Kevan Smith didn’t blow the roof off the place by any means. But the offensive threshold for catchers isn’t high, and a .283/.309/.388 line is perfectly acceptable for a backup catcher type. The metrics didn’t love his defense, as his -6.6 FRAA ranked 29th out of 35 catchers who saw at least as much playing time as Smith (Omar Narvaez, for the record, checked in at 30th), but he got nothing but positive reviews from pitchers on how he called the game from behind the plate. Smith is still a long shot to be a contributor to a contending team, of course. He’ll be 30 in June, and for however good I made him sound in the previous few sentences, all of that added up to what was essentially a replacement level catcher. But for a rebuilding team plagued by the Curse of Non-Tendering Tyler Flowers, the White Sox couldn’t have asked for much better given the expectations coming in.

The reason, of course, that Smith got as much playing time as he did is because the veteran backstop the White Sox brought in on a cheap, minor league deal played all of 13 games. Geovany Soto’s bat has been, for the better part of his career, a plus as far as catchers go. The White Sox let him go after an unimpressive but not terrible 2015 season, and he came back this year to presumably split time behind the plate with Narvaez. But after battling knee injuries during his year in Los Angeles, he underwent arthroscopic elbow surgery after suffering an injury in April and was never seen again.

Soto is the type of inexpensive veteran who makes sense as roster filler for a rebuilding team, particularly one bereft of impact catchers at or near the major league level. Whether he’s able to continue to be something close to that is up in the air, but by the start of next season he’ll be a 35-year-old catcher with a long list of injuries in his past, so his swan song may have already been sung.

My full time job revolves around designing sports sections for daily newspapers (yes, those still exist), and a lot of the papers I design are in cities with minor league baseball teams. One of my favorite things to do while designing these papers is look through that day’s minor league box score for some random major league retread still hanging around at Triple-A.

Chris Volstad was the epitome of that for the White Sox the last few years. You’d look at the Charlotte Knights roster and go “WTF is Volstad doing here?!” It became particularly funny in 2017 when Volstad was joined in the rotation by guys actually worth being excited about. Imagine going to a Knights game, where you’d have the chance to see Lucas Giolito or Reynaldo Lopez, or at least guys like Carson Fulmer or Tyler Danish. But nope. You bought a ticket on a day when Volstad was pitching. I live 10 minutes from the home stadium of the Round Rock Express, the Texas Rangers’ Triple-A affiliate, and I did that once on a day Kyle Lohse was pitching. Minor league baseball is fun regardless of who is playing, and at Triple-A you’re not exactly at a game chock full of prospects (I went to an Express game this year that featured the likes of Will Middlebrooks, Pete Kozma, and Jared Hoying), but it’s a lot less fun when you’re watching an aging hurler holding onto his career by a thread. In fact, it’s kind of sad. Dammit, now I’m sad.

Anyway, that’s the end of my story. Volstad threw 19 2/3 innings for the 2017 White Sox.

Check out Michael Ynoa’s first Baseball Prospectus Annual comment from back in 2009:

It’s hard to get a PECOTA projection when you’ve yet to pitch a pro inning, and even more difficult when you’ve barely pitched a competitive inning at all. But Inoa is deserving of far more than just a comment at the tail end of the chapter. The talk of scouting circles all spring, the Domican wunderkind signed for $4.25 million, more than doubling the previous high-water mark for a Latin American pitcher. Many who saw him called him the best 16-year-old arm they’ve ever seen; he already touches 94 mph, has a very good breaking ball, and with a long, loose six-foot-seven frame, his potential is almost immeasurable. Obviously he’s very young, and there are countless things that could go wrong between where Inoa is now and potential stardom, but his talent is borderline historic, and deserves mention.

All of the countless things that could have gone wrong for Ynoa went wrong, and eight years later he’s coming off a season where he walked 22 batters in 29 innings, got hurt, was DFA’d, and subsequently spent the remainder of the season in the minors. When the White Sox acquired Ynoa in the infamous Jeff Samardzija trade, there was at least a “Hmmm” factor, given his once lofty prospect status. He’s now 26, remains injury prone, and has yet to demonstrate the ability to throw the ball over the plate on a consistent basis. The optimism, it is waning.

