Unlike some rebuilds, the fruits of the White Sox teardown came in the form of some close to ready-made young talent, and among the players the White Sox acquired who made their team debut during an otherwise forgettable season were Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, and Reynaldo Lopez. Throw in incumbents Tim Anderson and Carlos Rodon (health pending) and the start of a hopeful new core was already starting to take place on the South Side, even as we wait for Eloy Jimenez, Michael Kopech, and others to join them.

If 2017 was Phase 1 of the rebuild, 2018’s Phase 2 won’t be too dissimilar. There likely won’t be as many veterans Rick Hahn & Co. can flip for shiny new toys, but as the aforementioned “next core” continues its development either in the majors or the minors, the White Sox will likely search for roster filler with two thoughts in mind: 1. Someone has to play, and 2. A good few months could generate even more young talent in the form of even more trades.

Setting aside the White Sox two most obviously valuable trade candidates, Jose Abreu and Nate Jones, which Nick outlined Monday, there isn’t much “roster filler” leftover from 2017, save for the expensive and ineffective James Shields. Thus, it’s likely the White Sox will spend this offseason identifying and pursuing players who fit the archetype of cheap veterans looking to rebuild their value on a shorter deals. Think Derek Holland, only hopefully with better results. Actually, forget Holland. Think Anthony Swarzak. That’s better.

With that in mind, a perusal of the available free agents brings … less than stellar options, as you might expect.

Still, there are bargains to be had. And when you project what the White Sox roster might look like in 2018, the rotation and bullpen are likely where most of the action will take place. Positionally, the White Sox have their starters at first base, second base, shortstop, and right field. One could make the argument for bringing in veterans at catcher, third base, left field, and center field, but the White Sox will have to weigh the desire to do that with ensuring more reps from guys like Omar Narvaez, Kevan Smith, Yolmer Sanchez, Leury Garcia, Matt Davidson, and Nicky Delmonico.

With that in mind, here are a few players who, at first glance, could be on the White Sox radar if the price is right:

Starting pitchers

James Fegan wrote about Tyler Chatwood as a potential free agent target over at The Athletic and I’ll echo those sentiments, as Chatwood is younger than your average free agent and the type of ground ball pitcher the White Sox like to target. Andrew Cashner is now 31 but was once a flame-throwing top prospect who could want to rebuild his value after posting the worst K/9 of his career in Texas. Jhoulys Chacin will be 30 in January and has a dwindling strikeout, but may come cheaply enough if he’s willing to leave the friendly confines of PetCo for a less pitcher-friendly environment. Chris Tillman had a disastrous season in Baltimore and his value couldn’t be much lower, but that’s kind of the point here, right? Wade Miley technically still exists. Why not bring back Miguel Gonzalez?

Relievers

Trevor Cahill gave up more home runs in 23 innings with the Royals than in 61 with the Padres, but is somehow still only 29. Asher Wojciechowski is a slider/change-up guy who gives up way too many fly balls to make sense but is young enough that maybe the White Sox would be interested. Steve Cishek and Tommy Hunter represent classic “sign and flip” candidates if they have a few good months. Luke Gregerson is only a year removed from being a valuable bullpen piece, but was so bad for Houston that he only pitched in mop-up duty in the playoffs. The actual answer to this question, of course, is Matt Albers.

Outfielders

Carlos Gonzalez was among the worst everyday players in baseball for the first half of 2017, but rebounded to the tune of a .921 OPS in the second half. He was linked to the White Sox plenty during the years they were actually trying to contend, so it would only be logical for them to get him now to split time between left field and DH. Leonys Martin plays a good center field but can’t hit a lick, making him basically an older version of Adam Engel. Ichiro Suzuki is who they sign in my dreams, and sometimes my dreams come true.

Infielders/catchers

There really isn’t much to work with here, and these groups are probably the least likely to see any sort of free agent additions. Maybe Will Middlebrooks on a minor league deal excites you, since he’s a name you know. Hey, they gave Cody Asche a shot so who knows? Chris Iannetta has always been well regarded for his receiving skills and would be a good candidate to help groom the White Sox young arms from behind the plate, but would only likely be considered if the front office’s opinions on Narvaez or Smith’s handling of pitchers are less glowing than they say publicly. Old friend Hector Sanchez will only be 28 and had a random dinger-laden streak for the Padres last season.

