You do this deal. If you take nothing away from this article, if you decide the time you would spend reading the rest of this piece would be better utilized to watch Captain America-themed parodies of Carly Rae Jepsen songs, looking at pictures of steaks, or speaking to your family, take away this: this is good value for a fine solution to a real need.

Tatis has a memorable name, a nice overall profile, revered makeup and is a credit to the White Sox’ slowly improving international amateur operation. Matt Cassidy of Future Sox wrote about him positively when he was signed last July, summarizing him as “a well-rounded prospect who can do a bit of everything, but he doesn’t have the big impact tools.” But this is a 17-year-old who was not on any lists for top international signings, nor did he make Future Sox’s top-30 lists for the organization. He is a “prospect” but too far away from any realization of his value for it to even be a question on whether it is worth it to ship him out for a real major league asset.

As has been argued here before, nothing Johnson has showed in any of his auditions over the last two years has provided much hope for him finding a place in a major league rotation. He commands his low-90s fastball well enough to get more whiffs than would be expected at that velocity, but he lacks control and his secondary stuff is not sharp enough to miss bats on a major league level. In all, major league hitters have tuned Johnson up for .276/.359/.489 over his career with no sign of abating. Scott Carroll once said, “starting pitching is about rhythm and tempo,” and maybe a change of scenery and regular opportunities in San Diego will allow Johnson to find himself in a way that shuffling around in between failed big league auditions and the minors does not, but the ostensibly contending Sox cannot offer that to the 26-year-old, and there is no upside to be tapped in having him continue to master Triple-A hitters.

Beyond two guys who cannot really be considered serious factors in the Sox immediate and future plans, they have now brought on Shields for $27 million of commitment over two and roughly two-thirds of a season. Or, if Shields has a strong finish to the season, he simply opts out at the end of the year. It does seem like $21 million might be hard for him to top on an annual basis going into a his age-35 season, but pitching costs are insane, etc.

To some degree, Shields is doomed to disappoint, because Chicago’s strongest vision of him are his dominant seasons where he convincingly masqueraded as a No. 1 starter for the Royals. He’s likely not that guy anymore, as San Diego has not agreed with him (an odd thing to note about any pitcher). His walk rate has nearly doubled since his last year in Kansas City (3.6 BB/9 since joining the Padres) and he has struggled to keep the ball in the yard despite playing in one of the most massive and home run unfriendly parks in the sport. His average velocity is down to roughly 90 mph and his strikeout rate is barely 20 percent, neither of which is unprecedented for his career, but neither will serve as great compensation for decline in other areas.

Shields has Mark Buehrle-like consistency benchmarks in his career. He is riding a streak of nine consecutive seasons with 200 innings or more and 10 victories or more. He is not Mat Latos, looking totally unlike himself after significant injury troubles, but a perennial fringe All-Star gliding into his decline. Or not quite gliding, since his 4.28 ERA is spiked by the Hall of Fame-shelling the Mariners doled out to him in his last time out, and the black mark on his resume got him personally called out by his owner. He had a 3.06 mark before that day, but his advanced metrics suggested his regression was coming.

Without the benefit of watching his entire San Diego career, the PECOTA projection for the rest of his season is soaking up roughly 120 innings at 3.88 ERA, and that sounds fair, especially if we assess Shields to be a declining but steady vet who will be invigorated to play in a division race, work with Don Cooper, and be backed by a good outfield defense. If Carlos Rodon is one version of a No. 3/4 starter–the super-talented but inconsistent youngster whose performance finds the midpoint between All-Star potential and frustrating struggles–Shields is the other, a veteran with a lowered ceiling and abilities who can still soak up tons of innings and decrease the pressure on the bullpen.

Miguel Gonzalez appears to be headed to that bullpen as a result of Shields’ arrival, and while he would probably be my choice to stick in the rotation, his flashes of competence have not been steady enough to qualify this as an injustice. His stuff has a much better chance of playing up in short bursts than Latos, and it’s not like the bullpen couldn’t use someone who generates actual strikeouts. The Sox rotation will now be rolling the dice one time out of five rather than two.

Rare is the trade where the upgrade matches the name value of the players involved, and the twilight days of Shields are not going to vault the Sox into some ‘Triple Aces’ pantheon of great rotations, but he’s a clear upgrade over the twilight days of Latos and Gonzalez. This is a needed improvement that Rick Hahn has again been able to swing without significantly weakening the future of the organization. They probably need a couple more–which Hahn has acknowledged–and with nearly all of their April gains ceded, it will be a fair post-mortem question whether it came too late.

But good work is good work, and the Sox have a better chance of pulling themselves off the mat than they did on Friday.