Lead Photo Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

1. Avisail Garcia once again had a good game, going 3-for-4 with 3 RBI, a walk, and no strikeouts. He’s hit safely in each of the White Sox first eight games this season. It’s still far too early to make any meaningful conclusion, but Garcia hasn’t slowed down yet. It will be interesting to see if and when his OPS drops below 1.000 for the season. Perhaps this is a resurgence, thanks to all pressure being removed, for Garcia. Or perhaps this is just a hot streak that even the worst major league hitters have. Speaking of performing well with the pressure removed, Matt Davidson hit another home run. He also struck out thrice, allowing his strikeout rate to stay above a comfy 50 percent.

2. Miguel Gonzalez managed to survive thanks to the offensive onslaught, but he didn’t look overly impressive as he lasted only 4.2 innings before being removed. Baserunners plagued him during his short start despite his ability to escape most of the jams he put himself into. His breaking ball lacked life and location, and his fastball was too hittable. Luckily for him, the White Sox offense decided to show up in a huge way.

3. Tim Anderson kicked the game off with a beautiful dinger on the first pitch of the ballgame. As he continues his sophomore season, it will be interesting to see whether he can produce the same type of power he did a year ago. His home run started a monstrous first inning for the White Sox offense, in which they batted around and scored seven runs. Just a week into the season, the White Sox did something they didn’t accomplish all of last year by hitting two home runs in a single inning (h/t @ckamka).

4. It was a busy day for White Sox prospects as pitchers Lucas Giolito, Spencer Adams, and Dane Dunning all made starts for different minor league affiliates. Dunning’s day was the most impressive of the three as he pitched eight innings of one-run ball while striking out 13 and walking none. Adams also had a good day, going seven innings while giving up 3 runs on 8 hits with 4 strikeouts and no walks. Giolito’s night, on the other hand, was not so pretty. He stuck around for just four innings where he gave up 3 runs, walked 4, and struck out 4. Reports from Charlotte indicated that his fastball velocity is still somewhat of a concern. He seems to command the ball better when he sits in the low 90s than closer to 94 or 95, but the White Sox would certainly hope that he can figure out how to command his fastball with higher velocity. Zack Collins threw out two runners in his start behind the plate, making him 6-for-8 in such situations for the season.

5. Just a couple days after Rick Renteria was asked about how he plans on using Omar Narvaez and Geovany Soto throughout the season, Soto is headed to the disabled list with an elbow injury. Renteria remarked that he expected the catching duties to be split more evenly. With Soto’s injury it seems that we will see even more of Narvaez than was previously anticipated. Kevan Smith got the call-up, but it doesn’t appear as though the White Sox want to see him start too many games during his presumably short stint with the team. This is of interest for two reasons. The first being that, because of Soto’s hot start, we haven’t seen Narvaez play much at all eight games into the season. The second is that Narvaez is still somewhat of a mystery, and watching him could have implications for the future as the Sox continue their rebuild.

Lead Photo Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

1. Derek Holland had another strong outing, taking a no hitter into the 6th inning.  Given that his best 3-year run of success was from 2011-2013 and he has lost multiple seasons to injury, it is easy to forget that he’s only 30 and was once quite good.  The outing was an emotional one for the Ohio native, who lost his grandmother this spring and had family in attendance to watch his victory.

Comeback stories are always good, but from a selfish, organizational perspective it would a huge win if Holland can stay healthy and effective. It would mean he had covered much needed innings for the first half of the season and could potentially yield something meaningful at the deadline.  For a rebuilding team that’s pretty much a best case scenario for a 1-year signing.

2. Center field may be a problem.  Batting average isn’t everything, but it’s hard to ignore it when it’s zero.  Jacob May got the day off last night in favor of Leury Garcia.  One imagines that the plan was for these two to cover center until Charlie Tilson came back, but it’s still unclear how long that is going to take.  And even though wins and losses are a secondary concern this year, there are limits to what a team can tolerate in good faith for the sake of its fans and the other players on the roster.

