Let it never be said again that the Sox won’t eat money to part with a struggling player after they paid Matt Albers $250K to buy him out rather than pick up his $3 million option for 2017. They rostered him all season when he was toast after the month of April, but enough is enough.

J.B. Shuck puts the ball in play, was a great pinch hitter, has good speed, runs hard and is a very nice guy. But he also is a below-average defensive centerfielder and hit .205/.248/.299 while starting 59 games, so while it would nice to keep him in the organization–and they might still after outrighting him to Triple-A Charlotte–it would be a lot nicer to avoid depending on him in the organization in the same way. Shuck is sort of the ultimate fourth outfielder type, and nothing is more fourth outfielder than becoming reviled after exigent circumstances make you a third outfielder.

The Sox also released Daniel Webb, who underwent Tommy John surgery this past year, and never found his footing or a speck of command after being excitedly pressed into major duty in 2014. Webb had upper level velocity and three pitches that could miss bats, but struggling in learning on the major league job never suited him, nor did the wilderness of struggling in long relief after he lost Robin Ventura’s trust. You can only watch him miss him a spot with his fastball by multiple feet so many times and maintain patience in his development, but this is sad.

This is all basic housekeeping stuff; purging players who couldn’t possibly have a real role on the 2017 roster no matter what direction the team went. Activating Jake Petricka from the 60-day disabled list might have been the most substantive long-term move the Sox made on Thursday, and he will need to return to his peak to become seventh inning reliever.

The most substantial thing that really happened for the Sox Thursday was probably the Tigers trading Cameron Maybin in a blatant salary dump. Maybin was a godsend to the Tigers when he returned mid-season from injury and collected a .383 OBP in center field, and yet they traded him to the Angels rather than pay out his $9 million option in 2017, and now have a choice between Anthony Gose and Jacoby Jones in center.

There was plenty of chatter that the Tigers were finally going to turn around and reel in spending after spending the better part of a decade charging at full-speed to try to win a World Series with their Justin Verlander/Miguel Cabrera core, but seeing them purge major league production for salary relief is still jarring.

Refusing to be aggressive because the division is too tough is foolish, but being aggressive because the division is weak can still be good.

Lead Image Credit: Andy Marlin // USA Today Sports Images

Estrada was hesitant to discuss the extent of his soreness other than he expects to keep pitching without interruption, so at this point it does not seem like a leading AL East contender necessarily broke one of their most reliable starters to duck a putrid bullpen, but it was a reminder of how success can force other teams. Last year, Chris Sale‘s strikeout wave forced the Jays into an ineffectual aggressive attack against him, and he and Jose Quintana, and even Mat Latos will not go much farther without teams trying to alter their approach, but maybe things will get weirder. Perhaps the Sox seventh inning heroics will push team to take away the soft underbelly between their tiring starter and the non-elite members of their bullpen, where the Sox have frequently chosen to strike.

2. Put Josh Donaldson‘s post-game comment to SportsNet in the “Jose Quintana May Still Be Underrated” file.

“Quintana was locating today. But honestly, I don’t feel like there should be a left-handed pitcher, especially two days in a row, who should be able to go through our lineup like that,” Donaldson said. “We need to reevaluate some things.

“I think some people need to evaluate their approach. Chris Sale’s Chris Sale. But we have a lot of big time right-handed bats in this lineup that should be able to handle Quintana,” Donaldson continued. “He’s had a good start to the season. But it looked to me like he was throwing a lot of heaters. And I don’t believe there’s anybody that should be able to come in through here and throw a lot of fastballs and have that kind of success he had against us.”

To be fair, confidence and high personal standards are a good thing, and Donaldson is the reigning AL MVP for a team that nearly scored 900 runs last season AND he reached base all three times versus Quintana Wednesday night. There are legitimate reasons for Donaldson to be miffed, but he might be making wrongheaded assumptions about Quintana’s fastball. It’s not a weak contact or strike-grabbing pitch, it’s a putaway pitch that he sits 90-94 mph with great extension and run.

His signature move is going up the ladder with his heater to get whiffs, but he put it on the hands of right-handers or painted the outside edge with equal measure Wednesday. He definitely had a particularly successful night, but he has the seventh-highest whiff per swing rate on his four-seam fastball (minimum 100 pitches) in all of baseball this season. If anyone was going to dominate this Jays lineup with heaters, Quintana would be one of the most likely candidates.

3. Chris Sale, the guy intentionally throttling down his fastball to grab strikes early in the count, is still 10th in baseball in whiff/swing rate with his four-seamer, which is pretty amazing since his slider and changeup are both wipeout pitches on their own. Less amazing is Mat Latos‘ place on this list of 93 qualified pitchers.

It is 93rd. His whiff/swing rate on his four-seam fastball is 0.00%.

We all knew that Latos has been opportunistic with his run prevention so far, but this heightens up scrutiny on him getting his slider and overhand curveball working, because this is post-shoulder surgery Freddy Garcia levels of bat missing with his fastball early on.

4. Daniel Webb has been called up to the big club, replacing Miguel Gonzalez, who has been optioned back down after an uneven spot start. Webb, though just 26, has established an exhaustive (and exhausting) reputation for having no command of his promising raw stuff. It’s not Webb’s fault that his very presence is a callback to the bad old days of the Sox bullpen, but given that the Sox spent time in the offseason stacking depth to move Webb down in the pecking order–most notably Tommy Kahnle, who is outperforming Webb so far at Triple-A Charlotte (12 strikeouts, three walks and a 3.00 ERA in nine innings)–this is likely a highly temporary detail as the Sox continue to carry an extra arm.

5. CSN Chicago’s Jeff Nuich tweeted out that the White Sox broadcast peaked at 115,000 homes, their highest CSN rating in over two years. There’s no doubt that figure helped by the Blackhawks and Bulls both ending their seasons early and the Cubs being rained out, but as Crain’s Danny Ecker noted the Sox being dead-last in baseball in TV ratings means they regularly averaged under 30,000 viewers on a given night, so blowing away that average is meaningful. Moreover, actually having a good showing on this rare opportunity for a larger platform is as important as the ratings bump–however temporary–itself.

It’s all revenue in other people’s pockets, but a stable build up alongside some actual sustained success could eventually change how the White Sox do business.

Lead Photo Credit: John E. Sokolowski – USA Today Sports Images