizquel and Alex Gonzalez, or a catcher like Michael Barrett. While there has been some more optimism about Garcia playing an outfield position of recent, his usefulness is pretty clearly defined by whether or not his bat (a career .250 TAv [true average] at this point) ever develops.

So I asked Ethan to query for the highest TAv for players who had a TAv of .250 or below, at age 25, with 1,500 or more plate appearances. Ethan immediately pointed out that this was dumb, and I would wind up someone who went 1-for-2 with a walk after they turned 26 and then stepped into another dimension, never to return. He also pointed out I would get Jean Segura, who could very well could have been a BABIP mirage in 2016. As such, Ethan decided to only include players with 1,000 plate appearances after age 25.

Guillen is still there, and Carlos Gomez and Yadier Molina, two defensive mavens pushed up well before they could contribute anything on offense, represent some of the only names on here who played after women’s suffrage was passed. But Melky Cabrera, another toolsy early debut guy who struggled with inconsistency and conditioning before rounding into form, is so obvious I hate myself for getting through this whole article without addressing him before. Cabrera has some of the best bat-to-ball skills in the game, peaked at 18 home runs in career, and was a full-time centerfielder at age 26, as opposed to a DH at age 25, so they’re still sorta (extremely) different.

The top of the scale is still on the table for even an older prospect who hasn’t gotten a chance yet, even if we have plenty of reasons to doubt Liriano, have only a tinge of hope that Sanchez or Leury would be even light hitters in the big leagues and possess little confidence that Davidson made significant progress in Triple-A, there’s a reason that air of untapped potential is more inviting and intriguing.

Garcia turning into something is still possible, but his struggles are indicative that the ceiling he first entered the league with has significantly lowered, and we can count on one hand similar projects that meaningfully reversed the course of their offensive progress at this stage. Just as striking, is that one team sticking with that project the whole way through, while it’s not providing any current value, is virtually unprecedented. But at this point, with a rebuild pending, the absurdity of the Sox commitment doesn’t matter anymore, it’s jut bizarre.

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That said, hearing the Yankees are dropping out because they don’t want to give up “three elite prospects,” calls back old memories of the Sox and their stringent high demands stagnating trade progress (though a quick look at their prospect list shows its benefits, of course). Speculation that the Braves could still be in provides a reminder of the transience of these things, but so far they have traded one of the greatest talents to ever hit the trade market, victimized a desperate Nationals team looking for a consolation prize, and appear to have a good demand for the third super cost-controlled All-Star talent in its prime.

Moves for the guys who are not providing useful value if they are not contributing to a winning White Sox team such as Todd Frazier and Melky Cabrera, however, have lacked any real momentum. Nothing has percolated on David Robertson for a while, not that there’s the same rush, and why there isn’t a feeding frenzy for Nate Jones continues to be baffling. The Los Angeles Dodgers, the win-now team most in need of a real second baseman, just had their trade talks for Brian Dozier fall through, which at least provides a theoretical opening for Brett Lawrie, if not one that has his name attached in any meaningful way. It’s more important to max out the returns for their super pieces, but confusing they still have all these players who obviously should be traded.

Just the return on a Quintana trade alone will likely be enough to vault the Sox to having the best farm system in the game, so nitpicking about whether they are approaching moving the smaller bits of their roster aggressively feels a bit silly. But when we’re talking about what kind of homegrown core is needed to build a World Series winner on presumably a $120 million budget three years from now, no prospect buildup is enough.

The common reason to fret about this is the new wave obsession with maximum tanking during a rebuild, and gunning for the No. 1 pick with the cynical force of a thousand suns. My reason for focusing on it probably reads as trivial as quibbling over the expected value of the second pick vs. the first pick: clarity of purpose. Clearing the house quickly eliminates the weirdness of entering the year full of vets who expected to play for a contender, shows the Sox are committed to an extreme, scorched Earth approach that will maximize their efforts, and allows them to use 2017 as an opportunity to try out projects rather than to carry out trade auditions.

