As Collin discussed in the above article, May is being called up for his speed and his defense.  After all, whoever is in center for the 2017 White Sox is likely to be flanked by awful gloves in left and right, albeit while playing home games in a tiny outfield.

However, as the White Sox have demonstrated since George W. Bush left office, there are degrees of futility worth considering beyond “replacement level” as they have plumbed the depths beneath it.  And, in May’s case, PECOTA hates his bat, projecting a .223/.275/.336 line as a median outcome for 2017.

For context, Adeiny Hechavarria was the worst qualified full-time hitter last year, batting .236/.283/.311.  And, generally, the players putting up the worst offensive stats in a given year will tend to be very good defenders at difficult positions, usually during a bad year.  And while it’s true that if May is a great glove in center field, it would not make him anomalously bad, just another one of these defense only players — the Tigers and Cubs both carried players who fit this description for all of ’16 — May’s defense being great is still speculation.  May has the tools to be a good defender in center, but it is premature to describe him as plus there at present.  And until a player demonstrates a skill, there is no guarantee that it will arrive.

Even if things break well, and May is a good glove, PECOTA foresees his 90th percentile outcome at the dish as .279/.326/.411. Which means that the realistic best case scenario is that May replicates roughly what Austin Jackson was doing last year before he got hurt.  And granted, PECOTA isn’t perfect — prospects are much more than their stat lines, and they learn and change all the time.  May is a good athlete.  Maybe he blows away his 90th percentile projection. But that is still a statement predicated on hope rather than evidence, other than finding his hot streaks in the minors. And it’s not like he ever made any Top 100 lists or anything like that.

There’s also downside, too. Not every player hits their 50th percentile projection. There’s also a chance he gets shredded down below the Mendoza line.

All of this would matter more if the White Sox were trying to win in 2017.  And while Rick Hahn has repeatedly said that they are no longer going to rush prospects based on major league needs, I wouldn’t necessarily throw this in his face as a contradiction. Sure, May has not yet demonstrated he can excel against Triple-A pitching, but he is not valuable enough of a prospect to play service time games with, and if James Fegan’s interview with May is any indication, he is a smart enough player to handle the adversity of getting blown away in the majors.  At the very least he looks to be getting regular at bats in the majors, rather than sporadic playing time.

And maybe Tilson makes a recovery in two months and this is all just temporary anyway, and maybe May learns valuable things in the majors, and maybe the White Sox get a good read on what May can be, and maybe they learn for sure that he can be a good fourth outfielder someday.

Maybe. Maybe.

Lead Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

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

While the White Sox have been slammed from all directions for seeking free agents in the bargain bin, Duke represented the type of modest acquisition that is well worth pursuing. And although Duke was underwhelming in 2015, he was exactly what they’d hoped for in 2016 — a wipeout reliever against lefties who could be used against righties without it being lunacy. Unfortunately for the Cardinals, it was just announced that Duke will need Tommy John surgery, wiping out the final year of his contract, meaning they’ll just have to accept his 23.1 superb innings they got while coming up just short of the playoffs. Maybe one day they’ll catch a break.

Assuming Tilson is able to return from injury substantially in the state he was in before — not a given — he projects to be the type of player the White Sox have struggled to generate on their own.  He’d have to max out his development to be a solid or plus starting center fielder, but he doesn’t need to do much to be a plus fourth outfielder. That’s hardly something that changes the long-term fate of the team, but it also describes Austin Jackson, who was the team’s biggest free agent acquisition last winter. If you can have good bench pieces for the league minimum it frees up resources to spend elsewhere. For example, how nice is it to have Tyler Saladino instead of Gordon Beckham or Emilio Bonifacio for $2-4 million a pop?

With an organization like the White Sox, there is always the risk that Tilson becomes Plan A in centerfield with zero backup plan. That would be foolhardy. However, if used properly, Tilson is a safe bet to be a burner on the bench who can come in as a defensive replacement or be used to help the flexibility of the lineup — or soak up an extra couple hundred plate appearances in case of injury instead of someone like J.B. Shuck, who just posted a sub-.600 OPS while pressed into full time duty. Beyond the tragedy of Tilson potentially degrading his key tool as a result of his hamstring injury, it also meant that the White Sox didn’t get to use the final few months of the season playing out the string giving him exposure to major league pitching and getting to evaluate how well he will do moving forward.

Tilson may need more time in Triple-A or he may be nothing at all.  And there’s also the aforementioned possibility that he hits his ceiling and he’s a perfectly usable center fielder. Or, if the White Sox retain Brett Lawrie — and there is no legitimate reason that they should not — they could run out a bench of Tilson, Saladino, Omar Narvaez, and perhaps the other half of a DH platoon like, say, a Pedro Alvarez or Mike Napoli. And you don’t have be a wild optimist to believe that would have a good chance at being one of the better benches they’ve had in recent memory.