Miguel Gonzalez

“Inconsistent” is usually just a term tossed around when it seems impolite to say “bad,” but look at Miguel Gonzalez’s White Sox career and think of the first word that comes to mind:

–5.1 IP, 11 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, 6 K

–5.2 IP, 3 H, ER, 3 BB, 4 K,

–4.2 IP, 5 H, 3 ER, 5 BB, K

–6 IP, 6 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 8 K

We’re coming off his best outing of the season and are naturally warmer to him, and when he’s locating perfectly as he was Saturday, his stuff–full of pitches 85-92 mph that dip out of the bottom of the zone–looks sharper and stronger than any starter not named Chris Sale, Jose Quintana or Carlos Rodon. But it was Gonzalez’s unprompted postgame mention of Don Cooper’s central tenet of “standing tall” through his delivery that was eye-opening.

“Once you collapse you start flying open, your pitches are going to be in the zone a little longer, and there’s a better chance of making a mistake. So that’s really important and we’ve been working on it in the sides.”

Adherence to Cooper’s dogma can’t save Gonzalez from poor results or revive diminished stuff, but I’d pick the fringe starter who is eating up Cooper’s words over the one that is not.

Erik Johnson

The departure of John Danks and some spot start opportunities have at least cleared up Johnson’s place as the No. 6 guy for now, but he’s been loath to display any potential to do much more. Johnson flashing some good sliders and racking up strikeouts early Monday night before the slow ebb of his velocity and command swallowed him up added more to the feeling that he might be a good reliever one day than confidence that he’s not far away from a quality start.

After Monday, Johnson has now allowed 19 home runs over 98 career major league innings. A below-average fastball–that he’s very reliant on–that can’t live in the zone without being hurt is something better to have someone show you they can succeed with elsewhere, before giving them the chance to prove it on your time.

Mat Latos

If “smoke and mirrors” is not applicable to how Latos is currently getting his way through starts, the term might need to be taken out of operation and be reviewed. Without the pedigree of being Mat Latos and being just three years removed from a season that was as good as anything Jose Quintana has ever produced, his statistical record might launch a good argument that he has the worst outlook of this group.

Latos just has nothing to hang his hat on at the moment. He has the worst strikeout rate of any qualified pitcher in baseball, he has a high release from the top of his six-foot, six-inch frame yet has an unremarkable 45.1 percent groundball rate, and while his walks aren’t a huge problem (8.1 percent), they are at the highest rate since the year of his major league debut. Since Pitch F/X says he’s lost a mile off his fastball since last year–FanGraphs thinks he has lost two–and is coming off a wretched stretch of health that saw him suffer numerous setbacks with the meniscus in his plant leg, this is not a bizarre, inexplicable loss of ability.

If saying I prefer Gonzalez out of this trio reeks of extreme recency bias, it’s because it is. Everyone in this group seems very fringey and anyone who looks like they may have found something in their last outing has a big head start. For Gonzalez, it’s likely not much more than perfect location, and the best solution for determining which two out of this group to pick is to find a way to only have to pick one of them.

Lead Image Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki // USA Today Sports Images

1. Erik Johnson was OK! He had all the normal shortcomings of Erik Johnson (shaky control, fastball sitting 89-90, struggles to keep the ball in the yard) but more muted than usual.

Well, most of it was muted. Johnson flashed a nice slider at times, struck out five, and gave the Sox 6.2 innings in the second half of a doubleheader, on a Monday of a week that has no off-day. This was a useful service.

But Johnson fell behind frequently due to poor control, had to try to comeback with 89-90 mph stuff, and gave up three home runs to the likes of renowned power hitters Jose Ramirez, Rajai Davis and Juan Uribe, who had a combined six home runs coming into Monday.

2. Johnson wound up walking three and getting tagged for five runs, which is bad, and going forward there’s not much confidence in his ability to shoulder responsibilities much greater than this going forward.

But after the Sox emptied out the best of their bullpen to win the opener, a full slate of work lying ahead of them, and nothing from the offense that provided motivation to extend the pitching staff, they did things like bring Johnson out for a seventh inning he was clearly ill-suited for, and relieved him with Matt Purke with runners on. It was a disheartening watch, but it will look a lot more sage if the Sox can nail down close victories with Chris Sale and Jose Quintana the next two nights.

3. The thing holding down the Sox offense was Indians starter Cody Anderson, who entered the game with a 7.99 ERA, but pumped mid-to-high 90s with a nice overhand curve and probably shouldn’t be as awful as his start. Even then, letting Anderson cook to the tune of a career-high nine strikeouts against zero walks was probably not an ideal effort.

4. The only burst of White Sox offense were aided by Indians defensive incompetence. The Sox briefly tied things up in the bottom of the third when Todd Frazier banged a ground rule double to the left-center gap. Melky Cabrera was able to bring him home when he drilled a two-out single to left, and a close play at the plate was avoided when Ramirez booted the ball in left.

