First and foremost, the decision was made with increasing offensive production in mind. Flowers hit an abysmal .239/.295/.356 with a wRC+ of 79 in 2015. With patchwork being done elsewhere on offense, the White Sox simply didn’t believe they had any path to success with Flowers in the lineup on a daily basis. That’s certainly a fair assessment. However, Flowers went on to have the best offensive season of his career in Atlanta in 2016. Perhaps the automatic reaction is that Flowers went to a somewhat weaker National League, and the White Sox had no way of predicting that a breakout was coming.

That is not necessarily true. While Flowers wasn’t great during the 2015 season, he showed some shockingly good improvements in areas that sometimes go unnoticed. From 2014 to 2015 some serious improvements were made in his contact and swing rates. He lowered his swing percentage on pitches outside the zone from 34.1 to 29.5 percent while keeping his swing percentage on pitches inside the zone relatively the same. Laying off the garbage helped him raise his contact rate on pitches inside the zone by 7.9 percent. Even more noticeable was the drop in strikeout rate from 36 to 28.8 percent. That adjustment seemed to stick around in Atlanta where he held a 28 percent strikeout rate while raising his walk rate a bit to become an above average hitter, which is not often seen from catchers.

The success of Flowers only compounded the issues that the White Sox saw from their decision to change things at catcher. While they were looking to make an offensive improvement, neither Avila nor Navarro held up their ends of the deal. Navarro’s slash line was horrifying. He hit .207/.265/.322 with a 56 wRC+. He was disastrous at the plate, which was where he was supposed to excel. Avila faired slightly better, mostly due to his ability to take a walk. Avila had a walk rate of 18.2 percent, which helped him reach above average wRC+ (104). The offensive production was bad and disappointing. However, the White Sox can be mostly forgiven for that part of it. They expected success at the plate (although perhaps that’s a poor reflection of their scouting department), but they got failure. Where the White Sox were really burned for their decision was behind the plate.

Tyler Flowers was coming off his best defensive season, in which he had an FRAA of 11.0 and ranked third in framing runs with 15.2. The misconception appears to be that the White Sox weren’t even aware of this impressive framing ability, especially in the year before his release. Rick Hahn put those suggestions to bed with his comments during a conference call in March.

“I think there’s an unfortunate perception out there that we let Tyler Flowers go because we don’t believe in or perhaps are even not aware of framing data,” he said. “Hopefully people realize it was a little more of a sophisticated decision than that. We certainly have, I believe, owned the fact that it did not pan out with (Dioner) Navarro and (Alex) Avila the way we had hoped.”

Hahn makes two things clear with this statement. First, the White Sox do consider and value framing data. Second, he owns up to the fact that the decision to move from Flowers to Navarro and Avila was not a success. He went on to talk in a little more detail about framing and the things the White Sox consider when pursuing a catcher.

“We do very much value catcher defense,” he said. “We spend a great deal of time on framing and teaching framing at the minor league level … In fact, you will recall that Tyler made great advances as part of our organization in his framing metrics. When it does come to evaluating a catcher’s defensive ability, we don’t limit it strictly to framing. We would like to also have their ability to control the running game be evaluated, their ability with lateral movement to handle passed balls in the dirt, to a lesser extend wild pitches and the effect a catcher has on that, as well as their ability to work with a pitching staff and manage a pitcher’s compliance with their game plan as well.

“So it’s easy to look at the decision on Tyler and think it was us not understanding or appreciating framing data, however, nothing could be farther from the truth.”

First off, he’s right about the fact that Flowers learned his framing skill in the White Sox minor league system. When he was acquired, he was actually considered an above-average hitter with questions about whether he could stick behind the plate. (Sound familiar?) What is more interesting is that he goes on to describe the other aspects of defense that they do value. Specifically throwing runners out and blocking.

Using numbers from Baseball Prospectus, Flowers had -2.8 blocking runs and -0.6 throwing runs in 2015. Being in the red on any defensive metric isn’t a great sign, but certainly those small negatives are outweighed by the +15.2 runs he produced by framing. It becomes even more questionable when the unimpressive -0.8 blocking runs and -0.6 throwing runs from Navarro in 2016 come into play. His numbers before the addition were very similar, so there wasn’t a drastic change year to year after joining Chicago. Avila wasn’t much better in 2016 with 0.0 blocking runs and -0.6 throwing runs. It’s easy to deflect the displeasure over framing away by mentioning other aspects of defense. After all, framing just happens to be the in vogue stat. However, neither Avila nor Navarro was an upgrade defensively outside of framing.

Add on the poor framing from both Avila and Navarro and the decision becomes even more mind-boggling. It’s not often that an inability to frame is readily seen day to day via the eye test. Navarro made that possible. His -18.8 framing runs in 2016 only backed up what the eyes told us right away. It would’ve been hard to be worse than Navarro behind the plate. In fact, nobody was worse. Avila, however, did his best to catch up by producing a -6.5 framing runs.

The decision to move from Flowers to Avila and Navarro was a bad one. It was made even worse by an inability to identify improvements from Flowers on the offensive side of the ball. The biggest discrepancy, however, was on defense. While Avila and Navarro failed most excessively at framing, they weren’t good in any aspects of defending.