But I don’t even waste time writing that paragraph if I’m not a little bored with a quiet January. The market still has left the Sox behind in many real ways. Frazier has not been left out of any run on third baseman, there’s a very real glut of first baseman and designated hitters to suppress Jose Abreu‘s market. Only relievers seem like territory the Sox could be pushing into, and there’s no end in demand for that ever.

To that end, avoiding arbitration with Dan Jennings and Jake Petricka is the actual transactional news of the week. Both could be traded for some sort of lotto ticket if they prove themselves capable in 2017, and both seem like the type of projects who fit within the typical constraints of a rebuild. They’ll also be more interesting to watch than they will have significant effect on building the new core, which is a good preview on how watching the activities of the big league club will be going forward.

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Not to tamp down all the excitement of the sight and sound of actual bats connecting with baseballs again, and reports of Yoan Moncada lefty swatting batting practice pitches out to dead center, but the expectation for this needs to be settled firmly on ‘useful exercise’ rather than ‘source of revelatory breakthrough’ for the 16-man group (Moncada, Zack Collins, Charlie Tilson, Matt Davidson, Kevan Smith, Adam Engel, Jacob May, Trey Michalczewski, Keon Barnum, Courtney Hawkins, Dan Hayes, Keenyn Walker, Joey DeMichele, Jameson Fisher, Alex Call and Nick Delmonico) in Glendale. Even with a wide open major league club that nearly half of this group could be considered Opening Day roster candidates for, this whole camp is a nod to a principle that Don Cooper alluded to in his podcast with Chuck Garfien: what’s a rebuild to a position group coach, who is always developing talent no matter what?

Moncada expressed some shock at being traded through an interpreter, but still expects to thrive with his new team, he got to see his parents in Cuba for the first time in two years over the offseason, and everyone is over the moon about his physique and talent, but where the Sox stand with Collins grabbed attention. When he was drafted, some evaluators compared Collins’ chances to sticking at catcher unfavorably to Kyle Schwarber‘s at the same point in their careers, but after an offseason of pilates work focused on improving agility, confidence is still high after a debut season full of mixed reviews.

Here’s one point taken away from today: Zack Collins and White Sox have no doubt he will be a solid big league catcher.

— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) January 10, 2017

Given the sea change effect sticking at catcher, even as just a defensive mediocre one, would have on Collins’ value (not to mention how much more simple it would make building the next Sox contender), they are absolutely right to continue pushing toward this reality. Another side benefit of the rebuild is no pressure to abandon having Collins catch for the sake of getting his bat to the majors.

As far as sources of newsworthy revelations and insight, I prefer Don Cooper talking on Chuck Garfien’s podcast. Beyond the simply hysterical quips on Sale’s jersey incident–“obviously he didn’t like the uniform,”–and Mark Buehrle’s state of affairs when he asked about warming up for Game 3 of the World Series–“He had a styrofoam cup in his hand, it looked to me like it had suds in it…It might have been one of those energy drinks,”–Cooper gave the first team insights on their trade returns in months, and in his typically more honest style.

While he didn’t get deep on Lucas Giolito, he did say they were unconcerned about him getting shelled in his brief major league debut in 2016. Surprisingly, he acknowledged that Reynaldo Lopez “could go either way” as far as starting or relieving while still praising where his fastball and slider are at right now. But for perhaps the riskiest arm in the bunch, Cooper was over the moon, praising Michael Kopech‘s huge arm and also his delivery, and saying keeping him healthy is the only real concern.

On Dane Dunning, Cooper mostly just made fun of the awful video quality that other teams had on Dunning and was generally positive. Since Dunning was just drafted this past June and hasn’t hit High-A yet, this seems like a very appropriate level of Dunning enthusiasm.

On the veterans, Cooper said James Shields will benefit from a clean slate but also acknowledged that after 11 years in the majors, his stuff is obviously diminished. He confirmed our speculation that David Robertson was hampered by his knee problems in 2016, and while he concluded that the biggest issue for Derek Holland going forward is health, he also mentioned his trouble staying back in his delivery when pitching out of the stretch as a target area for a fix. Every time Cooper is pointing out a specific fix, goals seem much more attainable. Which is also instructive for how to read it when he’s less specific.