Austin Jackson led off the eighth with a triple to deep right that was aided by Lonnie Chisenhall letting the ball kick off his glove as he stumbled to the dirt. It would have been a tremendous running catch had he complete it, so it was credited as a hit despite the ugliness. Jackson was then promptly gunned down at the plate on a contact play.

5. Carlos Sanchez was optioned down to Triple-A Charlotte before the game to make room for Johnson. Sanchez has been nothing short of atrocious in his limited trips to the plate (10 strikeouts in 29 plate appearances with no walks nor power), and has no clear role with Tyler Saladino around, but making a permanent spot on the roster and using the 26th man for Tommy Kahnle is pretty bizarre as well.

Team Record: 27-19

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

And then again, it’s hard to see an alternative to optioning him, as the Sox did immediately after Thursday’s loss. There’s just not much about Johnson’s complement of a 91 mph fastball with decent life, nothing resembling a significantly useful off-speed pitch and bad control to suggest he can turn a lineup over even twice without running into consistent trouble. It’s sad that the Johnson who debuted at the end of 2013 and earned himself a rotation spot is gone, but pretending he never left won’t fix that.

The Future Sox guys say Gonzalez looked sharp in his last Charlotte start, and he seems like the easy choice to be the corresponding move Friday.

2. The White Sox have been noticeably and commendably serious this past week about addressing when starters are lacking the stuff to stay in a major league rotation. That same seriousness could be directed to their lineup, as they reached a point this week with Avisail Garcia‘s hamstring injury, where Jerry Sands had to start multiple games at DH vs. right-handed pitching, which should serve as a ‘something needs to be done’ moment for a contending team.

Garcia returned to the lineup Thursday and promptly had a huge day, raising his season line to .230/.301/.446, on the year; something that would be a happy final result for him based on preseason expectations. A quick rejoinder is that Garcia’s success over his last few games isn’t based on anything new; he’s spraying fastballs he can trigger on late to right field, and clubbing hanging breaking balls to the moon. But at this point in Garcia’s development, becoming very reliable at doing what he can is a more likely path to being a major league regular than trying to be the complete player he once had the potential to be. Everyone who can command decent-to-plus velocity might own him for the rest of his career, but there’s value–as anyone who suffered through Thursday night’s game can attest–in someone who can reliably punish the Henry Owens of the world.

Yet even with that thread of (mild) optimism, I cannot really fathom dedicating full-time plate appearances toward such a project with such a low ceiling for success, especially with a team full of one and two-year commitments with a chance for postseason. Bruce Levine’s report that the Sox have been actively seeking left-handed hitting in the trade market rings very true.

3. Jake Petricka is headed to the 15-day disabled list with right hip impingement. Robin left his phrasing just open enough (“It’s something he’s been dealing with”) to imply that maybe Petricka walking a batter per inning so far this year could be the product of being physically compromised. Jake’s groundball rate tilted over 70-percent this year in a stupidly small sample of eight innings of work, and that heavy sinker has as much life as ever. But as limited as the upside of a one-pitch reliever is, the upside of a one-pitch reliever who cannot command that one pitch is even lower, and also doesn’t do much to encourage a contender to wait out cold stretches that render him completely useless.

Tommy Kahnle will come back to replace Petricka. He does not seem significantly less wild.

4. There’s an advanced pitching metrics update rolling on the BP main site. A good rule of thumb is that cFIP is better for predictive value, an DRA (and thus DRA-) is better for telling what has actually happened. A fun thing to look at here is that cFIP identifies both Chris Sale and Jose Quintana are top-10 pitchers going forward, with Quintana even being ahead, and that Mat Latos (90 cFIP) is at least solidly above-average despite DRA not liking his work very much. The downside is that Carlos Rodon is seen as very average by both metrics, but given that his 0.1 IP start is sitting in here, this isn’t that surprising.

These are our metric and we love them, but they’re hardly perfect, especially at this sample size. Wars are already being declared over Jake Arrieta‘s numbers, and cFIP thinks Wade Miley and the recently WAIVED BY THE TWINS Tommy Milone are both awesome. Metrics are tools, not verdicts.

5. After the White Sox 11-inning triumph over the Texas Rangers a couple of weeks back, Todd Frazier was sitting at his locker nearly encased in ice packs when media was allowed inside. As he lurched up to face the post-game scrum, he paused and squinted, and put one hand on his forehead in befuddlement, acknowledging in gesture what was already readily apparent to everyone: Train’s “Drops of Jupiter” was blaring far too loud in the Sox clubhouse for anyone to think, let alone record a usable soundbite.