Does this matter anymore? Hahn has owned up to the lack of success they saw from the move. Hahn has expressed a desire to have catchers excel behind the plate. It really shouldn’t matter anymore. However, it continues to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth. Flowers wouldn’t have cost much at all for the White Sox to retain. They failed to see that he was on the verge of a good offensive performance in addition to his consistent ability behind the plate. While Flowers is long gone now, the impact of this catching decision will continue to reverberate.

Rehashing the details of the catchers added last year can be painful, but it perhaps gives us an insight into the mindset of the team going forward. Omar Narvaez appears to be the guy the White Sox are going with for now. At least until Zack Collins can work his way up in the next few years. Narvaez isn’t egregious behind the plate like Navarro and Avila were. However, he’s not going to help his pitchers out nearly as much as Flowers did. The White Sox must deal with the consequences that has for their pitching staff. They must also consider how that affects their decision making in regards to the catcher position going forward. It doesn’t appear as though Narvaez or Collins is going to be impressive on defense, so what are the White Sox going to do if they continue to fall behind the league in catcher defense? The answer to that question remains to be seen. It is, however, certainly a question that must be answered.

Lead Photo Credit: Steve Mitchell/USA Today Sports Images

The White Sox’ recent saga at catcher is well-known by now. In an effort to boost the offense, a platoon of Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro was acquired after the 2015 season, with Tyler Flowers non-tendered. Predictable issues arose–Avila got hurt, and Navarro was ghastly as a receiver. Slightly less predictable was Navarro’s bat disintegrating as well while Flowers would have a career year at the plate.

But, during the churn of catchers due to injuries and ineffectiveness, Omar Narvaez got his shot once the playoffs were already long out of reach, and showed that the odd profile he demonstrated in the minors would translate to the majors. Narvaez has basically zero power, with only seven home runs in almost 1,800 career minor league plate appearances, to go along with a .336 minor league slugging percentage.

The problem with hitting for no power at all, beyond the lost value of not getting extra base hits in and of itself, is that pitchers have no reason to pitch you carefully. If the worst thing you can do to them is hit a single, why would they walk you?

So far in his career, however, that hasn’t mattered for Narvaez. He walks anyway. He walked more than he struck out in the minors en route to a .353 OBP and so far in 151 major league plate appearances he has walked more than he’s struck out.  Indeed, at the outset of 2017 his statistics reflect a sort of exaggerated version of his purest form, with a triple slash line of .250/.382/.286.  Watching him hit, you can kind of see how he’s able to pull this off, as he has excellent knowledge of the strike zone, willing to take close pitches, and with his 90% contact rate, he is able to either put strikes in play or spoil them.  If anything, it appears that his primary goal at the plate is to walk above all else, with getting a hit as a fallback.

Whether Narvaez can sustain his strangely-shaped production bears monitoring. It seems unlikely that such a player will be the rare catcher that you run out there for ~475+ plate appearances a year (last year only 10 players did so).  However, crucially, Narvaez has improved his pitch framing from his debut in 2016, as FRAA has him in the black for 2017.  And given that the average OBP last year for all players was .322, having a catcher who simply makes pitchers work and gets on base at a .330-.340 clip while providing solid defense is nothing to sneeze at.  In fact, he may be such an improvement on the 2016 White Sox catching situation* that Narvaez represents one of the many reasons the rebuilding version of the team may win roughly the same amount of games as the contending one did.

*The 2016 White Sox were the worst team in the majors in pitch framing, and Navarro alone was worth -2.5 WARP.

It is increasingly looking like Narvaez is usable as the big half of a platoon or a plus backup, and that’s a pretty excellent result for a minor league Rule V draft acquisition. It’s early, but 2017 has been a good year for the prognosis of the White Sox’ potential supporting cast moving forward.

The only problem was betting on Navarro and Avila. Navarro turned 32 in September and for his career only had one season of above average offense and two directly at league average. He could still throw runners out, but that was the extent of his defensive abilities. And while Avila is a fine enough backup, expecting a catcher with at least three admitted concussions since 2013 to be able to handle half of a platoon was hardly realistic. The Sox went from buying the eight on the craps table to betting a hard eight: the payoff is theoretically better, but you’re sinking your odds of walking away with a favorable outcome.

Which is exactly what happened. Navarro was shipped back to Toronto in August for a 25-year-0ld Double-A reliever. Avila had one of the stranger batting lines after the trade, managing only seven hits in 46 at bats but with four of those hits beings home runs, and drawing 14 walks as well. You don’t often see a .763 OPS paired with a .152 batting average. And while the return on the Navarro trade will likely never result in major league anything for the White Sox, it did free up playing time for someone who might. Omar Narvaez used his 34 games to show off his silent skill set: an impressive knowledge of the strike zone as a hitter and defense that, while not officially good, at least won’t make you want to break your remote while watching.