It’s still early, but even before his 0-for-17 start there was reason to doubt that May was ready for the majors.  And as much as I’d like to see Garcia get regular at bats now that he’s conquered AAA, being a full-time center fielder might be too much to ask.  Unfortunately, short of going outside the organization, their options are rather limited.  Charlotte offers Adam Engel–who, outside of one great Arizona Fall League appearance–has never really hit at all, despite being old for every level, and Jason Bourgeois, a 35-year-old who has not played in the majors since 2015.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that.

3. Geovany Soto was scratched yesterday with a sore right elbow and is headed to the 10-day DL, with Kevan Smith getting a shot at a few more big league games. This illustrates some of the potential logic behind Soto getting more starts than one might have anticipated to this point.  Sure, Omar Narvaez is the player who will be with the organization after this year, but you don’t want him catching 140+ games, and Soto is so injury prone you might as well use him while he’s healthy.  Narvaez will still get plenty of reps.

UPDATE: Immediately after this piece ran, it was announced that Soto’s right elbow inflammation was sufficient to place him on the disabled list, and Kevan Smith has been called up to take his place.  Smith, as you’ll recall, was one of the many rookies last year who was injured immediately, indeed, injuring his back before he could even make his debut.  Smith is listed at 6’4″ and he was a two-sport athlete in college. There’s still a chance there’s a backup catcher in here.

So far this year he has mashed at AAA to the tune of .438/.500/.562 in very limited action.

4. Avisail Garcia and Matt Davidson can both still boast an OPS over 1.000.  Their track records and identical 1:7 BB:K ratios throw cold water on any undue enthusiasm, but a good start is a good start.  Davidson has languished for so long in AAA after his Top 100 Prospect ascent to the majors in 2013 with the Diamondbacks.  He has alluded to putting too much pressure on himself before, so one hopes that hitting the ground running (and ideally not breaking his foot) can allow him to recover some of his old prospect shine.  After all, the criticism on him coming up was that it didn’t look like he could handle third defensively, meaning his bat would have to move to 1B/DH where it was much less impressive.  Davidson then improved his defense to the point where it could play at third and his bat promptly imploded.  Perhaps it isn’t too late to get his bat on track to pair with a serviceable glove at the hot corner.

5. Anthony Swarzak made his White Sox debut last night and posted two strikeouts in one perfect inning.  Swarzak, Zach Putnam, and David Robertson have combined for 10.33 scoreless innings this year, striking out 16 and walking none.  Yet another area to monitor for potential trade assets at the deadline, and another way in which the White Sox still do not wholly resemble a “tanking” roster.

Lead Photo Credit: David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

While last Thursday’s win in his season debut saw Shields generate 13 swinging strikes, and all five of his strikeouts were of the swinging variety, Tuesday was a different story, as three of his six strikeouts were looking.

As Shields’ stuff diminishes, the key to him finding success will be in deception, something he did on Tuesday and talked about after the game.

“I’m trying to mix up speeds a little bit,” Shields said, “Create some new stuff. I’ve done this a long time, and every year I have to reinvent myself, change speeds and change locations, so we’ll see how it goes.”

There’s a fine line between scooting by and being unusable — the latter is what we saw a year ago — but through two starts there are signs that Shields’ approach should do well enough for him to eat innings and hopefully repair his value that diminished so rapidly in 2016.

2. Todd Frazier got off to a worrisome start to the season, but while his swing was generating an absurd number of pop-ups and weak contact early on, he had been seeing the ball well at the plate, as evidence by the four walks and two strikeouts through the first five games.

Tuesday, hopefully, provided a payoff for him at the plate, as he cracked his first two extra-base hits of the season, including a long solo home run that provided the White Sox their only run on the afternoon.

Frazier’s 2016 as well as the White Sox own history with aging sluggers provides some level of worry that this would be the season he plummeted to an unplayable, or at least un-tradable level. But if he continues to see the ball well and the solid contact we saw on Tuesday becomes more of the norm, those worries would hopefully be put to rest.

3. The White Sox bullpen is and will continue to be one of the few bright spots in a rebuilding season, but Tuesday was not its finest day, as Dan Jennings, Nate Jones, and Tommy Kahnle combined to walk five with Kahnle eventually taking the loss on Michael Brantley’s walk-off double.

