In the BPSS Slack chat we’ve brought up on a number of occasions which player will be most commonly missed 4-5 years from now in the Sporcle quiz where you need to name every player who suited up for the 2017 White Sox. There are a good number of candidates, but Al Alburquerque is undoubtedly one of the favorites. The White Sox began the season with a really good bullpen. Too good, really, for a team with no notion of contending. Rick Hahn did just as he should, of course, and traded every single reliever with any semblance of value. The White Sox, by rule, are required to have players on their roster capable of taking the mound and throwing baseballs in the direction of home plate, and Albuquerque did just that for all of eight innings, striking out five and allowing one run. Alburquerque was once more than an afterthought of a reliever; he was actually quite good with the Tigers back in 2014. Relievers are a confusing bunch. There’s a non-zero chance Alburquerque throws meaningful innings for a team again somewhere down the road, but chances are it won’t be with the White Sox.

Cody Asche is the exact type of player who would’ve drawn the ire of White Sox Twitter had he been employed during a season in which the White Sox were expected to contend. A failed prospect makes sense as a flier on a rebuilding team, however. Still, it didn’t take long for the White Sox to figure out that Matt Davidson was at least good in the dinger department while Asche wasn’t good in any department. The former Phillie made the White Sox out of Spring Training and promptly hit .105/.177/.175 in 62 plate appearances before being jettisoned to Triple-A Charlotte, never to be seen again. He actually played quite well for the Knights, putting up a .887 through the rest of the season, but that merely serves as yet another example of the difference in competition level between Triple-A and the majors.

Quick: Guess who threw the most relief innings for the White Sox in 2017. Give up? Well, it’s Chris Beck with 64. Since he was drafted in 2012, Beck’s fastball has always been lively enough to envision a world in which he could become an asset in the bullpen. But his emergence as an innings eater for the White Sox this season came more out of necessity than productivity, as he posted a 6.47 ERA in those 64 innings pitched. There were only 11 pitchers in baseball this season who threw as many innings as Beck with a worse ERA. The problem? The same as it’s always been with Beck: Too many walks. He’s now tossed 95 1/3 innings in his professional career and has a BB/9 of 5.0. Beck is an organizational soldier, if nothing else. After all, someone had to throw those innings. But at 27 years old and with nearly 100 below average innings under his belt, the chances of him turning into a bullpen asset look increasingly slim.

In 2012 veteran journeyman Dan Johnson got a late season call from the White Sox and recorded 31 plate appearances, hitting .364/.547/.818 fueled almost entirely by a 3 homer game on the last day of the regular season. Rob Brantly’s 2017 line won’t look quite as impressive, but in 36 plate appearances he put up a .290/.389/.516 line that … probably means nothing in the long run. Catchers are eternally weird, and the offensive threshold is such that there’s a chance Brantly could stick around as a backup during the next couple of years of the rebuild, but there’s certainly no guarantee he’s even on the team for next year.

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I’ll get the small sample size caveat out of the way early, but Garcia is now hitting .304/.343/.485 in 109 plate appearances after a weekend in which he went 6-for-13, including a two-homer game in Friday’s loss to the Padres.

His wRC+ is 126, which is more than double that of any prior season, and his ISO is .177 when he had only 11 extra base hits in his career entering this season, so the offensive production he’s displayed thus far has been unprecedented. And while it’s unlikely he’ll produce at that clip for the rest of the season, there’s plenty of reason to believe he’s improved to the point of sticking around.

The most impressive gain he’s made is with his strikeout percentage. He’s striking out in just 13.5 percent of his plate appearances this season, down from 26.7 percent for his career. But the reason for this isn’t necessarily patience. His walk rate isn’t any better, nor is his swing rate on pitches outside the zone. He’s just simply making more contact, hitting 90.3 percent of pitches he swings at inside the zone, up from 83.8 percent for his career.

Garcia grades out as an average center fielder by FRAA, which is fine if he’s producing offensively. And while the sample size remains small, the strides he made thus far are a good sign. If they stick, the White Sox may have found another valuable piece for their future.

2. Jose Quintana wasn’t necessarily bad on Sunday, but also wasn’t the All-Star-caliber starter we’ve come to know, and left with a no-decision after the White Sox offense failed to hit perpetual punching bag Jered Weaver for most of the afternoon.