SIGN AN OUTFIELDER!

This line of thought was logical. It was commonly known that the White Sox would go into 2016 with Adam Eaton and Melky Cabrera at two of the three outfield positions, but the third was presumably up for grabs after a season’s worth of tape watching Avisail Garcia embarrass himself out there.

What’s more, the free agent market included a plethora of outfield options. Even once you got past the big money guys — Yoenis Cespedes, Justin Upton, Jason Heyward, Alex Gordon — there were other options, all of whom would have been major upgrades over Garcia.

As you know by now, the White Sox went cheap. The only free agent outfielder they signed was Austin Jackson, who they inked to a one-year, $5 million deal well after the cold, dark winter, when Spring Training was already in full swing.

Signing Jackson is a fine idea in some respects. He’s the type of player good teams acquire as depth. It’s when you’re relying on him as an everyday player with no backup plan that you run into trouble, and that’s exactly what the White Sox did.

Jackson hit .254/.318/.343 in 203 plate appearances with the White Sox in 2016 before a torn meniscus in early June–that was supposed to keep him out for six weeks–ended his season.

During his two months of action, Jackson did provide something the White Sox had been missing: A huge defensive upgrade. Installing Jackson in center field and moving Eaton to right gave the White Sox plus defense at two outfield positions, whereas the former Cabrera-Eaton-Garcia outfield gave them one average defender sandwiched between a pair that patrolled the outfield like they were running through an obstacle course in quicksand.

Let’s be clear: The loss of Jackson didn’t sink the White Sox. Nick Schaefer pointed out last month how teams like the Indians and Mets were able to survive despite key losses throughout the season, so it would be preposterous to assume an injury to a glove-only center fielder would sink a team’s chances at contention. But with the Sox lack of depth, it certainly didn’t help.

When Jackson went down, his spot in the lineup and outfield was filled by a number of guys, none of whom were able to provide anything more than replacement-level work.

J.B. Shuck, the most familiar of the bunch after performing commendably in part-time duty in 2015, was considerably below average in every aspect in 2016, hitting .205/.248/.299 in 241 plate appearances and fumbling around defensively in center field. He was the only one of Jackson’s non-September call-up replacements the Sox even attempted to play in center, and was worth -1.4 WARP.

Jerry Sands was around for a while, too, hitting to the tune of .236/.276/.291 in 58 plate appearances. He had three walks and 24 strikeouts and was borderline worse in the field than Garcia, which is difficult to imagine.

The last of the replacement options was Jason Coats, who burst onto the radar with a hot start to the minor league season in Triple-A Charlotte. The former 29th round pick, who was never thought of by most as any sort of legitimate prospect, finally made his debut at the age of 26 and hit .200/.298/.340 in 58 plate appearances.

Nobody expected the likes of Shuck, Sands or Coats to hit like Eaton or field like Jackson. Each is the epitome of “replacement-level player.” But the White Sox inability to plug holes with system depth has been apparent for a while now, and the revolving door in the outfield in 2016 was yet another example of that.

Lead Photo Credit: Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports

However, sometimes excuses really are pathetic.

Hawk’s asinine gripes about the schedule aside, when it became clear that the 2016 season was irretrievably tipping from surprise success to familiar and foreseeable failure, other excuses cropped up. “Well, Austin Jackson got hurt, and what were they supposed to do without Zach Putnam and Jake Petricka?” or something along those lines.

And sure, J.B. Shuck is a downgrade from Jackson, and the replacement-level guys who slotted in to middle relief in the wake of Putnam and Petricka were generally very bad. But even I–the biggest Zach Putnam fan in the world, who got in on the ground floor–would never argue that these losses are anywhere close to those of several playoff teams.

For example, the Indians can’t exactly paper over mistakes with money.  Cleveland is an interesting comparison for the White Sox in that sense, as well as the fact that they projected to have problems scoring runs, and that the main strength of the team was a cost-controlled stable of quality starting pitchers.

Cleveland has already won 90 games. They did this despite only getting 43 horrible PAs from Michael Brantley, instead of the .319/.382/.494 line over 635 PAs per year they did the two years before. What’s more, they won’t get more than 150 innings out of either Carlos Carrasco or Danny Salazar. Yan Gomes had an OPS of .529 for ~250 PAs in between injuries.