The performance was hardly one to signal any sort of long-term worry, and for their parts, Zach Putnam and David Robertson looked downright un-hittable in their 2.2 combined innings of work. On a day when the White Sox stranded eight Indians, and induced two bases loaded double plays off the bat of Edwin Encarnacion, taking a loss because their injury-replacement reliever got beat by a good hitter on a good pitch isn’t the worst result in the world.

4. Geovany Soto got the start behind the plate on Tuesday, and has now started four of the White Sox’ six games this season. Similarly, Cody Asche has started four times to just two by Matt Davidson.

It would be foolish to draw any sweeping conclusions about lineups just six games into the season, but one does have to at least wonder what Rick Renteria’s long-term plan is for playing time at those two positions. Neither Davidson nor Omar Narvaez have much more than a fleeting chance to be solid, regular contributors in the majors in the long run, but in Soto, even with his early-season power surge, and Asche, who has one hit to his credit, the White Sox know what they have.

I guess what I’m saying is, let the kids play!

5. Our own Nick Schaefer hosted a chat over on the main site on Tuesday and if you missed out, you’re a failure of a human being. However, the good news is that you can read the entire transcript here.

Lead Photo Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

Shields’ final line — 5.1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, 5 K — is a pretty reasonable microcosm of what can be expected out of him this year. The five strikeouts, all of the swinging variety, showed his stuff is still good enough to miss bats from time to time. Per Gameday, he generated 13 swinging strikes in total on the afternoon, five of which came in the first inning when he struck out the side.

His command is still a mess, as evidenced by the five walks, and only 58 of his 106 pitches went for strikes. The one run he allowed came on a 90 mph two-seamer he left up in the zone that Tyler Collins took out to center, but other than that, when he missed his spot it was mostly out of the zone. Bad control is usually going to result in one of two things: walks or a lot of hard contract. The majority of 2016 saw the latter result and Thursday saw the former. The one run allowed was thanks to a combination of his swing-and-miss stuff and the Tigers’ inability to take advantage when he missed.

Still, it was a welcomed opening salvo from the much maligned veteran.

2. With apologies to Geovany Soto, the most noteworthy offensive performance of the day belonged to Matt Davidson, who finished 2-for-3 with a walk, triple, and mammoth three-run homer to cap a four-run fourth inning that officially put the game out of reach.

Davidson’s power was something to marvel, but it was his patience in his first two plate appearances that was perhaps the most shocking. In his first at-bat, he went ahead 3-0 before ripping a 3-1 triple on a 90 mph fastball that grabbed too much of the plate. And in his second trip to the plate, he walked on five pitches. The dinger was on the first pitch of his at-bat against Anibal Sanchez, a hanging slider he drilled deep into the left field seats.

We’ll be shouting about small sample size disclaimers for some time yet, but if Davidson can prove to be someone who can turn mistake pitches into dust, even that would be a welcomed development. And if he shows the patience to wait on those mistakes, it’ll go a long way toward him getting consistent at-bats.

3. There is relevant information to gather from the rest of the White Sox 11-run afternoon. Tyler Saladino followed up his 2-for-4 Tuesday with a two more walks on Thursday, despite failing to record a base hit.

Saladino’s placement atop the lineup is a little obscure — he’s never been an on-base specialist during his major league career to date — but the White Sox sans Adam Eaton don’t have an obvious leadoff candidate on the roster, and through two games he’s already only 10 walks shy of his 2016, when he walked 13 times in 319 plate appearances.

The obvious hero of the afternoon, however, was Soto, who went yard twice and walked once in four plate appearances, driving in four of the White Sox 11 runs. The expectations for Soto this season are minimal — provide Omar Narvaez some rest and don’t kill the Sox defensively nor offensively when he takes the field — so whatever he provides whenever he takes the field is something the White Sox can take as a bonus.

Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu, and Avisal Garcia each had two hits. Anderson did strike out twice, and five strikeouts in 10 plate appearances in pretty par for the course based on last season, but his reputation as someone who can hit the ball hard when he makes contact remains.

4. Thursday was not without its non-game related news, as the White Sox announced prior to the game that Jake Petricka was placed on the 10-day disabled list with a strained lat muscle and Tommy Kahnle took his place on the roster.