The White Sox grabbed Narvaez from the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2013 Rule V draft and stashed him away in the minors. He didn’t show up on any prospect lists because, well, he just kind of existed. Seven home runs in 1,543 minor league at-bats isn’t much of anything to write home about, and neither is a .277 average, so it’s completely understandable that no one knew who he was going into last year. He struggled tremendously in Birmingham in 2016, putting up a .208 TAv in 13 games. His 41 game stint in Charlotte didn’t go much better (.210 TAv). But then Kevan Smith got hurt and Navarro got traded and circumstances more or less forced the Sox into playing Narvaez in the majors. And he managed to hold his own.

There’s nothing inherently sexy about a .267/.350/.337 slash line or a .261 TAv. But from a 24-year-old catcher who before that season had never played above High-A? That’s pretty impressive. Of course, there are caveats. We’re looking at a 34 game sample size, most of which came at the end of the year when pitching staffs are cooked, manned with September call ups, or both. But after watching a full season of Navarro and Avila, it was a refreshing glass of lukewarm pond water after drinking sand.

I don’t expect Narvaez to be anything amazing, but he doesn’t have to be. He’s not going to suddenly develop power. His defense might improve from acceptable to decent. It’s not likely, but it happened with Flowers so I’m not willing to write it off completely. PECOTA is not optimistic at all about his upcoming season (-1.6 WARP, .233 TAv). But again, I’m not expecting Buster Posey. All I’m hoping for from Narvaez is what he’s shown his whole career: an eye that allows him to draw an equal amount of walks to strikeouts and a bat with enough hits in it to make him a 1-2 WARP player. The current rebuild is predicated upon stocking the minors with players with the chance of becoming All-Stars or more. If everything breaks right, Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada are the stars capable of carrying the offense. But those teams still need quietly useful guys filling in some of the other gaps. This year will go a long way in showing if Narvaez can turn into that type of player for Chicago.

Lead Photo Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

What are we doing in the meantime, though? Am I supposed to pretend this is not a deadened wasteland of information and relevant topics to discuss? What is there left to strip mine for content? Yoan Moncada should be good someday or he’ll strike out a little too much. The 2017 team will have a lot of prospect debut days, will give chances to some fun project players, but will probably lose a bunch. There’s not a ton to explore on these topics until men start picking up bats and gloves again, but then again I don’t want to rule out writing topics for later this week, either.

1. Alex Avila went back to the Detroit Tigers over the weekend on nearly the exact same deal he signed with the White Sox for. This is neither surprising nor an outrage, since the Sox are not contending at all, and figure to give Omar Narvaez, also a lefty hitter himself, plenty of playing time. Avila still got on base plenty in 2016 (.359 OBP) and is smart as a whip, but he tweaked his hamstring multiple times and barely cracked 200 plate appearances while his framing numbers remained sour. Such a bag of positives and negatives from a soon-to-be 30-year-old sounds like an ideal major league backup. Surely the holidays are stalling the deluge of apology comments for all those “Even his own dad wouldn’t sign him!” jokes from last year.

Avila aside, the prospect of leaving the catching workload to a pair of rookies–Narvaez and Kevan Smith, currently topping the depth chart–is a little disconcerting for pitching development. The other side of this is that it’s hard to find a realistic free agent catcher target without warts even worse than Avila’s. There are light-hitting catchers, and catchers who cannot even maintain the pretense of trying to hit like Josh Thole and Ryan Hanigan. Hank Conger has nice framing numbers but also hit horribly in 2016 and has thrown out under 20 percent of basestealers for his career. Nick Hundley is fine but someone better should want him. I am either going to be surprised by who the Sox are able to land or surprised that who they add is still playing.

2. I am one of two humans concerned about where Chris Volstad‘s innings are coming from in the Charlotte Knights rotation. The recently re-signed, massive 30-year-old righty logged a shade under 180 innings (in a Triple-A season!), but the days of filling the Knights rotation with journeymen warriors are temporarily over. The Knights could start the year with Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Carson Fulmer in their rotation, while Tyler Danish, Jordan Guerrero, Brandon Brennan and Spencer Adams all reached Double-A (and beyond) last season. And what about David Holmberg??!

Volstad will lead the Knights in innings again in 2017, is what I’m saying.

3. The esteemed Scott Merkin wrote up Alec Hansen and the organizational enthusiasm behind him after his merciless decimation of Rookie Ball in 2016. He struck out 81 and walked 20 for a 1.32 ERA in 54.2 innings across three levels (Rookie Ball through Low-A), just as a reminder.

Pretty much any prospect who is publicly seen vivisecting his opposition–even low level opposition–is going to generate enthusiasm, but a plus-armed giant (six-feet, seven inches) who played major conference college ball ripping through that level is not particularly notable aside from how lost we perceived Hansen to be when he joined the organization. Reports of his progress with Sox coaching is very encouraging, but if there’s anyone who should benefit from a slowed-down timetable brought on by the Sox rebuild, it’s Hansen. If he is still being groomed to start, he should be given all the time in a world to develop a changeup and reduce the effort of his delivery..

4. The White Sox signed 28-year-old Jorge Rondon to a minor league deal over the weekend. He throws very, very hard and has allowed 48 of the 105 major league hitters he’s faced to reach base. He’s throwing more strikes recently than he was during his seven-year run in the Cardinals minor league system, and had a 2.67 ERA in 57.1 innings as a reliever for the Pirates’ Triple-A affiliate last season, but has never been particularly overwhelming. Searching through old BP writeups on him was the first time I’ve ever seen “fifth-inning guy” as a description for a relief prospect.