The Mets are another offensively-challenged squad with financial limitations and a roster built around potent starting pitching.  As of this drafting, they have a pretty good grip on the first Wild Card slot in the National League. Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, Jake deGrom, David Wright, Neil Walker…all of them lost for significant chunks of the season to injury.

These teams illustrate the failings of the White Sox more so than, say, the Dodgers, who can burn through hundreds of millions of dollars of brittle pitchers without blinking. And while the Mets are in the National League and get to play a lot more games against the worst teams in the majors, they and Cleveland lost a lot more really, really great players to injury than the White Sox did and succeeded anyway, despite being situated very similarly.

There are myriad reasons for that. The Mets spent in the offseason to retain an elite bat and brought in potential stopgaps like Kelly Johnson, James Loney, and (ugh) Jose Reyes when problems arose. They also opted for one of the best defensive catchers in the majors as the primary backup, especially with regard to framing, in the form of Rene Rivera.

Cleveland succeeded by actually hitting with the cheap free agents they signed, such as Mike Napoli, Rajai Davis, and even, to an extent, Marlon Byrd. They added Abraham Almonte for the modest price of an aging lefty specialist. And, they got Tyler Naquin with their 2012 first round pick instead of Courtney Hawkins.

There are a lot of reasons why the White Sox failed in 2016.  Looking at how other organizations solved the same problems with similar resources helps put in perspective that although these problems are significant, they are not insurmountable with competence and creativity.

And keep that in mind if the organization tries to deflect blame for their mistakes on the losses of some pretty fungible players.

Lead Image Credit: Jerome Miron // USA Today Sports Images

Well guess what, it happened again. With all of the caveats cited in my January piece about single-season WARP totals–although FRAA is better than say, UZR or DRS–the White Sox wound up using as regulars a bunch of below-replacement level players.  By this metric, recently departed Dioner Navarro was the worst position player in the majors at -2.4.* But it doesn’t stop there. J.B. Shuck has now accumulated 231 PAs and in that time his .250 OBP and .307 SLG have been good enough for a -1.2 WARP, 8th worst in MLB.

If the excuse here is, “They were counting on Austin Jackson and he got hurt” I would point out that Jackson himself was below replacement when he was injured for the rest of the season as well.  And while we’re at it, if the plan is, “Nobody can get hurt, even our worst position players, or we’re done,” then the plan is really bad.

*The second-worst weighed in at -1.9 so Navarro was basically lapping the field. 

Even if we grant a mulligan for Jimmy Rollins‘ stopgap -0.3 WARP, we have Carlos Sanchez‘ breathtaking season wherein his meager 98 PAs were so bad that he is still the 21st worst player in baseball by this measure.  I haven’t even had to mention Avisail Garcia, who is somehow barely above replacement level, but only because, for reasons that elude me, FRAA likes his defense. So if you disagree with its assertion that he is a positive in the outfield, he too is one of the worst players in the league.

“Once again this team proves that replacement level doesn’t exist if you have no organizational depth.” – Ethan Spalding

They’ve had some bad luck, to be sure, although of all the rookies who got injured this year, Charlie Tilson likely represented the only realistic upgrade on what they have.  Shuck is a low bar to clear, as we discussed, but even so, you’d have to be pretty bullish on Tilson to have expected him to perform much better than Jackson’s bench-quality production this year anyway.

So it’s been another season of simply rearranging problems instead of solving them.  To be sure, the infield is in better shape than it was–third base and second base have legitimate major leaguers in place for 2017 (although afterward they project to be disasters again), and barring incident, shortstop looks like it has a long-term solution.  However, designated hitter, starting catcher, and at least one outfield spot are all looking dire again, and the September call-ups do not offer excitement about next year the way, say, Trayce Thompson did.  And again, left field is looking like a void waiting to happen after 2017 as well.

The White Sox are now more than a few seasons into their overhaul of their Latin America program and the CBA overhauling the draft to suit their preferences, and yet the depth is still woefully inadequate at the major league level and in the high minors.  An organization that won its only World Series in a century with a team that was defined by a lack of weaknesses, instead of elite players carrying dead weight, they have since tried for more than a decade to make the latter work, to no avail.

What’s that cliche about the definition of insanity again?

Lead Image Credit: Rick Osentoski // USA Today Sports Images

1.  Miguel Gonzalez is in the process of beginning his rehab outings. While Austin Jackson and Brett Lawrie initially had modest timetables for their absence that morphed into long-term or season-ending trips to the disabled list, barring a setback it appears that Gonzalez will pitch again this year.  Gonzalez was on quite a roll before his injury, and the White Sox will need to decide whether to go to arbitration with him, non-tender him, or work out some other deal with him this winter. It will be helpful for the team to get more looks at him before having to make such a decision.