In the two minutes of confusion that followed, as multiple voices asked in confusion where Brett Lawrie was, it was clear that there might be some downsides to having the Canadian newcomer serve as clubhouse DJ, but as Jon Greenberg’s feature on the dynamic shows, it’s apparently the rare baseball situation where we value results over process.

It doesn’t matter that Lawrie is getting the Sox pumped up before game with awful EDM, it just matters that they are getting pumped up, and it’s a lot easier watch a first-place team run out on the field to Flo Rida than to hear Chance’s music associated with 90 losses.

Lead Image Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski // USA Today Sports Images

1. Erik Johnson spent so much of the first three innings of Thursday night’s start cementing the sad realization that he doesn’t have the promising stuff that made him an intriguing up-and-comer in 2013, that when he slipped through the last two innings of his night without a scratch, it sparked momentary confusion.

Johnson gave up a home run to Dustin Pedroia in the first inning, which was a lot less discouraging than a booming RBI double to Ryan Hanigan in the second. The Red Sox jumped out to a 4-1 lead in the third when they led off the frame with an opposite-field shot from Hanley Ramirez, immediately followed by a booming Travis Shaw triple to center that strangely eluded Austin Jackson’s grasp. Shaw would score on a sacrifice fly, but the real problem is that Johnson sat 89-91 mph on his fastball with only moderate life and showed no signs of the hard slider that once made him a prospect.

That he cruised through his last two innings (a nifty double play got him out of the fourth) is more perplexing than his struggles.

2. More perplexing than that, is Red Sox starter Henry Owens being able to pitch over six walks in three innings with the lead. A Jose Abreu RBI double play squeezed the life out of a chance for a big first inning. After walking two in the first, Owens upped the ante and walked the bases loaded all by himself in the third, but struck out Abreu, got Melky Cabrera when Ramirez made a confusing, loopy diving catch in foul territory, and blew a fastball by Brett Lawrie to escape.

It wasn’t until Avisail Garcia drilled a hanger out on a line to leadoff the fourth, at a rare moment when the Sox had no one on base, that Owens finally got chased, albeit with a two-run lead.

3. Somehow, the Sox had not yet blown scoring opportunities in the most egregious manner possible. Abreu popping up a pitch to hammer from reliever Heath Hembree, and Jackson getting thrown out stealing blew a fourth inning that saw two hits and a walk. Three-straight one-out singles off Hembree loaded the bases in the fifth for No. 4 catcher on the depth chart Hector Sanchez. The veteran backstop unexpectedly dug deep for a yeoman plate appearance, and came within feet of emptying the bases with a double down the right field line, but had to settle for a bases loaded walk to move the game to 4-3.

Boston reliever Matt Barnes came in for triage at that point, and while Jackson gave him a war at the plate, it ended with a shallow flare down the right field line to Mookie Betts. Lawrie’s attempt to race home found Betts off-balance for the throw, but not enough to avoid being called out on a torturously close call at the plate. The sight of Hanigan’s back leg impeding Lawrie’s foot-first slide was not enough to sway replay officials.

In all, the Sox had eight hits, walked nine times, and hit a home run, and only scored three runs.

4. The Red Sox extended their lead into comfortable territory off the softer side of the White Sox typically commendable bullpen. Jackie Bradley Jr.’s opposite-field drive out to left field gave Matt Albers his first earned run since last July in the sixth. The plan of just letting Dan Jennings pitch until he forced Robin to have him stop eventually sputtered out in the eighth, where him facing David Ortiz for the second time capped off his night with a rocket RBI double to the right field corner.

5. Ortiz went 2-for-4 with a walk and an RBI in his final game at U.S. Cellular Field. Before the game the White Sox gave him cigars and custom-built humidor, which he will not use, because he had time to smoke all the cigars during this neverending game.

Team Record: 19-10

Next game is 7:10pm CT vs. Minnesota on CSN

Lead Image Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski // USA Today Sports Images

“Lincecum is not found treasure, because the whole league has the damn map.” — Matt Adams

Tim Lincecum To The White Sox checks a lot of narrative boxes.  The White Sox have been snatching up insurance for the starting rotation wherever they can find it of late–e.g. Miguel Gonzalez and Jacob Turner.  They also have a reputation of being an organization that gets the most out of its pitchers and keeps them healthy, which makes them an attractive destination for players trying to rebuild their value–e.g. Mat Latos.  You can even throw in the whole “Lincecum has a weird delivery and the White Sox seem to care about that less than everybody else!” thing too, if you like.  Couple these factors with reasons to be worried about Latos, that John Danks seems to be Completely Done Forever, and that the team looks like a playoff contender and it’s not hard to see a fit here.