5. A lot of the attention for this Carlos Rodon Instagram video of him playing catch with his fiancee will be directed toward him missing so badly with a two-seamer that he has to apologize, but Jake Peavy always said Spring Training was about finding fastball command, so Rodon is ahead of the game. The real star of this video are the crisp throws of Rodon’s fiancee. The Sox have been shuffling through personal catcher options for Rodon since non-tendering Tyler Flowers, and in a rebuild, certainly should consider someone he’s comfortable with that has a carrying tool like that throwing arm. It’s truly the offseason if I’m writing this much about this video.

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

Player Options

Pick up Matt Albers’ $3 million option for 2017 or pay his $250K buyout.

James: Buyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyoutbuyout

Nick: Maybe you keep him around as a test to see if Rick Renteria is as blind to his failings as Robin Ventura was? Like a trap!

Mark: Send him to the great reliever beyond.

Frank: Wish him luck in earning a save for some other team next year.

Arbitration or Non-Tender?

Jose Abreu is probably getting arbitration but he’s not exactly a non-tender decision either. Anyway, he’s estimated by MLBTR to get around $12 million. What a burden!

James: Trick him into opting into arbitration and then NON-TENDER and that’s how they start to teardown. It will be majestic.

Or just pick it up. Give him the money he was already going to get.

Nick: Whatever he wants, just pay the guy.

Frank: Jose Abreu is good. The White Sox don’t have enough good players. The White Sox should keep Jose Abreu.

James: Wow, will have to think on this reasoning for a while.

Mark: Just shovel money at him until he says thank you. He’s polite like that.

Todd Frazier – Final year of arbitration estimated at $13.5 million

James: This is a little expensive! But I’m not sure how the core for a winning team gets built by purging him and finding a superior option for less money. Justin Turner will probably be better, but not cheaper. Yunel Escobar will be cheaper, but not better. Non-tendering Frazier to sign Luis Valbuena would be some kind of bold.

Nick: The “craziest” thing you do here is pick him up for his last year and then trade him, right? I wouldn’t rule out Frazier having a bounce back 2017. Even if the White Sox are horrible you can still get something for him at the deadline.

Frank: Even if you think he’s not worth that money to the White Sox, it’s hard to imagine he’s not worth that money to anyone, which is basically where the line for non-tendering is.

Mark: I’m with Frank. There’s zero reason to not tender Frazier, even if you (for some bonkers reason) don’t want him on the team next year.

Brett Lawrie – Final year of arbitration estimated at $5.1 million

Nick: I’ve been petulantly hinting at how strongly I feel about this one on Twitter and screaming about it in the Slack. I was blown away that not only did people think he was a non-tender possibility, it seems that White Sox Twitter thinks that’s the optimal way to go. Given that the White Sox have like, 12 more seasons of sub-replacement regulars than any other organization in the last decade, the idea of punting a league average bat who plays multiple positions for this tiny amount of money is the peak of lunacy to me. I suppose trade him if that’s the way the grander scheme of the offseason is going.

Tyler Saladino and Lawrie play multiple positions, both hit pretty well, and you absolutely need to have depth. Saladino does not make Lawrie expendable.

Frank: What Nick said, plus what I said above about Frazier.

Mark: Cutting Lawrie loose would be one of the dumber moves the Sox would have done in a good while. Saladino is fine enough, but you’d have to have a lot of faith in his health and that regression won’t come a-callin’ for him. And even then, cheap depth is a great thing to have. Keeping both gives the wonderful option of having a competent backup at three infield positions. If the Sox are that hurt for cash that $5 million is going to ruin that, it’s firesale time.

Avisail Garcia – First year of arbitration estimated at $3.4 million

Nick: Guess what I think.

Okay I can’t wait for you guys to guess. My question is — if you non-tender him, does he do better than a minor league deal anywhere? Does a rebuilding team take a flyer on him? Does a team with a great track record of salvaging hitters scoop him up? Maybe Toronto can teach him to pop 30 dingers with a ~.780 OPS.

Frank: The White Sox need outfielders, and Garcia is still talented. While it’s not impossible to imagine him turning it around in his age 26 season, I just can’t see him doing it in a Sox uniform, and even if you do want to take that flyer, it shouldn’t be at that rate. (My confidence in the front office’s ability to cut him is greatly diminished by their flabbergasting decision to offer arbitration to Dayan Viciedo two offseasons ago).

Mark: Avi will land somewhere on a minor league deal, but I would not be surprised if he never gets significant major league time again.

Miguel Gonzalez – Final year of arbitration estimated at $2.6 million

James: Yes!

Nick: Remember when the Orioles cut him last year? They are paying Ubaldo Jimenez and Yovani Gallardo a lot of money to be terrible. They’ve also vastly outperformed the White Sox for like five years straight now.

Frank: Sounds good.

Mark: Cheap rotational depth is good. I’m for it.

Dan Jennings – First year of arbitration estimated at $1.2 million

Nick: Dan Jennings is weird, but it’s hard to argue he isn’t worth $1.2 million. They don’t really have any better options from the left side in house, and the dude doesn’t give up home runs.