If Gonzalez’ 2016 is an indication that his days as a solid No. 4 starter aren’t over yet, that makes the rest of their roster decisions that much more interesting, because…

2. Carlos Rodon is on a second half hot streak for the second year in a row.  And while his 2016 numbers superficially look pretty comparable to last year’s–his walk rate is way down, but his home run rate is way up–the Baseball Prospectus stats think he has made a huge jump this year.  His cFIP is down from a pedestrian 104 in his rookie campaign to a well-above-average 88 in his sophomore season. For comparison, Jose Quintana‘s cFIP this year is 89 (and although Quintana holds a significant edge in DRA, it’s not like DRA hates Rodon either).

Put No. 1 and No. 2 together and all of a sudden…

3. The White Sox might have slots one through four in their starting rotation all accounted for with quality pitchers at absolute cut rate prices for 2017.  Having a good, cheap starting rotation is something they had coming into this year as well, but if Rodon has taken as big of a step forward as his advanced metrics seem to think, there is reason to believe the rotation is significantly better moving forward. James Shields is a complicating factor, but the White Sox have Carson Fulmer and an offseason to acquire fallback options to address the fifth starter spot and otherwise add depth.

From what I can tell, the fanbase and a lot of media are insisting that the White Sox must do a full rebuild and blow up this team. I disagree. Emotionally I understand the appeal, but the logic is dictated by nihilism and frustration–and out of the likely correct sense that perhaps it would have been the smart thing to do at a much earlier time. However, given where they are now, the only reason to do that is because you think ownership and the front office are unwilling or unable to patch a few glaring holes on an approximately .500 team.

In which case–if ownership and the front office are unqualified to build a winner–then why even bother suggesting plans or making recommendations? If that is true, then the only solution is to rebuild both the roster and the entire front office and sell the team. While varying degrees of that are possible in a variety of scenarios, that’s the type of situation you evaluate when it comes, instead of rejecting any other avenue until it maybe, possibly comes to fruition.

4. One defense I have heard offered on the White Sox’ behalf is that they haven’t had many high draft picks–the inevitable comparison comes when people offer the Cubs or Astros as alternative examples. And while Carlos Correa and Kris Bryant are sublime players acquired as the reward for being at the bottom of the standings, my response is that even if Chris Sale and Quintana were not top five draft picks, they are dirt cheap superstars all the same. The White Sox have those guys. They don’t need more dirt cheap superstars (although they’re obviously welcome).

Rather, the White Sox need their catcher not to be the worst position player in the majors. They need enough depth such that when Jackson gets hurt they don’t have to make J.B. Shuck a starter.* They need to start a season with a DH who doesn’t have embarrassing offensive numbers.

*By contrast, look at how Tyler Saladino hasn’t skipped a beat since Lawrie got hurt. It’s almost like you can’t just assume all of your starting lineup will stay healthy and productive all year and need contingency plans!

5. Last offseason would have been a great time patch the holes they have.  And while readers have correctly pointed out that a lot of the major free agent hitters signed last winter have been disasters, that is only one aspect of free agency and an offseason. Dexter Fowler, Mike Napoli, Pedro Alvarez, Ian Desmond, Dae-Ho Lee, Steve Pearce, and others would have all been boosts to the 2016 White Sox–some big, some small.

Moreover, depending on your definitions, none of those guys required anything resembling the huge deals the White Sox have been allergic to in the past, nor would they have necessitated the White Sox exceeding their 2011 payroll by any meaningful amount.

6.  The excuses here tend to involve Adam LaRoche or waiting till the deadline to evaluate if you are a contender.** It’s true that LaRoche didn’t retire until a few days after the last of the above players had been signed.  That excuse only makes sense in the bubble of insanity that is White Sox Baseball.

This argument implies that the White Sox could not bring in more bats because they were already set at DH with Avisail Garcia and LaRoche. The 36-year old with debilitating injuries to his back and knees coming off a sub.-700 OPS season and the guy who has failed to be average in any aspect of the game in over 1,000 PAs were the Plan A to a degree that it precluded the Sox from adding players like Napoli or Alvarez on cheap one-year deals as fallback options?

Even if LaRoche and Avisail miraculously had been good, it wouldn’t have been helpful to have an extra competent body or two around at minimal cost? Could the Sox not find a couple hundred plate appearances for someone like Pearce, who can play multiple positions and doesn’t have the clout to demand a full-time job? Do the Sox not trust their manager to figure it out?  If not, is that not a disqualifying factor for Robin Ventura as a manager?