For my part, however, I am not really interested.  The absolute best case scenario is that every other organization but the White Sox sees Lincecum– last seen averaging 88mph on his fastball– as done, but Don Cooper catches something they don’t, the Sox snag him on a minor league deal and he has some sort of revival.  That is extraordinarily unlikely.  On the other hand, if Lincecum does look good, he’s going to cost money, as there will be multiple suitors for his services, and even then there will be a lot of risk.  Maybe they are willing to give him guaranteed major league money and nobody else is…but if you’re a White Sox fan, wouldn’t that kind of scare you? Maaaaaaaaaybe Lincecum looks pretty good, but takes less from the White Sox because he thinks they’ll help him perform better than other teams will?  Perhaps that is the only semi-realistic scenario where adding Lincecum makes sense.

The thing is, for all that the back of the rotation makes me anxious, there are fallback options.  Jacob Turner, Erik Johnson, and Miguel Gonzalez are all in Charlotte ready to be called in as reinforcements.  None of those options are exciting and nor should they be.  We are talking about the sixth, seventh, and eighth starters in the organization whom the White Sox put behind Latos and Danks to start the year for a variety of reasons.  However, they are also credible depth.  Gonzalez has had success at the major league level and looked serviceable against a terrifying Blue Jays lineup in his spot start.  It could be that all three of these guys bomb out, but you can deploy them with a straight face, and it is not a crazy idea that one or more of them might stick in the modest role they would be asked to fill.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the ball, the White Sox have basically been running a “platoon” of Jerry Sands and Avisail Garcia at DH, and while it has somehow been adequate it would strike me as incorrect to prioritize adding depth to the rotation ahead of adding more offense.  It is only the beginning of May, but we are also seeing the beginning of trade speculation, and there are some real impact bats out there who could make a gigantic difference for a team like the White Sox. Having more financial flexibility may make it possible to secure the services of one of those bats while reducing the prospect price of the deal.  I am more confident that Ryan Braun would be massive upgrade for this club than  Tim Lincecum would be, both due to the caliber of the players involved, and the in-house resources that would otherwise be devoted to solving the problem.  Gonzalez, Johnson, and Turner aren’t thrilling, but they’re much better than…what, Jason Coats? Matt Davidson? Because that’s kind of it as far as Charlotte goes.

If the White Sox can bolster their rotation without it compromising their ability to add a bat, then hey, go for it.  But given this organization’s spending history, it seems like an either-or proposition at the moment, and I know which one I would prefer to add.

]]> http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/05/03/rumor-mill-white-sox-will-attend-lincecums-showcase/feed/ 0 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/20/south-side-morning-5-the-most-cautious-of-optimism/ http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/2016/04/20/south-side-morning-5-the-most-cautious-of-optimism/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2016 15:35:18 +0000 http://southside.locals.baseballprospectus.com/?p=1030 1. After a turgid five-runs-in-four-games stretch for the offense, which plummeted them to the depths of the major league standings in total offense, the White Sox offense can hardly be redeemed by their top two sluggers knocking around mediocrity from Matt Shoemaker, but…

Todd Frazier basically jumped on the type of mistake we have been waiting for him to hammer for the past week: a center-cut 92 mph fastball essentially challenging him to act until he broke out his little whip swing and drove it out to left. Jose Abreu got a pitch that was possibly even worse; something 89 mph with little sinking action that he obliterated out to deep center.

It was not a great proving ground for their talents, but if we think there is value in streaky power hitters busting out their stroke, it was a relief. Frazier in particular, is a streaky pull hitter, like it or not, and is not going to be functional unless his confidence to jump out on fastballs is squarely in place.

2. Adam Eaton still holds the crown of best hitter on the team for the moment since he’s secretly getting on base at all times while we’re not looking, but Melky Cabrera is quietly having the start that the Sox needed from him last year. A two-hit night on Tuesday raised his season line to .320/.370/.380, with less strikeouts (three) than walks (four) through 54 plate appearances. His swing plane is just not set up for power and he’s going to keep losing the oomph to overcome it as he ages, but that kind of natural bat-to-ball ability isn’t just floating around elsewhere in the lineup.

Cabrera’s booming triple off Jose Alvarez in the eighth was his first time reaching base against a left-hander this season. He’s largely been platooned away from them entirely (it was his eighth appearance), so there’s no strong indicator if his issues against lefties (.226 TAv against them in 2015) have persisted. Giving him the opportunity to turn the tide with key insurance runs aboard in the eighth was bizarre, but Jerry Sands striking out in six of 10 plate appearances doesn’t demand those PAs.

3. It’s still a little hard to match the excitement with Mat Latos‘ results and some of the brief flashes of his vintage stuff with anything that shows up in more complete metrics of his performance.