James: He did some good things in 2016 and they are not going to suddenly become flush with lefties. His lack of LOOGY effectiveness is a real complication, though.

Mark: That’s a fine enough price for a usable enough LOOGY.

J.B. Shuck – First year of arbitration estimated at $1 million

Nick: There’s no way you can do this, right? If nothing else, Charlie Tilson makes HIM go away, doesn’t he?

James: I’d be just fine keeping him in the organization, but that doesn’t require $1 million. Non-tender and maybe bring him back on MiLB deal.

Mark: Shuck is the dictionary definition of fungible. No need to keep him.

Zach Putnam – First year of arbitration estimated at $900K

James: Zach Putnam only costs $900K?!?!?! Why does arbitration hate buckets of strikeouts?!

Nick: Buckets of strikeouts obtained in hilarious fashion.

Mark: And we can make Putnam County Spelling Bee references!

Jake Petricka – First year of arbitration estimated at $900K

James: How bad would a reliever have to be to not be worth a sub-$1 million flyer?

Daniel Webb – First year of arbitration estimated at $600K

James: Ah.

Mark: It’s not fair that you used up the best joke.

Outgoing Free Agents

Austin Jackson

James: He showed no ability to turn around the steady ebb of his power at the plate (he had zero home runs!) and then he wrecked his knee, likely reducing his one standout skill. There has to be some faith in a Tilson recovery to think what Jackson brought at the start of 2016 can be replaced internally, but Jackson is not a good investment on his own merits.

Nick: As we learned to our sorrow, there is a difference between Jackson’s replacement level bat and Shuck’s sub-replacement level bat and what that looks like. We also saw that if the other parts of the roster are working (Alex Avila starting instead of Dioner Navarro, etc.) this team CAN make things work with a glove only guy in CF.

But it seems dumb to spend any real amount of money on that. Hard to imagine Jackson commands more money than he got last year. If they want to bring him back for like $1.5 million as Tilson insurance then whatever, but I just don’t see the point. This should be production you can replicate internally.

Mark: Jackson was an okay-ish flier after the Sox decided to be dirt cheap. But that was hunting a best case scenario. Players in that hard of a decline don’t stumble into their best case scenarios with frequency. No need to waste the money on something the Sox should reasonably be able to replace.

Alex Avila

James: He got on base a lot (.359 OBP) and his pop came back (.160 ISO) but he barely stayed healthy enough to eclipse 200 plate appearances, and his defense is not particularly good. He’s smart as they come, but he’s going to be 30 and could threaten a 40 percent strikeout rate next year. Also if you want to give Omar Narvaez a chance, do you want two left-handed catchers?

Nick: I’m a ridiculous Narvaez fanboy, but they do seem a bit redundant. I don’t know how much Narvaez benefits from another year at Triple-A but maybe you just bring back Avila and call up Narvaez the instant he gets hurt, which he inevitably will.

Unfortunately, Jason Castro is one of the free agent catchers out there and he’s yet another lefty.

James: Since we’re all fairly comfortable with taking a whirl with Narvaez as a backup, Putting Avila on the roster as an extra backup or a depth signing seems extraneous at the moment. It might be more useful to let free agency play out a bit and figure out what we can swing for a starter first.

Mark: Avila can’t be counted on to be anything more than a backup at this point and the Sox have a younger and cheaper one of those worth trying out.

Justin Morneau

Nick: I was really happy for Morneau that he was able to come back and play at all and he doesn’t seem 100 percent cooked yet. I just don’t see what the point is. If you’re signing veteran free agents you’re trying to make the roster better in the short term, and if you’re doing that there are just better players in this free agent class, like Pedro Alvarez, Brandon Moss, and those are just the lefty 1B/DH dudes.

James: From an unsympathetic angle, he was bad, and is old and injury-prone and there should be little interest from anyone for a major league deal.

Mark: Morneau was a decent enough option to bet on last year. This isn’t last year.

With all this set, the roster entering our trades and free agency period is:

SP Chris Sale – $12 million

SP Jose Quintana – $7 million

SP Carlos Rodon – $530K

SP Miguel Gonzalez – $2.6 million

SP James Shields – $10 million

SP Carson Fulmer –

SP Anthony Ranaudo -

RP David Robertson – $12 million

RP Nate Jones – $1.9 million

RP Zach Putnam – $900K

RP Dan Jennings – $1.2 million

RP Jake Petricka – $900K

RP Zack Burdi –

RP Michael Ynoa –

RP Tommy Kahnle – $520K

RP Chris Beck -

RP Juan Minaya –

RP Matt Purke –

RP Blake Smith –

RP Brandon Brennan –

C Omar Narvaez – $510K

C Kevan Smith –

C Alfredo Gonzalez -

1B Jose Abreu – $12 million

IF Brett Lawrie – $5.1 million

IF Tyler Saladino – $520K

IF Carlos Sanchez – $520K

SS Tim Anderson – $510K

3B Todd Frazier – $13.5 million

3B Matt Davidson –

IF Leury Garcia –

OF Melky Cabrera – $15 million

OF Adam Eaton – $4 million

OF Charlie Tilson – $510K

OF Jason Coats -

James: At this point I would bet on Kahnle, who pitched OK down the stretch, to make the Opening Day roster over Burdi. I also think a new left-hander will be in the mix, so I’m uncomfortable pegging even six of these guys as already on the 2017 25-man roster, let alone seven.