There’s going to be plenty read into his comments on pitch-framing, which he acknowledged the value of, but probably wasn’t super convincing when tried to defend the switch between Tyler Flowers to Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro. Cooper ended by saying ”I hold the pitchers responsible for everything that goes on,” to sum up his approach. While the Sox certainly don’t hold any benefit of the doubt right now for how much they appreciate framing, that really shouldn’t fall on Cooper, whose comments would fit along just fine with a framing conscious organization.

Photo by Mark J. Rebilas

A funny thing happened to the White Sox presumptive starting right fielder Jason Coats on Friday: he was designated for assignment. Coats will turn 27 at the start of Spring Training, his game has never been projected to translate well to the majors, and he does not figure to be anywhere near the next White Sox contender. But with the Sox roster beginning to be excavated, and with more open spaces on the way, there was a real sense that Coats had worked his way to the top of the heap of outfield candidates and earned a shot. He torched Triple-A to the tune of .330/.394/.519 in 2016, and despite debuting last year, barely got any chance to prove himself in 58 plate appearances.

Coats might not be worth an extended look, but such a dearth of opportunity pales in comparison to say, over 1500 plate appearances for Avisail Garcia. If that wasn’t telling enough, he was excised to make room for a waiver claim of Willy Garcia, a fallen 24-year-old Pirates prospect who is Coats’ opposite. He’s got the type of big tools found in waiver clam projects–big raw power, huge throwing arm–with no production to show for it (.245/.290/.388 in 790 Triple-A plate appearances) and little scouting optimism that he can cut down on the swing-and-miss in his game.

Dayan Viciedo already taught us that there are few things as tiresome as a corner outfielder with huge power who can’t barrel anything, and a huge throwing arm but poor foot speed. Coats is a solid bet to outperform Garcia in 2017 big league action, but a perfect world projection of Garcia is superior to Coats, and Coats’ likely advantage is meaningless if 2017 wins and losses don’t matter and he still doesn’t project to be a trade asset either way.

This is a very bloodless line of logic, but so is trading Chris Sale and Adam Eaton, and probably Jose Quintana, to try for a massive, and inexpensive, reboot with a top-flight farm system. The Sox have already been courting electric but volatile talents in their major trades–Moncada threatens a 30 percent strikeout rate, Kopech and Reynaldo Lopez have plenty of evaluators who believe they’re relievers–under the logic that risky prospects because less risky when you have dozens of them to try out, so why not apply the same logic to their major league fliers?

By that same logic, clearing out Coats should really be about a spot for the out-of-options Rymer Liriano, himself a formless collection of tools due to two years of development lost to injuries, but possessing far more of an actual plate approach and some actual success in Triple-A (.292/.383/.460 in 549 plate appearances in 2015).

A shade or two too bloodless for my liking is the reclamation projection signing of Everth Cabrera. The 30-year-old former All-Star spent 2016 playing in his native Nicaragua, but also spent some of it in Cuba going through three months of alcohol rehab per the publication El Nuevo Diario. He broke onto the scene in 2012 when he led the National League with 44 stolen bases (while being caught just four times), despite complicating his call-up by being arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence along with his wife. His offensive peak came when he hit .283/.355/.381 in 2013, which was hampered by him serving a 50-game suspension after he admitted taking PEDs after being implicated in the Biogenesis scandal.

If a theme was not already apparent, Cabrera’s exit from San Diego was precipitated by a 2014 arrest for driving under the influence of marijuana, and his rehab stint in Cuba was preceded by an arrest in Nicaragua for getting into a fight at a market. Before that took place, in March, a somewhat paunchy Cabrera gave an embittered interview to El Nuevo Diario where he called out MLB for trying to make an example out of him during the Biogenesis scandal despite his admission of guilt, the Players’ Union for abandoning him, the police for their aggression during his arrest, and even his wife for not being understanding enough of the difficulties of his career.