He struck out five Tuesday night, but only had five swings-and-misses again. He only allowed two hits and just a pair of hart-hit balls on the night, but was probably most impressive pounding the zone with his sinker for contact. The big tumbler had a steep downward plane coming out of an over-the-top delivery from the six-foot, six-inch Latos, and looks like it will play well going forward at The Cell, but everything Latos does right now seems like it should work forever, even if it can’t.

4. Erik Johnson is with the big club, and could possibly stay through the end of the weekend to provide insurance for a bullpen that had Jake Petricka, Zach Putnam and Dan Jennings all pitch three innings, or in part of three innings Monday night, and got two innings from Nate Jones Tuesday.

By that measure, there could be work for Johnson, but he’s an odd man to answer the bell. He’s barely worked out of the bullpen throughout his entire professional career and never in the majors, and has prepared all year as a starter. Robin Ventura called Johnson a security blanket in case a start like Monday’s happens again, but that reads like getting struck by lightning and preparing for a recurrence. Before Monday, the last time Carlos Rodon went less than six innings was the day Matt Albers‘ scoreless streak began. John Danks has struggled but certainly eats innings. Who would have thought the rare situation that screamed for Scott Carroll would find him on the disabled list.

5. If a slump at the end of a tiring year unfairly colored opinions of Avisail Garcia, this year’s gruesome opening is…at least providing some variation on the problem? Garcia’s .219 TAv through his first 50 plate appearances certainly is bad and not the start he needed after an offseason where his job hung in the balance throughout.

Garcia’s lack of plate discipline gets a lot of attention, and he still ranks among the league leaders so far in swing percentage outside of the zone. But you’ll find a lot of effective hitters with great bat-to-ball skills up near the top of that list as well. Garcia also shined a light on his poor pitch recognition Tuesday night when he froze on a grapefruit of a hanger with the bases juiced in what could have been a huge fourth inning, instead mistiming the pitch and whiffing late. Still the biggest discouraging eyesore in his early numbers is that he’s getting more fastballs than ever, but is matching it with what would be a career-high 19.5% swinging strike rate. As big as the other issues are, simply not being able to handle major league velocity could be the biggest hurdle to tapping into his raw power.

Lead Photo Image: Mike Dinovo // USA Today Sports Images

1. “Thank you President Obama, MLB, MLB Players Association for making a dream come true for my generation.”

-Jose Abreu

Dan Hayes spoke to Abreu, who recalled his father “temporarily purchasing” a black and white TV to watch the Cuban National Team play the Baltimore Orioles in 1999. 17 years later, Abreu soaked in the game from the clubhouse Tuesday on a…much nicer TV.

Between this and his reunion with family and his young son during a goodwill trip this Winter, Abreu has had a surprising opportunity to reconnect with the life he feared he was leaving behind forever.

But he thanked Obama for all this, so his Twitter mentions are a tire fire.

2. Thanks to the weekend heroics of Dilson Herrera and his dramatic eighth inning home run Sunday, Colombia is going to the World Baseball Classic next year.

And Jose Quintana wants to go.

Maybe time has softened my value-grubbing, risk-averse clutching of the innings White Sox pitchers have stored in their arms, and made me more concerned about their self-actualization, but my God they absolutely need to let Jose Quintana pitch in the World Baseball Classic.

Quintana is the best Colombian pitcher of all-time. Not ‘players are bigger and better nowadays’ best, but the actual most prominent and successful Colombian pitcher of all-time. It’s him and Julio Teheran, and if he has a long career at this level of play, he’ll be the best Colombian baseball player ever. This is not an idle two-week exhibition, it’s an experience that will be more memorable for Quintana and for his country than, well, pretty much all of the 2013 White Sox season at the least. The Sox should tolerate the risk of a few starts to enable a defining moment in Colombian baseball history.

3. The momentum to get Jerry Sands an actual, real life major league roster spot is building every day in the wake of Adam LaRoche‘s retirement. Enough to get a Dan Hayes article focused on him, at least.

Sands is having the typical Quad-A outfielder dream Spring: he’s standing out just for a few dingers (.242/.257/.545) hit in an insane offensive environment and has made a series of impressive and remarkable but possibly not very athletic catches in the outfield corners. In a quote probably more revealing about Triple-A baseball than Sands’ chances for mid-career rescue (he’s 28), he said a major league gig would force him to “remember how to hit a fastball again.”

But Sands is a lefty-masher. Taking a flier on him to do more at this point is foolish. And while he could be a very good lefty masher (multi-year TAv .275), he doesn’t replicate what LaRoche offered to provide to the roster.

The best lefty bench bat the Sox have floating around camp is Travis Ishikawa and the slap-hitting, reverse-splits J.B. Shuck, which is to say they do not really have any lefty bench bat options at all.