All of the league minimum salaries are very guess-timated but the difference what I have guessed and what they will be is negligible. In sum, we have roughly $102 million for 21 players currently routed for the 25-man, with big needs at outfield, DH, catcher, and left-handed relief, and also, the tenderest hugs. Some very low level fliers for starting rotation depth are in order. There’s an argument to be made that if you do well enough getting another outfielder or bat, and improving catcher, you can let Tilson stink it up with the bat and play center, but it would be a lot easier to make that case if he had made a successful two-month audition rather than immediately obtain a severe injury.

Part 2 will run later this week.

Lead Image Credit: Rob Grabowski // USA Today Sports Images

1. The game started with bang. On the third pitch of the first at bat, Cameron Maybin hit a long fly ball off Chris Sale to left field. Human goldmine Melky Cabrera managed to somehow rob Maybin of his home run, further proving that robbing dingers is more art than honestly earned defensive skill. Miguel Cabrera would render this moot two batters later by stroking a thief-proof ball out to right. It looked like the ball would be jumping the rest of the day and both teams would be in for a slugfest. but much like April’s hot start showed: looks can be deceiving.

2. Miggy would go yard off Sale again in the top of the third, but that would be all Detroit could manage against Chicago’s ace. Sale strengthened as the game went on, pitching eight innings with eight strikeouts and no walks allowed. Unfortunately for Sale, he pitches in front of the punchless and anemic White Sox offense.

3. It’s hard to fault the Sox for struggling against a somehow resurgent Justin Verlander. Hall of Fame pitchers aren’t supposed to be easy matchups and it’s mildly funny watching his old catcher Alex Avila be responsible for half the runs scored off him with a solo shot in the bottom of the seventh that tied the game at 2-2. Avisail Garcia was able to follow up with a single and it looked like the Sox may have finally gotten to Verlander. But Robin Ventura called for a sacrifice despite Verlander clearly losing his handle, and Tyler Saladino promptly popped a bunt up to James McCann. Adam Eaton struck out on some dubious pitches to make two outs, all but assuring no rally was waiting. Tim Anderson managed to fist a single out to right, putting runners on first and third before Cabrera struck out, ending the last threat the Sox would manage.

4. The story gets predictable from here. Sale can only pitch so many innings without having his arm detach itself and fall to the ground in a spastic heap, so onto the bullpen. Nate Jones and David Robertson both looked sharp, striking out a combined four hitters over two innings while allowing no runners. But much like Sale, they can only carry so much weight. Eventually Robin had to play reliever roulette and summoned Chris Beck to the mound for the slaughter.

5. I don’t dislike Beck as a person. I don’t know him. He might be a good guy. He might be not so good. He might be that in between like the rest of us. But I do know he’s not a good enough pitcher to get away with facing the middle of the Tigers lineup unscathed. After allowing a leadoff single to Jose Iglesias, Beck managed to get Cabrera to ground into a double play. His next 10 pitches to the Martinezes (Victor and then J.D.) resulted in easy walks, bringing Justin Upton to the plate. Upton had been pitched inside a good deal all day and took an errant pitch off his foot earlier. He returned the Sox kindness by taking an inside pitch the other way and giving the Tigers a three-run lead that the Sox had no chance of overcoming.

A small rally in the bottom half of the inning against Francisco Rodriguez drew a run, but ended when Saladino took a borderline called strike three while representing the tying run.

Team Record: 65-72

Next game is Tuesday vs. Detroit at 7:10pm CT on CSN

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Moving on from Flowers made sense, as despite being heralded as a prospect whose bat would play even if his defense was questionable, Flowers never became an above-average hitter, and most years was at or below the league average for catchers offensively.

Of course, what became Flowers’ strength was that he usually ranked near the top of the league in pitch framing, and had developed a reputation for calling a good game, something Chris Sale was often quick to praise.

So in jettisoning Flowers for the platoon of free-agent acquisitions Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro, the White Sox were essentially attempting to trade defense for offense behind the plate. In theory, this was easy to understand: the White Sox had one of the five worst offenses in baseball a year ago and, with presumed defensive upgrades at third base and in center and right field, upgrading the offense while downgrading defensively at one position was justifiable.

This is especially true when you consider that of the two pluses in Flowers’ game mentioned earlier, one is intangible and the other’s value is still difficult to quantify. (Although the numbers we do have, particularly in the framing department, say Navarro and Avila have been awful).

Where the White Sox failed is in replacing that known quantity with anything resembling an upgrade. In Avila and Navarro, the White Sox were gambling that a platoon of the two veterans would provide enough of an offensive upgrade to make up for the presumed loss defensively. They were low-risk gambles, but given the organization’s lack of depth at the position, it was actually an ill-conceived gamble that was doomed from the start.