Petricka made his first appearance of the season on Tuesday after missing the majority of 2016 because of another injury, and the hope was that he’d join Zach Putnam, Nate Jones, and David Robertson as stalwarts in the White Sox bullpen this season. His injury is a bummer from that perspective, but hopefully Kahnle can show he has something worth keeping in the interim. He threw a scoreless inning, allowing one hit and striking out two in Thursday’s victory.

5. MLB.com came out with its list of the most stacked minor league rosters on Thursday and listed the White Sox Triple-A affiliate, the Charlotte Knights, No. 1. It’s easy to see why, considering their Opening Day roster consists of the likes of Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Carson Fulmer, and Zach Burdi, but the Knights did back up the hype — at least offensively — with an opening night, extra inning victory.

I’d be lying if I told you I watched the game, although the stacked roster does make the $25 for MiLB.tv seem worth it, but while Lopez struggled in allowing four runs, two earned, in three innings of work, he did strike out five, and Yoan Moncada’s debut, 3-for-6 with two runs scores, and Zack Burdi’s three strikeouts in 1.2 innings pitched, were a welcomed sign.

You’ll drive yourself crazy if you live and die based on the success of these prospects at the minor-league level all season, but seeing their growth throughout the season will be worth watching, undoubtedly.

Lead Photo Credit: Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

With this gaping maw for major league experience at the catcher position, pretty much any veteran would be a necessary addition for the Sox, and Geovany Soto, returning to the club on a minor league according to Bruce Levine and Dan Hayes, fits the bill well enough that penciling him into the Opening Day roster barely feels like a stretch. After all, he pulled off the same ascent from non-roster Spring invite to the big club just two years ago.

Not much has changed with Soto in that time. The ball still jumps off his bat (.196 ISO the last two seasons) when he actually makes contact (28.4 strikeout rate), he still has throwing arm good enough to stave off total chaos on the basepaths (his injury remains the secret turning point of the 2014 AL Wild Card Game), and he’s coming off another season where he barely played, specifically due to a tear in the meniscus of his right knee, again. He also is a below-average rated framer who could potentially be a challenging match with some of the lively, erratic arms the Sox figure to be matriculating through their system.

Entering a rebuilding season, with quality free agent catchers in typically short supply, it’s no surprise the Sox are rolling the dice with their internal options and making a meager investment in Soto. Long-term solutions are what they are searching for these days, and a commitment to Matt Wieters, or even a pursuit of Jason Castro, would likely have meant signing up for the descent from usefulness, with their best work coming now, when the roster is being stripped down.

But with the budget already slashed, there’s a case to be made that an investment in a sound backstop could have cascading benefits, especially with the degree to which the Sox future is tied up in pitching development. Carlos Rodon, who might soon be the staff ace by default, struggled to progress and utilize his changeup as a rookie until Tyler Flowers became his permanent partner in 2015, and last year did not earn the Sox a lot of benefit of the doubt that they are placing enough emphasis on this facet of the catching duties.

Not that Soto is suddenly responsible for the entire pitching staff; he hasn’t so much as played more than 81 games since 2012. If anything, a part-timer like Soto being the veteran stability signing only further cements 2017 as a trial opportunity for Narvaez, who emerged from near-total anonymity to flash a surprising mastery of the strike zone (.350 OBP and as many walks as strikeouts in 117 plate appearances) at the end of 2016. The bat control helped offset some of the power limitations that could be expected from someone snatched away from the Rays in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft three years ago. Narvaez also earned some encouraging plaudits from Rodon for his amiable work behind the plate, but that too is counterbalanced by poor–albeit early–framing numbers and pretty much no success at throwing out basestealers. 

With a great career opportunity lying in front of him, Narvaez could show that he has the skills to be a major leaguer for years to come, if not necessarily a long-term starter. Or he could flop and give way to a cycle of internal options with even lesser qualifications. Even a generous projection of a Narvaez-Soto platoon figures to merely adequate, and the downside could earn comparisons to last year’s group.

Such comparisons could only go so far, because the 2017 Sox will not be operating on the stakes of trying to prop up a playoff contender, they simply need to give their opportunities to someone worthwhile. Narvaez won’t earn much preseason buzz, but he’s already earned his shot, and with Soto aboard, at least he won’t be struck on an island.

Lead Image Credit: Kevin Jairaj // USA Today Sports Images