The troubling aspect of his start wasn’t necessarily the three-run homer to allowed to Hunter Renfroe, a high 92-mph fastball that caught too much of the zone, but the four walks allowed. Quintana’s pinpoint control hasn’t been what it was during the last several seasons, and against a lineup more potent than San Diego’s the result might have been a lot worse. Things are certainly not fine with Quintana at the moment, but his track record leaves us with hope that he’ll turn things around sooner than later. Let’s hope so.

3. Dylan Covey put together his most impressive start of the season in Saturday’s win over the Padres, and still didn’t make it through five innings. Covey entered the start with 11 strikeouts on the season, and managed a career-high nine punch outs in just 4 1/3 innings, with the main problem being that he only lasted 4 1/3 innings. He averaged 95 mph on his fastball, and touched as high as 97 mph during the start, saying after the game that he was amped up and “tired of getting beat with my mediocre stuff.”

Yes, it was the Padres, and his command struggled plenty, including giving up a pair of home runs, but Covey showed the type of stuff Saturday that led to the White Sox deciding to keep him on the 25-man roster instead of sending him back to Oakland.

4. The White Sox optioned Cody Asche to Triple-A Charlotte following Sunday’s win, with the likely replacement coming in the form of pitching help. The White Sox are heading for the west coast and don’t have another day off until May 25, so it’s a logical conclusion considering they currently have two starters (Covey and Mike Pelfrey) who struggle to finish five innings each time out. Likewise, Asche has been ineffective with all of six hits on the season and has only played once in the last week.

Assuming the move is, in fact, a pitcher, as has been reported, it will let down those clamoring for the Yoan Moncada promotion, especially given we’ve now reached the date where the White Sox have now gained another year of team control regardless of promotion. But Rick Hahn reiterated last week that the White Sox will promote Moncada when they believe is is ready, and that time is not right now.

“We want to see that over an extended period of time,” Hahn said. “It’s awfully important to not lose sight of the fact this is a 21-year-old player, one who was not playing two years ago. It’s a guy who has fewer than 325 or so plate appearances above A ball.”

5. James Shields is scheduled to throw before Monday’s series opener in Anaheim, but there is still no timeline for when he could return to the mound for the White Sox.

“There’s really no update right now,” Shields said Sunday. “We’re just taking the process. They wanted to give me 12-15 days of no throw and kind of just let this thing heal on its own. There’s nothing you can really do about it but wait. It’s kind of frustrating, you want to do some treatments and that stuff, but I understand the process and we’re just going to keep going.”

Shields’ injury kind of came out of nowhere, and the initial diagnosis of a mild lat strain led one to assume he’d miss close to the minimum amount of time. But it’s now been one month since his last start, and regardless of how Monday’s session goes, it will likely be at least another week or two until we see him on the mound again.

I never imagined I’d be clamoring to see Shields two months ago, but given the White Sox pitching depth, as well as the signs of progress he showed in the three starts he did make, well, here we are.

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The game was also Davidson’s first appearance in the lineup since April 18 against the Yankees, as he sat out last Wednesday’s series finale in New York and all three of the White Sox weekend games against the Indians. His lack of playing time, especially when you factor in his hot start at the plate, is puzzling on the surface. Davidson is the exact type of player who could use plate appearances on a rebuilding team. Unlike, say, Cody Asche, Davidson is a bit of an unknown quantity with at least a non-zero chance of being around the next time the White Sox have aspirations of contending.

So why, exactly, isn’t Davidson playing every day? According to manager Rick Renteria, it has nothing to do with matchups, despite his four-day hiatus coinciding with the White Sox facing tough right-handers Masahiro Tanaka, Corey Kluber, Carlos Carrasco, and Danny Salazar.

“It’s not so much the matchup,” Renteria said. “I think we have other guys we want to go ahead and give them the opportunity to face who they are facing today. Matty has shown he can hit anybody. It has nothing to do with it. It has more to do with putting the guys we have right now in a particular situation to experience this particular club.”

I think, at its core, this is an honest assessment. While I don’t believe the White Sox are opting for Asche over Davidson against tougher righties because they believe they have a better chance of winning with Asche in the lineup, nor do I think they view it as “protecting” him, necessarily. But I do think that, while the common thinking with young hitters is: the more at-bats, the better, in terms of development, there is some logical benefit to knowing A) the limits of your players, and B) their mentality.