This is a team that carried a three-man bench that included Jerry Sands for weeks at a time that couldn’t or wouldn’t add someone dirt cheap like Pearce because they didn’t have room or couldn’t afford him. None of the preferred excuses make any sense in retrospect.

**I trust the myriad follies of the “wait till the deadline” approach have been exposed in stark fashion this season.

7.  The free agent class this winter is weaker than the last, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be players out there who can be upgrades to the surprisingly limited number of positions of need the White Sox project to possess. The starting rotation is in good shape, as discussed above. The bullpen has been a source of frustration, but that doesn’t mean it is broken beyond repair–after all, Zack Burdi is the result of clinging to the 26th overall pick instead of signing someone like Fowler, and he could very well be a third plus right-handed reliever behind Nate Jones and David Robertson as soon as next year, not to mention a recovered Zach Putnam.

There are reasonable, solid options at third base, left field, right field, second base, first base, utility man, shortstop, and backup catcher for 2017. That leaves designated hitter, a right-handed catcher, and centerfielder to solve this winter, and hopefully, this year drove home the above point that having one reasonable option to play a position doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing to add more quality players that also play that position.

It doesn’t take a superlative front office to address those problems. We will see if the White Sox have the ability and the will to clear these modest hurdles. Their track record, however, is uninspiring.

Lead Image Credit: Rick Osentoski // USA Today Sports Images 

“Mired in mediocrity.” 

The words were perfect, and made me feel both heartbroken and as though someone understood what I’d been seeing for years. Coming from White Sox General Manager Rick Hahn, who has been one of the only sensible minds left among the White Sox organization, it felt as if the white flag was finally being unfurled at 35th and Shields.

Fans have known that the race to contend was probably over long ago, but the White Sox made it feel as though they were still trying, even if it was in their familiar and seemingly futile way. But abruptly, the organization has decided deliver their relinquishment of 2016. Saying things such as the team isn’t interested in rentals simply unfurls the white flag further. This situation is difficult for so many reason, the most immediate being that this call to put down weapons comes with two more months of baseball left to play. It’s only July, but on the South side, it’s already starting to feel like November.

Looking back on the enthusiasm that fans were met with at SoxFest feels like a distant and fond memory. A time when if things were to go wrong, no one would expect them to go wrong in the grand fashion that they have this season. This season has been a small collection of distinct tragedies, from a 23-10 run, to the best bullpen in baseball imploding, to James Shields and everything that has followed on and off the field.

Optimism is an feeling that White Sox fans have not been able to hold on to for nearly a decade. Have they felt optimism before? Of course. Just last season, after a series of stunning signings the Winter Meetings, Sox fans felt more realistic optimism than they had in years. All of baseball felt it. Fans all across the game were popping proverbial bottles of champagne to salute the White Sox having “won” the offseason.

After a flurry of small but strong moves to fix the middle infield and during a race that was eventually lost to acquire outfielder Dexter Fowler, Rick Hahn acknowledged that he felt the 2016 White Sox were a better, stronger team in 2016. He was right. With strong, experienced middle infield pieces added to the roster, the White Sox were on the path to baseball legitimacy.

But the problem was just the plan of being better than the 2015 team was just that, it was a better and stronger team than a 2015 White Sox, a team that was flawed in a number of ways. The 2015 team was the first to open the door for serious talks of a total rebuild as the only sure fire way to make this thing work. But instead fixing the problem at its core, the White Sox attempted once again to stitch up an idea that was supposed to work and send it off to battle.

The White Sox quickly became the most tragic franchise in baseball this season, and not simply because the plan didn’t work, but because it was supposed to work, and for a short five weeks to start the season, it did. It looked like for once, White Sox could enjoy something that other teams may take for granted — a chance to be a strong contender.

Feeling this forlorn as a fan is easy. Fans have the luxury of being able to say they just don’t care. They have the privilege to be able to box up their shirts and jerseys and store them away for next year. They have the power to decide to turn off the TV. To treat this like it’s the end, because that sure feels like it’s the way the front office is treating it.

But the White Sox don’t. Jose Abreu still needs to go out there and try. Austin Jackson still needs to work as hard as he can to get back on the playing field. Jose Quintana still needs to strive to uphold his status as one of the best pitchers in the American League. They don’t have the choice to feel the way fans feel even though it’s probably more evident to them every day they walk into the clubhouse. The current state of the White Sox is leading to meltdowns of disastrous proportions that drew as much negative media attention as L’Affaire LaRoche did, and it’s making a bad situation look even worse. It feels as though there’s nothing to play for as a team right now. As individuals, sure. But not as a team.