It’s not hard to find legitimacy in some of his complaints, but as a whole it comes off as a lot of defiance from someone without much of a leg to stand on. The most recent video interview with El Nuevo Diario found Cabrera newly svelte and recommitted, and the Sox are definitely signing that guy, rather than the spiraling and out of shape Cabrera from last March.

Cabrera hit just .227/.267/.285 and stole only 20 in 28 bases in 119 games over 2014 and 2015 in the majors, so uncovering the premium talent buried within probably takes far more than just a new training regimen. Carlos Sanchez, Leury Garcia, and certainly Tyler Saladino are all likely superior to Coats on the major league level, which is to say nothing of how much playing time Moncada will soon consume, but perhaps it’s the same idea. Cabrera, once a basestealing menace with plus on-base skills from the shortstop position, has had higher highs than any of them. If he’s a starter-level talent again, he proves more valuable than giving opportunity to glorified utility guys.

Or it’s just a minor league deal; besides the ones that indicate a lack of emphasis on personal conduct, there are not supposed to be bad ones.

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With this gaping maw for major league experience at the catcher position, pretty much any veteran would be a necessary addition for the Sox, and Geovany Soto, returning to the club on a minor league according to Bruce Levine and Dan Hayes, fits the bill well enough that penciling him into the Opening Day roster barely feels like a stretch. After all, he pulled off the same ascent from non-roster Spring invite to the big club just two years ago.

Not much has changed with Soto in that time. The ball still jumps off his bat (.196 ISO the last two seasons) when he actually makes contact (28.4 strikeout rate), he still has throwing arm good enough to stave off total chaos on the basepaths (his injury remains the secret turning point of the 2014 AL Wild Card Game), and he’s coming off another season where he barely played, specifically due to a tear in the meniscus of his right knee, again. He also is a below-average rated framer who could potentially be a challenging match with some of the lively, erratic arms the Sox figure to be matriculating through their system.

Entering a rebuilding season, with quality free agent catchers in typically short supply, it’s no surprise the Sox are rolling the dice with their internal options and making a meager investment in Soto. Long-term solutions are what they are searching for these days, and a commitment to Matt Wieters, or even a pursuit of Jason Castro, would likely have meant signing up for the descent from usefulness, with their best work coming now, when the roster is being stripped down.

But with the budget already slashed, there’s a case to be made that an investment in a sound backstop could have cascading benefits, especially with the degree to which the Sox future is tied up in pitching development. Carlos Rodon, who might soon be the staff ace by default, struggled to progress and utilize his changeup as a rookie until Tyler Flowers became his permanent partner in 2015, and last year did not earn the Sox a lot of benefit of the doubt that they are placing enough emphasis on this facet of the catching duties.

Not that Soto is suddenly responsible for the entire pitching staff; he hasn’t so much as played more than 81 games since 2012. If anything, a part-timer like Soto being the veteran stability signing only further cements 2017 as a trial opportunity for Narvaez, who emerged from near-total anonymity to flash a surprising mastery of the strike zone (.350 OBP and as many walks as strikeouts in 117 plate appearances) at the end of 2016. The bat control helped offset some of the power limitations that could be expected from someone snatched away from the Rays in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft three years ago. Narvaez also earned some encouraging plaudits from Rodon for his amiable work behind the plate, but that too is counterbalanced by poor–albeit early–framing numbers and pretty much no success at throwing out basestealers. 

With a great career opportunity lying in front of him, Narvaez could show that he has the skills to be a major leaguer for years to come, if not necessarily a long-term starter. Or he could flop and give way to a cycle of internal options with even lesser qualifications. Even a generous projection of a Narvaez-Soto platoon figures to merely adequate, and the downside could earn comparisons to last year’s group.

Such comparisons could only go so far, because the 2017 Sox will not be operating on the stakes of trying to prop up a playoff contender, they simply need to give their opportunities to someone worthwhile. Narvaez won’t earn much preseason buzz, but he’s already earned his shot, and with Soto aboard, at least he won’t be struck on an island.

Lead Image Credit: Kevin Jairaj // USA Today Sports Images