It would be one thing if the White Sox were replacing Flowers with a young player they could at least hope to develop. But in Avila and Navarro, the White Sox built their catching position like a house of cards, with the hope not that they had replaced Flowers with something resembling a long-term solution, but instead with hope that they’d get one more season of value before the arrangement toppled to the ground.

Even if Avila weren’t riddled with injury problems, the Sox were still relying on two guys who hadn’t been markedly above replacement level in a number of years, one who was 32-years-old without plus athleticism, and the other who had suffered multiple concussions and hadn’t been the same since his most recently reported one in 2014.

The only way this would have wound up a significant upgrade is if both had hit their ~80th percentile production level, and with that kind of history that’s a gamble that was never going to pay off. Maybe them failing as miserably as they have — Navarro’s bat dropping off specifically — wasn’t foreseeable, but it was a helluva lot more likely than the combination of A) staying healthy and B) hitting like they had in their respective primes.

Again, I’m not advocating the White Sox sticking with the status quo. When the decision to part ways with Flowers was made, it was refreshing to see a team that has too often stood by unproductive incumbents for far too long — Gordon Beckham, Dayan Viciedo, Avisail Garcia come immediately to mind — move on from such a player. But when you’re replacing mediocre with mediocre, all you’re doing, if you’ll pardon the cliche, is shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic.

The White Sox have a number of problems to address if they want to get back to contention, but when you’re just swapping out replacement-level veterans for other replacement-level veterans, all you’re really doing is providing an opportunity to watch a new player in a new jersey fail time and time again. The White Sox have been a directionless franchise for too long now, and the catching position exemplifies it as much as any move they’ve made.

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Despite Rick Hahn being coy about the offseason plan, this is an organization that has been gallingly passive in recent years.  In that sense, it is a positive to see them trade away a player that is clearly not part of the future, is blocking someone worth evaluating in the present, and looking for ways to add talent–any talent–to the organization.  After all, whether or not the White Sox choose to rebuild or try to actually capitalize on the good, cheap core that they have in place this winter, Navarro was expendable either way.

Colton Turner is the return coming back from Toronto.  As you might imagine, it’s not exactly the biggest haul, again–this is a free addition to the organization, because the alternative is just watching Navarro leave at the end of the year for nothing.  He’s a 25-year old LHP who was vaporizing both levels of A-ball (as you’d hope) and has struggled quite a bit with his promotion to AA.  The best hope for him is that he’s a LOOGY eventually, but that’s still useful.  The White Sox have certainly had their trouble finding someone to fill that role without spending a decent amount of money on a guy like Zach Duke.

Along those same lines, the trade syncs up with Alex Avila‘s activation from the DL.  There are still a few days to make waiver trades, and one wonders if someone would be interested in giving up something for him.  After all, Avila has had a better year than Navarro has.  Even if the White Sox wanted to bring him back in 2016, he’s a free agent at the end of the year regardless and he’s not getting a Qualifying Offer–there’s no reason you can’t just sign him anyway.

As for Navarro himself, anecdotally he became a lightning rod for criticism, and not without reason.  His bat fell apart, statistical and visual evidence that his framing was killing the pitching staff piled up quickly, and the guy he replaced was Chris Sale‘s personal catcher who was better in every way and promptly went off to have a career year in Atlanta.*  While catcher is a difficult position to solve, and pitch framing metrics do not inspire as much confidence as say, OBP does, a platoon of Avila and Tyler Flowers looks like a it would have been massively preferable to what they wound up doing.  And while no organization is perfect on this score,** the White Sox have been in the red on player evaluations for a while now.

*Sale’s off-the-field blowups this year didn’t come out of nowhere, as we’ve seen him confront the front office before, and anybody who has watched him give up a home run and come back throwing 99+ with zero control knows he’s….competitive.  However, one wonders if the White Sox non-tendering Flowers this winter pushed him into feeling more adversarial with management.  

**For example, the Astros are widely lauded as a Smart Organization that is On The Rise, but this is the same regime that drafted Mark Appel over Kris Bryant, and let J.D. Martinez, Robbie Grossman, and Jonathan Villar go actually for free or basically for free.

Well, despite all of that, Navarro gets to go play in playoff race with his teammates of the last two years, while the White Sox will continue to flush year five of Sale’s Hall of Fame Peak down the toilet without him.

Tim Anderson jumps off the screen in that regard, certainly, and Carlos Rodon looks to be trending in the direction of exciting development, but after Matt Davidson, Kevan Smith, and Charlie Tilson all had their debuts and rookie seasons dashed by injury, the cupboard has been awfully bare.

Thus, and specifically on the position player side, after Anderson, the most surprising and pleasant development in 2016 has been the arrival of Omar Narvaez, the fifth choice at catcher on the year. And no, I’m not here to look at his .357/.486/.393 line over 35 PAs and proclaim him the Venezuelan Joe Mauer. However, even if you zoom out, there’s reason to be happy about his presence and what it represents.

First, the most important thing a catcher can do is defend his position.  To my unqualified eye, Narvaez has looked perfectly adequate behind the plate, and when seeking confirmation with someone who knows what they’re talking about, BP’s own Mauricio Rubio confirmed that he may even merit the label of “solid average.” If that’s Narvaez’ true quality defensively, the bar for what he has to do on offense drops dramatically.