Rick Hahn stressed at SoxFest in January that if this season didn’t work out, a total rebuild would be on the table. The White Sox are at that point now, and the deeper questions involved in this situation that are being exposed. Most fans would accept the fact that a rebuild is imminent at this point, and see hope down the line. But for White Sox fans, they truly do feel as though they’re mired in mediocrity, they have for nearly a decade. How will that be any different going forward is the real question for which they need an answer.

The layers of this situation have become deeply exposed for those who truly understand how this organization works. They’ve band-aided situations such as this for years now, and with the proposal of executing a total rebuild now on the table, the flaws of this front office are on display. Will we just see more of the same going forward, or will things change down to their roots?

Lead photo courtesy of David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Beyond his underwhelming .239/.296/.411 career second half line, Frazier’s disappointing 2013 was the only full season in which he didn’t see at least a .125 OPS drop after the All-Star break, and he just put up his worst first half since that 2013 season. That, combined with hysteria over the post-Home Run Derby hangover theory, and his position as the cleanup hitter of a flagging offense, and Rick Hahn’s most prized acquisition of the offseason will also be his most scrutinized piece in the second half.

Frazier’s swing looks like it was destined for streaks, and possibly declining returns over a grueling season. He has a long, violent whip-like motion across his body that is built for power over contact, and he keeps his lower half closed in a manner that puts a lot of onus on his upper body strength–which is clearly plus–to drive the ball. Maybe that swing is wearing him down over the course of the season, and maybe separate, or entirely discrete issues are troubling him every time.

Frazier is 30 and hasn’t found a way to finish strong yet in his major league career, and mirrors his team in that way, as the Sox have yet to post a winning record over the second half since 2010. Until they find a way, any inherent quality about their identity will be open to scrutiny.

2. Avisail Garcia is traditionally a better second half hitter, but since he has not hit a home run since May 28, and early returns on Justin Morneau have shown a lot hitterishness, he’s unlikely to get a big opportunity to act on it. Also, his stronger second half splits are still under a .700 OPS, so there’s that.

Jose Abreu also has traditionally thrived in the second half, but has found himself in a similar power drought, and is 70 plate appearances removed from a three-run bomb over the Green Monster that looked like the slugger rounding into his old shape. To some degree he’s been fine, and is closing in on posting another month with an OPS over .800, but has hit just five home runs in the last 50 games, as being unable to deal with, let alone drive pitches at his hands have hampered his ability to consistently to force pitchers to the outer half where his all-field power really shines.

He certainly has the hit tool to be a decent option even if his power remains modest, but he’s cast as the elite bat that’s supposed to redeem the rest of the offense, and he’s not currently capable of doing that.

3. There hasn’t been much in the way of official acknowledgement of Austin Jackson having an extended injury timeline after Ken Rosenthal’s report, as speculation about injury recovery times is not really something a team should do on an official basis.

Sources: #WhiteSox, unsure of Austin Jackson’s prognosis, are checking into possible trades for CFer. Jackson had knee surgery on June 10.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 14, 2016

Something something…symbol that means both crisis and opportunity, if the Sox are committed to fixing the DH slot with Morneau, securing a centerfielder who can be part of their 2017 reshuffling of the same core could serve purposes both short-term and…slightly longer-term. Jackson allowed Adam Eaton to flourish in right field, but wasn’t a good option for next year even before his knee became a concern. J.B. Shuck has been doing a credible offensive impression of Jackson, which is a mild complement since Jackson could be described as ‘glove-only, but should still make them question their commitment to waiting out his return.

Of course, if obvious sellers were flush with things as valuable plus-hitting centerfielders, they probably wouldn’t be obvious sellers. Easily identifiable candidates beyond Charlie Blackmon are hard to come by, and while he would likely be hard to swing given that the Sox’ top two prospects are very needed contributors to the current 25-man roster, that’s the type of guy who should be in their sights for the next year and a half of baseball.

4. Speaking of Carson Fulmer, he looked every bit the vital bullpen upgrade in his two-inning scoreless debut. He sat 93 mph and chucked a four-pitch mix at an admittedly barren Angels lineup and missed bats with everything. The violent delivery looks built for the bullpen but the stuff looks rotation-worthy.

So, that’s one emergency that’s become slightly less emergent, but with Zach Putnam’s test of his elbow off the mound earning the verdict of “I don’t know, it didn’t feel great,” the Sox bullpen is a bit short of playoff-ready still.

5. Concerns about Zack Collins completing three of the worst games of all-time in Arizona Rookie League have been revealed to be premature as expected. He’s looked a lot more like a polished college bat against High-A pitching, and has clocked two home runs in his first three games while walking more than he’s struck out.