And while making assumptions about the mental state of others is never wise, Davidson has been pretty open about the fact that he is prone to putting extra pressure on himself.

“I think sometimes you can put a little more pressure on yourself,” Davidson told me during spring training. “But you just try to stay the same and focus on your routine and what you can do.”

There’s also this: Davidson has had a hot 40 plate appearances, but he’s still probably not very good. He is still striking out in nearly half of his plate appearances. So while it would make sense to ride the hot hand, it also makes sense to not completely abandon whatever strategy was designed before the season began. Particularly in a season where the end goal isn’t to maximize your wins.

I’d like to see Davidson in the lineup as much as possible, particularly when the other option is Asche. But maybe …just maybe, the White Sox actually have a plan in mind. Renteria, at the very least, should still be given the benefit of the doubt in that regard for now.

2. Miguel Gonzalez is now on a two-start run of absurdly solid results after going eight innings without an earned run, allowing just two hits and one walk while striking out five. Gonzalez has been pretty pinpoint of late, particularly with his cutter and has kept hitters off balance with his change-up.

Obviously two great starts are just two starts. You can look across the league — or just across the diamond at Jason Vargas’ 0.44 ERA entering Monday’s start — to find mediocre pitchers finding success in small samples. But Gonzalez represents someone who could see his trade value increase quite drastically as we get closer to July and teams find themselves starving for starting pitching depth.

3. As certain as I am that Davidson isn’t going to continue to OPS 1.164, I am equally certain Jose Abreu wasn’t going to continue to OPS below .500 and Monday, he had his second consecutive two-hit day and is 7-for-17 in his last five games. He still only has three extra-base hits on the season, and zero home runs, but he demonstrated last year, when his slugging percentage was in the low .300s around this time, that the power will come with time. He’s not worth worrying about.

Tim Anderson, on the other hand, was at least a little bit worth worrying about after his slow start, and has now hit in six of his last seven games and is 9-for-29 over that span. Maybe I’m being overly cautious because of failed White Sox prospects of yesteryear — Anderson appears to be a different breed — but he’d do a lot to calm my nerves by just continuing to hit for about the next 10-15 years.

4. In the really important injury news department, the White Sox had an update on the status of Carlos Rodon Monday that, well, wasn’t much of an update.

Efforts to get Hahn to weigh in on the matter were declined and met with the same general sentiment: there is no statement on Rodon to give because there is no new information to provide. The Sox are almost avoiding offering a date because they don’t want to give a benchmark that they don’t have full confidence in and spark an unnecessary panic when Rodon doesn’t reach it.

A lack of updates is frustrating, but as James notes, giving updates just for that sake doesn’t serve any purpose. As badly as we all want to know when Rodon is going to get back on the mound, the White Sox history suggests he’ll be out there when he’s ready, whether that’s in a month or two or *sad face emoji* 2018.

5. In more conspicuous but still kinda uncertain injury news, Zach Putnam is still considered day-to-day with a tender elbow, but they still don’t seem to exactly know what is wrong with it.

“We don’t have a lot of concrete information right now,” said Putnam prior to Monday’s series opener with the Royals. “I’m going to do everything in my power to help [White Sox head athletic trainer] Herm [Schneider] and the medical staff avoid any sort of DL stint and any significant time missed, but we’re really day to day right now.

“I’m going to try to give it a day to cool down a little bit, but that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily unavailable. I’m just going to try to save some bullets as best I can.”

Given Putnam’s injury in 2016, as well as the fact that he’s awesome, a fully back-to-form recovery sooner than later would be greatly appreciated.

Lead Photo Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

The extra day of rest the Sox lost from Monday’s rainout has been restored, and as of now nothing has changed in terms of the upcoming rotation. Shields is scheduled to pitch on Thursday, with Derek Holland and Miguel Gonzalez slated for Friday and Saturday, respectively. Sunday’s series finale is still listed as TBA, and it’s entirely possible the White Sox skip the fifth spot in the rotation — likely Dylan Covey — in favor of Jose Quintana on regular rest.

This is solid news from an aesthetic standpoint, as skipping the place of whomever replaces Carlos Rodon for however long he’s out means less time, ya know, watching those guys pitch.