4. Count out Andre Ethier as a possible external option for a left-handed bat as well. The platoon beast is out for 10-14 weeks with a broken leg, which if nothing else clears out some of the glut keeping Trayce Thompson from a Dodgers roster spot. But for the Sox, with Ethier and Justin Morneau both going down until midseason, the odds that they break camp with what they got and keep an eye out for trade options is one or two steps below inevitable.

5. Mat Latos made his Cactus League debut Thursday, and Erik Johnson‘s fastball command must need some serious work, because Latos is very much a work in progress.

Latos pumped in lot of strikes early, flashed a nice overhand curve and had a decent first four innings, but he really fell apart in the fifth and got hammered for two home runs and five across total, stayed in the low-90s and still has this short stride on his surgically repaired knee that doesn’t grant him very good extension. Then he blamed his fifth inning struggles on “a blonde moment,” so the full Latos experience was had, for better and worse.

It was his first start off the backfields all Spring and he’s going through mechanical adjustments, but he’s at a very tenuous spot to be winning rotation slots without contest.

1. Johnson was optioned to Triple-A Charlotte along with Tyler Danish and Steve Lombardozzi, and making it nowhere near the final roster cuts in his bid for the fifth starter slot; a race in which he was virtually unopposed at the start of February.

Worse yet, Mat Latos hasn’t exactly rolled in and restored his halcyon days; he won’t even make his full Cactus League debut until Tuesday afternoon. This demotion is about Johnson, who is at least commanding his secondaries better than last September even if they haven’t regained much bite, but had his sloppy mechanics return and his velocity lag through the Spring.

Don Cooper was charitable, saying he was happy with Johnson’s progress and that his main issue is with fastball command, and that this move is about letting Latos and Johnson have the most time to prepare for where the organization plans to have them start their season. But this is a phenomenally weak back-end of a rotation to get forced out of with weeks left in Spring camp.

Johnson has completely mastered Triple-A and is 26-years-old, so a very quick once-over makes his career look unfairly stalled; someone for whom a #FreeErikJohnson campaign would get launched a few years back due to his burly minor league stats and how they projected to major league action without context. The visuals of Johnson don’t match, however, and he just doesn’t flash an area where he excels at the major league level, be it bat-missing stuff, control or sinking action.

2. For contrast, Cooper is far less reserved and measured when talking about 2015 first-round pick Carson Fulmer, whom he claimed is ahead of where Carlos Rodon was his development path at this point in his career…the same Rodon whose major league experience relative to how recently he was drafted is beyond any recent comparison.

One interpretation of this could be that the only way for Fulmer to be more advanced than Rodon is to break camp with the team, since Rodon debuted in May the year after he was drafted. Another could be that Rodon was still very raw when he got called up to the major leagues and subsisted off pure tools without being able to throw a changeup or a strike, and this isn’t really the ideal path for Fulmer, even if Cooper likes his cutter and changeup with all of his heart.

He’s not actually going to break camp with the team, but with Mau Rubio of 2080 Baseball suggesting him starting in Triple-A as a real possibility, Fulmer could easily leapfrog Johnson as the next option in the rotation down from the Latos-John Danks pairing even before the All-Star Break. It sounds like desperation, but the Sox’ strength lies in quickly enabling polished college arms to compete against major league hitters. A rushed Fulmer is a much better bet to boost their team ceiling than Tim Anderson being rushed to aid a broken situation at shortstop, and Johnson doesn’t look like he’ll boost the ceiling much at all.

3. Speaking of  starting shortstop, it’s probably Jimmy Rollins?

“Robin Ventura says he knows who will be the White Sox starting shortstop in Oakland… He declined to tell us today.”

-Scott Merkin

Rollins has higher upside (so to speak), pedigree, veteran status, etc. The White Sox should want him to win the job, as he provides the most offensive potential and allows Tyler Saladino to slide into a super-sub role for which he is better suited.

Saladino winning would be contingent on Rollins being obviously toast in Spring and the Sox just deciding to concede the affair and punt the position offensively. That would not be a decision to rush to with this much time left, whereas deciding that Rollins looks healthy and fresh, and should just prepare for a starter role would be. Ken Rosenthal has a piece detailing how Rollins is hopeful that adjusting to the shifts being thrown at him was behind his offensive uptick after a slow start in 2015.

On the other hand, Tyler Saladino is murdering the ball (.286/.375/.810 in Cactus League). This means nothing, but declaring a position battle over and done while a guy is lighting up the place reveals the whole enterprise to be a sham, and maybe that’s why Ventura is silent right now.

4. The post-Drake LaRoche era has begun in earnest.

“Today was the first day since Tuesday without a single question about Adam LaRoche, Drake LaRoche or the clubhouse.”