The other Zach in High-A, tall right-hander Zach Thompson, was not overwhelming but managed to not get tagged in his second start since getting a mid-year promotion (5.2 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 4 K, 1 HR). A big, powerful fastball with life coming out of a six-foot, seven-inch frame is his primary claim to fame. As someone who mostly finds him intriguing as a potential reliever, I have mixed feelings between being encouraged at how long he can be effective as a starter, and eager for what would likely be a rapid rise in relief.

Lead Image Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea // USA Today Sports Images

The White Sox haven’t had to venture out into the insane world of free agent starting pitching acquisition. Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, and Carlos Rodon were acquired for two first round picks and in minor league free agency.  Sure, they’ve had to scramble to fix the fourth and fifth slots in the rotation, and even now those slots don’t inspire a ton of confidence, but that’s pretty normal.  There are plenty of teams who have spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars and/or massive amounts of trade resources trying to replicate what the White Sox have in the rotation and failed — e.g. Boston, Arizona, or even the bizarre failures of the Minnesota Twins, murdering themselves with $50-80 million mediocrities.

When you only need to fill a fifth starter spot, you can do perfectly fine just digging through the bargain bin aggressively. Mat Latos was a worthwhile flyer for the cost, they got a good/lucky April out of him, and then abandoned him once he stopped being effective. Miguel Gonzalez was scooped up even while Latos was thriving, just as a hedge, and that’s actually worked out quite well. Indeed, in terms of the rotation, the White Sox front office should hold their heads high. They have struck gold at the top end and have gone on the attack to give them reinforcements.

Then you look on the other side of the ball and you wonder if it’s a completely different front office in charge.

Well, first let’s start with the good news:

Tim Anderson has been really, really fun. It doesn’t really matter how you look at it. From a results standpoint, he is hitting .304/.310/.488 at shortstop, which is good for a .278 TAv and roughly in the top half of the league in that category, even in this sudden Golden Age of Shortstops. Aesthetically it has been even better, with his much-hyped athleticism playing as advertised. It’s very early yet, but so far Anderson has represented a non-pitching draft and development success that has been virtually extinct on the South Side since George W. Bush took office.

The shortstop situation is an example of how you can cure a flaw in the roster in a very healthy way, and for White Sox fans who don’t really pay attention to other teams, this is how most teams plug a hole–from within. Moreover, even though it was risky, the White Sox’ offseason approach here was very defensible, albeit risky. The position was a liability, but they did have their top prospect racing through the system and potentially on the horizon. They had a competent understudy in the form of Tyler Saladino on hand, and so they threw a minor league deal out to a veteran who would theoretically complement Saladino’s virtues and hope that would tide them over until Anderson was ready.

The risk was a calculated one in the sense that you were throwing two mediocrities at the problem, each hedging against the other, and because shortstop has such a low bar for production. Granted, Anderson may have needed all of 2016 and even some of 2017 in the minors, but I don’t think it was crazy to do this instead of gambling on, say, Ian Desmond. Desmond has had a renaissance in Texas, but his peripherals had been collapsing for years, and there was real reason to believe he wasn’t worth forfeiting a draft pick.*

*This is notwithstanding the fact that I think Zack Burdi is a disappointing result for said pick. I doubt Burdi was Plan A for the pick, and I’m frustrated that this is how it turned out, sacking the pick for someone as volatile as Desmond would mean surrendering the ability to exploit draft opportunities. That they didn’t necessarily materialize is not the flaw in this strategy.

Similarly, Melky Cabrera, Todd Frazier, and Brett Lawrie have more or less been what you’d realistically expect from them.  The troika of modest trade and free agency adds have been somewhere between average to above average while representing one third of the lineup.  That’s great! Good job, everybody.

That’s the good news.

Since the 23-10 start, the White Sox have been–to put it charitably–limping along with less talent than they need, and what’s infuriating is that none of the problems they’ve had are a surprise. Avisail Garcia has been one of the worst players in the majors. Again. Alex Avila got hurt, and if that startles you, I would suggest you don’t have much interest in baseball.  Austin Jackson was a glove-only option, but really, that the role he was cast to play.

Remember, as soon as Adam LaRoche retired, Avisail Garcia was Plan A at DH. In Spring it looked like the organization was willing to take the same aggressive bargain bin dumpster diving that they have applied to the back of the rotation. Scooping up guys who have succeeded in the majors in the past, targeting contracts that cellar dwellers want to get rid of, etc. Travis Ishikawa and Jerry Sands are pretty poor options, even by those standards, but they were bodies from outside the organization that were brought in to see if they could get any sort of boost at all. Sands wound up with a K% above 40, and Ishikawa never even played in the majors.