Catchers as a group are bad hitters. If Narvaez were able to muster, say, a .330 OBP, that would put him as Top-10 in the majors in that category for catchers with more than 200 PAs, and most of the players ahead of him on that Top-10 are making a lot of money. Similarly, Jason Castro is sixth in the majors among catchers by WARP while hitting .213/.321/.380 by virtue of his defense. This isn’t to say that single seasons of defensive metrics are gospel, but rather to emphasize: if you are a good defensive catcher, any hitting at all becomes super valuable.

*Side note: Narvaez was once a switch hitter, but seems to have abandoned it to hit full-time from the left side.

Obviously, it can be tricky to keep drawing walks against major league pitchers if they have no reason to be afraid of you doing anything other than hitting a single, although we have seen Alex Avila maintain good OBPs even after his contact and power abandoned him. But, if Narvaez can play solid defense, as a lefty bat he looks like an intriguing bench option, particularly if he can maintain even 80 percent of his .277/.353/.336 minor league line in the majors.** There are a fair amount of catchers who hit right-handed and need protection from any decent right-handed pitching.

Moreover, as I’ve said in reference to Tyler Saladino, being able to generate serviceable bench options internally is a cascading boon to the organization. It obviates the need to shop in the free agent market for guys like that, saving financial resources (which to the White Sox is evidently a priority of puzzling urgency) and erases the misery of the Emilio Bonifacio/Gordon Beckham/Dioner Navarro-type results that that sort of free agent can present. It also provides credible on-hand depth, instead of, say, being stuck giving regular playing time to Ray Olmedo in the only real playoff push the organization has seen since 2008.

**It is not conclusive on the matter, but I do think it is worth pointing out that Kiley McDaniel described Narvaez as possessing an advanced approach at the plate, as it is very easy to draw a lot of walks in the minors without having any real meaningful on-base skills that will translate to the majors.

So, here’s to hoping Narvaez can get plenty of playing time over the next few months to see if he can indeed be penciled in as the backup catcher for 2017.  It’s not the most important job on the team, but as we’ve seen, any time you can solve a problem on the roster–particularly when done cheaply and for multiple years–it is a big deal.

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All of which is kind of window dressing, and only serves to add that the team that has placed itself in a massive hole dotted by superior competition isn’t even playing particularly well. Usually when down 10 games in the division race and seventh in line for the final Wild Card spot in late July, having some kind of upward trend is desirable.

It’s understandable that the Sox are spiraling: they have been without their best catcher and starter centerfielder due to injury and have no specific idea when either will return, and are prepared to throw minor league filler to the wolves again while their next great starter recovers from falling up the stairs. On the other hand, their current state would be a disappointing but foreseeable result from the view of this Spring. Given the massive 23-10 head start they afford themselves, it’s truly galling. The Sox PECOTA playoff odds are only barely floating above six percent. The only team with lower odds who aren’t either obviously out of it, or were never even trying to compete this season are the Royals. Both teams are toast, and the Royals at least have a better excuse.

Most quasi-contenders wouldn’t be citing losing the likes of Austin Jackson and Alex Avila as significant concerns, but such is the typical White Sox roster, where every major league quality player is a blanket draped over a crevasse. J.B. Shuck has gamely cobbled together some of his best work since Jackson went down, but such has been the Sox apathy toward addressing the incompleteness that their only significant offensive upgrade–Justin Morneau–took weeks to arrive, and they needed two Shuck-type hot streaks instead of just one.

It’s hard to map out how to go forward, or at least how the Sox leadership will decide to go forward, without being able to understand what this year was about. Why would next year be more deserving of more aggression, more paying for certainty, a top-10 payroll in baseball than this one, a year where the Sox clearly abstained?

Nearly every valuable contributor on this roster is contracted through at least 2017. It would both be easy enough to keep improving the same team for next season, but confidence that the Sox will do what’s necessary to secure significant pieces has never been lower, and their situation is complicated by Jose Abreu throwing all kinds of doubt on whether or not he’s someone who can anchor the offense going forward.

It might be even more challenging to do a small scale sell-off, because they do not have the prospect resources to ship off much from the 25-man of value and replace them with someone capable. Even if 2017 is not a contending year, and the Sox just hold on to the bare essentials of Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton, Tim Anderson, Carlos Rodon and Carson Fulmer while they tried to build something more sustainable around them, they incur the risks of the front three of that group pushing age 30 by the time they have a real roster around them again.

A full scale rebuild, even for a team whose core is still mostly in their 20s, is tempting just because it’s a direction, and full commitment to a clear plan, and it’s easier to envision ownership committing to purging payroll en masse than adding it. But rare is the general manager that is tasked with tearing down his own creation, and a full rebuild, or backing away from this core at all, is hard to envision without a regime change.

For the Sox, that kind of acknowledgement that things are going wrong and change is needed, is unprecedented and hard to imagine, even as failures and disappointment mount. But they just blew another season, another year with a generational pitcher, with an enviable core and plenty of opportunity to do better. Even granting them some measure of credit for re-tooling in 2013 and 2014, this is two-straight years of trying to compete and not coming particularly close. That means something needs to change.

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