-Dan Hayes

This is half the players being more or less sworn into secrecy by ownership and half the beats having mined what they could out of the locker room, save for testing how angrily they could get someone to decline comment. That doesn’t mean the well is entirely dry, though, since Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell had wonderful insight on LaRoche in a Q&A session with readers.

“This is a tough one because LaRoche is such an extreme case. He’s not like anybody else in baseball — or any other sport. Adam is a very nice man to talk to. Absolutely sincere. But he thinks it’s still 1858. If LaRoche had been along with DiCaprio in The Revenant, it would have been a buddy-trip comedy. That’s what LaRoche would consider a routine off-season Camping Trip.

…

Tons of players have brought their kids into clubhouse. But, as far as I know, not 100 per cent of the time — or anything like it. I’ve never seen a player make his son, now 14 years old, into the 26th man on the team with a locker of his own. That’s just as “unusual” as it appears, in my book.”

There’s actually so much more Boswell got into on LaRoche, so go read it.

5. And definitely DEFINITELY read Eno Sarris at FanGraphs pinpointing a single foul ball that Paul Konerko hit off Zack Greinke in 2009 as a checkpoint in the development of his post-2010 approach that rejuvenated his career.

Not only could you make a book out of just Konerko discussing hitting and the adjustments he made through his career, you could probably get all the quotes out of him that you needed in a single weekend.

Lead Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski // USA Today Sports Images

1. Erik Johnson already had enough working against him going into Spring. Weeks before camp, a Mat Latos-shaped obstruction was placed in front of his inside track to a spot in the starting rotation. He was coming off a September audition that provided some nice superficial results but some garish background figures like a 4.99 DRA and a more immediate inability to spin an impressive breaking ball, and it was revealed over the offseason that he might be less likely to soak up the teachings of Don Cooper than the rest of the pitching staff.

Spring Training is mostly meaningless and Johnson getting tuned up in his first two outings — and man, that box is checked — can be shrugged off, and maybe even some lagging velocity could, too. But in concert with every other factor working against him and a previous history of letting sloppy mechanics rob him of juice on his fastball for seasons at a time, this is troubling.

Erik Johnson’s velocity last time out was 87-91. Today it was 85-89, according to a scout in Mesa. Plenty of spring to go. But worth noting.

-Dan Hayes

2. Johnson missing out on the top five spots of the White Sox rotation is to be expected, but the Sox need him to not fall off the map because their rotation depth is not equipped to handle it. Jacob Turner has more name value than reasons to expect success until stories of a Cooper-fueled development or a new pitch emerges. Scott Carroll had some nice moments as a one-time-through-the-order long man last season, but is a spot starter who will quickly strain the bullpen with regular use. Chris Beck would already be a questionable option given his 14.5 percent career strikeout rate in the minors, but he’s working his way back from injury.

In sum, if there’s anything to John Danks‘ March struggles, the scenario Mauricio Rubio of 2080 Baseball floated to me over the weekend, where Carson Fulmer is being rushed into aid midseason, becomes easy to see.

3. Rob Brantly was out of options and needed some sort of early Alex Avila health breakdown to make the roster. While his departure to the Mariners opens up troubling questions about the Sox catching depth beyond the risky platoon of Avila and Dioner Navarro, the Sox might have been doing him a favor by allowing him the opportunity to catch on (get it? GET IT?) elsewhere.

In the meantime, the Sox need to hope Hector Sanchez‘s bat isn’t dead, and are immediately in need of a new goalie.

Image from @WhiteSox on Twitter

4. Jason Benetti had a successful debut to the White Sox booth on Saturday, showing a good rapport with Steve Stone early and plenty of energy. Despite his newness for the Sox fanbase, he’s a seasoned professional from his ESPN days and should have no real problem handling the work.

Where Benetti will really make a difference is maintaining enthusiasm over the long haul of a possibly disappointing season. An engaged Hawk is an acquired taste for sure, but not the urgent situation needing to be addressed that his listless, morose drifts through the dog days of the season became. Cutting out drives to and from Michiana to Chicago would certainly improve my mood, but the test of the year will be if it provides a rejuvenated Hawk, or just gives Sox fans a season where they get half their games with a superior broadcast and half without.

5. March 24 is the date to start getting worried about Adam Eaton‘s shoulder. That’s because March 23 is his reported target date to return to playing in the field. Eaton has been reduced to designated hitting in Spring games as he completes his throwing rehab program to build strength after October shoulder surgery.

Luckily, Eaton’s slow march to full action hasn’t derailed plans to move him around the outfield corners, and it continues to be refreshing to see how his status of an entrenched starter is not getting in the way of letting a superior fielder — Austin Jackson — man center.

Adam LaRoche also returns to action Monday after missing time with back problems. Being able to look healthy and productive for a long stretch is must for him.