Then the White Sox…stopped trying to solve the problem. Justin Morneau is the first and only major league player they have added on the offensive side of the ball of any consequence, and he has yet to actually play for the team.  Meanwhile, James Loney became available on waivers and was untouched. Even though the Padres added him on a minor league deal, he was clearly still freely available, as the Mets acquired him for “future considerations.”

Loney has hit .277/.336/.438 for the Mets, which is only slightly better than his 2014 numbers, and is basically a photocopy of his career averages.  So, even if the White Sox say, “Well, we were counting on LaRoche and we were blindsided by his retirement,” there is little excuse as to why they didn’t pounce on someone like Loney–who was definitely available–after LaRoche quit.

Similarly, Minnesota signed Robbie Grossman to a minor league deal on May 17th of this year, months after LaRoche had retired. He has a .421 OBP.

Now, there are reasons to argue against acquiring both of these guys. Before their short spurts good performance this year, you could argue that Loney was washed up based on his 2015* and Grossman was a failed prospect, although it is worth pointing out that the Astros kept him instead of J.D. Martinez and he was a BP Top 100 prospect once upon a time.

*Note: The White Sox were evidently counting on Adam LaRoche, who is both older than Loney, and was worse in 2015, so I’m confused as to why LaRoche would be acceptable but Loney wasn’t an option.

So the White Sox missed on these guys, not necessarily because they should have known they’d each be plus bats, but rather because they sat on their hands.  They didn’t do anything.  The same organization that added Jacob Turner, James Shields, Mat Latos, Anthony Ranaudo, and Miguel Gonzalez when it was clear that John Danks couldn’t hack it anymore did absolutely nothing to help the disastrous DH situation for three months.

And it all circles back to this offseason, when the White Sox did not add any free agents of consequence for the outfield or DH.  The defense I saw from many on social media was that the White Sox could always add at the trade deadline instead.

Even ignoring how an organization like the White Sox cannot afford to keep acquiring talent in trades–how useful would Marcus Semien or Trayce Thompson be for this roster right now, even if one or both of them did bring something potentially helpful?–and even ignoring the fact that if you wait till the end of July you punt more than half the season without needed upgrades: The market does not always match what you need if you bank on this strategy.

As of Saturday, July 9th, Sandy Alderson explicitly said that there just aren’t that many sellers out there period.  The only team he would cite as a seller as of now is Atlanta. Even if there are more–I bet Tampa or Cincinnati would listen to offers–they can afford to wait until July 31, or the end of August or even until this winter to sell players unless they get an offer that suits them. And, what if the players who are a good fit get hurt, like Josh Reddick did?

The White Sox decided they’d like to roll the dice on the remote chance that Avisail Garcia could be adequate, or that the market would provide them exactly what they needed and when they needed it.  In the meantime, they sat on their hands, refusing to make any additions that could have helped bridge the gap until a more permanent solution was found. If the excuse for inaction is that they didn’t have any targets they could pry away for a reasonable price, the organization still only has themselves to blame. This was an extremely obvious and likely risk to their “strategy” of doing nothing all winter, and doing nothing once Adam LaRoche quit.

If they had aggressively rifled through the bargain bin, I’m pretty sure they could have found someone–anyone–who could beat Avisail Garcia’s .234 TAv.  Maybe it would have been a Robbie Grossman, who would be the best hitter on the team right now.  Maybe it would have been James Loney, who, by TAv, would also be the best hitter on the team right now. And this is an organization that realized that there was a problem at the back of the rotation and did exactly what they needed to do to make their offseason strategy make any sense at all, but wouldn’t for DH.

I can’t think of an explanation, other than the fact that maybe they really thought Avisail Garcia could hack it?  If that is the explanation, then this team needs to take a hard look in the mirror as to why they seem to be the last ones to figure out that a position player isn’t a major leaguer time and time again. Or why their Plan As are so frequently underwhelming and paired with no credible Plan B.

There are problems that can’t be fixed. Catchers are really hard to find, for example, at any time, and if your catching situation is poor you’re not at much of a competitive disadvantage, because most teams have a bad catching situation. But if you can’t find a DH who can post a TAv better than .234 then…I suppose I have nothing else to say.

It was a risky strategy, based far more on hope than calculation, and what they were gambling with was yet another of the peak years of Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, and Adam Eaton. It doesn’t look like this gamble paired with baffling passivity is going to pay off.  And maybe they pay a trade deadline premium for a bat–impact or not–at the end of July, but I suspect the damage has already been done.

Lead Image Credit: Matt Marton // USA Today Sports Images