Before we get to that point, though, the first guy up will be Shields, whose start will undoubtedly be dissected as he looks to prove he can be a competent starting pitcher following his no good, very bad 2016. Shields’ importance to the 2017 White Sox won’t be measured so much by his ability to help the team win games as it will his ability to soak up innings on a team pretty much devoid of rotation depth. As the current object of the season focuses more on developing young players with an eye toward the future, proving he can function more like the average-ish pitcher he was in 2015 than the sub-replacement performance we saw a year ago would more than acceptable.

2. Speaking of rotation depth, the White Sox added another arm to the stockpile on Wednesday with the addition of Mike Pelfrey on a minor-league deal. Pelfrey was released by the Tigers at the end of Spring Training despite being due $7 million this season and it’s easy to see why after a season in which he posted a 5.07 ERA and a somehow worse 6.42 DRA, while walking almost as many hitters per nine (3.5) as strikeouts per nine (4.2).

Pelfrey is purely a depth signing, but a reasonable one considering the first injury to the rotation brought a Rule 5 draft pick to the forefront, and until any of the prospects are ready for promotion, the next lines of defense at Triple-A include the likes of Chris Volstad and Tyler Danish. Pelfrey isn’t likely to provide anything of value other than innings if and when he’s called upon, but as we’ve already outlined, there is and will be a need there. And besides, when he takes the mound for the White Sox, it’ll be on Detroit’s dime.

3. We’re a little more than two months from the 2016-17 international signing period closing and the White Sox reported pursuit of Cuban outfielder Luis Robert is beginning to take center stage.

Baseball America’s Ben Badler’s scouting report on Robert is glowing, and if the White Sox are able to land him it would give them a top-notch hitting prospect they’re sorely lacking outside of Yoan Moncada and Zack Collins.

Robert has the talent of a first-round pick if he were in the draft. After he signs, he should be ready for an assignment to a low or high Class A affiliate. He has a strong, lean frame at 6-foot-3 with broad shoulders, a wide back and quick-twitch athleticism. A righthanded hitter with excellent bat speed and a sound swing, Robert has plus power with room to continue filling out and increase that in the future.

As Badler notes, the timing of when Robert signs will be key. He has yet to be cleared to sign with a major-league team. If he’s cleared prior to June 15, the White Sox would have a leg-up as they have yet to exceed their bonus allotment for this signing period, as several teams already have. Even if he doesn’t opt to sign until after that date, when teams are allotted between $4.75 and $5.75 million, the White Sox would still be at an advantage as teams that overspent during the previous spending period would be forbidden from signing a period for more than $300,000, of which there are 11 such teams.

White Sox special assistant Marco Paddy was one of a crowd of team scouts and evaluators who attended Robert’s showcase last week, and Badler reported that the White Sox, along with the Astros, were scheduling private workouts with the 19 year old as well.

Rick Hahn has said, without mentioning any specific prospect by name, that the White Sox would be willing to go over their limit in the current international free agent period if the right situation were to present itself. Their pursuit of Robert will be one to watch in the coming months.

4. Amid the news of Monday’s rainout, Tuesday’s loss, and Wednesday’s rainout, the biggest news to come out of the first week of the season thus far was the Rodon health update, which Hahn provided Monday. Rodon has been throwing off flat ground for the last week, and Hahn said if all goes well he will throw from the mound starting on April 10, followed by a minor league rehab assignment. He said the process of getting him ready for the season could take up to six weeks, comparing the process to beginning with the start of spring training and working up to Opening Day.

Rodon missing six weeks would be a significant letdown during a season in which his progress was one of the few things worth watching. From a long term perspective, Rodon is one of the most important pieces in the White Sox future and them doing everything in their power to make sure he’s 100 percent healthy before putting him in a big league game again is completely reasonable.

5. The White Sox have gone a long way to make sure they’re getting a good look at some of the young unknowns that make up the roster this season, the trade of Peter Bourjos and ascension of Jacob May being the most obvious example as May joined Omar Narvaez and, to a lesser extent Tyler Saladino, in the Opening Day starting lineup.

One of the more interesting things to watch will be how Rick Renteria splits up playing time between Matt Davidson and Cody Asche. Davidson falls under the “unknown quantity” category that befits the aforementioned players, and one would assume the White Sox would follow suit with him in regards to playing time. Asche drew the Opening Day start at designated hitter, and while it would be foolish to draw any overwhelming conclusions based on that — it’s entirely possible Renteria just saw it unfit to throw the strikeout-prone Davidson out there against Justin Verlander — the more at-bats the White Sox get him and the other young players, the better.

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