Lead Photo Credit: Russell Lansford-USA TODAY Sports

• Jose Quintana trade rumors resurfaced Wednesday when USA Today’s Bob Nightengale tweeted that the Rangers had increased their pursuit of the White Sox lefty. These rumors were downplayed by the Dallas Morning News’ Evan Grant shortly thereafter. Rick Hahn has said as recently as last week that he’s not willing to come down from his asking price for Quintana, which is understandable considering the White Sox don’t have to move him anytime soon, though they’d clearly like to. The Rangers’ farm system has thinned out a bit over the last year after their deadline deals for Jonathan Lucroy and Carlos Beltran, but it wouldn’t be inconceivable for them to put a package together that is to Hahn’s liking. The wait continues.
• Michael Kopech got a haircut. Yes, that’s how little news there’s been since everyone got their SoxFest fix last weekend. In related news, can confirm that Tim Anderson has seen Remember the Titans.
• Matt Albers has a new home. The Nationals inked him to a minor-league deal Tuesday, proving teams will kick the tires on even the most down-trodden veterans. Albers was downright terrible last season after his inexplicable scoreless streak ended, and it wouldn’t be surprising if his last major league appearance is in the past. But we’ll always have that Citi Field double.
• It’s prospect season among pretty much every establishment that covers baseball and now would be a good time to remind you that Baseball Prospectus’ system top 10 for the White Sox will come out on Monday. Jeffrey Paternostro and the prospect team at BP will have in-depth write-ups on the top 10 players in the Sox system, as well as notes on several others. It’s a must-read feature every year.
• Three of the other prominent prospect sites have already published their Top 10 lists. Over at MLB.com, they have Yoan Moncada (3), Lucas Giolito (12), Michael Kopech (16), Reynaldo Lopez (46), Carson Fulmer (71), and Zack Collins (81) among their Top 100. ESPN.com’s Keith Law has four of the aforementioned six in his Top 100, omitting both Lopez and Fulmer over concerns about whether or not they can be starters at the major league level.

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

Among pitchers who threw at least 49 innings of relief in the American League, of which there were 63, his ERA (6.57) was second worst to Detroit’s Mark Lowe. His fWAR was minus-0.9, tied with Kevin Jepsen, who was released in July by the worst team in baseball only to be picked up by another bottom-five team in Tampa Bay. His K/9 (5.29) was worse than any of the aforementioned 63 except Chien-Ming Wang, and his HR/9 (1.82) was worse than anyone except for Lowe and Jepsen.

Oh, and he was used more often than any White Sox reliever outside of David Robertson, Nate Jones and Dan Jennings.

So how the hell did we get here?

Albers was a surprising revelation out of the White Sox bullpen in 2015. In 37.1 innings, he posted a 1.21 ERA with 28 strikeouts and nine walks. The 33-year-old journeyman was brought back for 2016 with the expectation that he’d play a similar role, and found quite a bit of early success.

From the beginning of the season through May 1, Albers didn’t allow a run. Those 12 outings plus another 20(!) to end the 2015 season gave him 35 straight innings of work without allowing a run.

As one might expect, Albers started seeing more high-leverage work in the midst of that streak, and his success coupled with the high workloads of the aforementioned frontline Sox relievers meant he started to pitch more often in the seventh and eighth innings of close games.

Albers was fun — his “f—ing like a cat” play in Toronto and game-winning double in New York won’t soon be forgotten — but he was a journeyman for a reason. From the moment his streak ended, May 5 against the Red Sox, through the end of the season, Albers allowed 36 earned runs in 38.2 innings.

David Ortiz led baseball with a 1.021 OPS during the 2016 season. From May 5 through the end of the season, opponents had a 1.058 OPS against Albers.

Of course, Albers was put in the position he found himself in for a reason. Even had he not started the seeing with success, injuries to Zach Putnam and Jake Petricka left the White Sox bullpen thin, and Albers was, at least early on, preferable to young, unimpressive arms such as Chris Beck or Michael Ynoa.

Albers’ entire season was baffling. From the unexpected streak, to the highlight moments mentioned earlier, to Robin Ventura’s insistence on throwing him out there day after day, even when far out of contention, over Beck, Ynoa, or even someone like Juan Minaya. 12 of Albers’ 58 appearances came after August 1. Why that number was more than, I dunno, zero, will forever be a mystery.

It’s hard to imagine Albers will be back in a White Sox uniform in 2017. But hey, at least he provided some entertainment in a lost season, whether it was his doing or the hitters who were creaming him.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The White Sox started a pitcher Tuesday night who came into the game with a 9.61 ERA, with more walks than strikeouts, and who had more than a third of the hits he had allowed leave the ballpark entirely.

There was good reason to expect the Sox would allow a garish run total to a fearsome Detroit offense with Anthony Ranaudo on the hill, and eventually they brought that expectation into reality.

1. Things certainly looked bright to start. Todd Frazier turned on a Daniel Norris fastball and ripped a two-run shot to left field in the second, and the bottom of the order kept the line moving as Omar Narvaez drew a walk–as he is wont to do–moved to third as Tyler Saladino stayed hot and doubled to center. An Adam Eaton groundout staked Ranaudo to an early 3-0 lead even as the rally fizzled.

2. Other than pitching over a one-out J.D. Martinez double and a walk to keep the Tigers scoreless, Ranaudo went unchallenged through four innings. After walking Jarrod Saltalamacchia for the second time on the night, Ranaudo was one out from escaping the fifth until Ian Kinsler tracked and cracked a sinking curveball to left-center to bring the Tigers within a run. Back-to-back singles from Tyler Collins and Miguel Cabrera brought Victor Martinez a chance to break the game open, but instead he gave the Tigers their third popup of the inning.

3. Not content to count their blessings, the Sox brought out Ranaudo for a sixth inning of work, which was immediately ended by Martinez serving a leadoff double to left.

It’s not as if the Sox bullpen is full of studs anymore these days, and the veteran Matt Albers, who has scuffled to a 7.50 ERA since the beginning of May while allowing an OPS over 1.000, certainly is not part of their upper echelon.

Nevertheless Albers was brought into the crisis, and swiftly yielded a game-tying single squared up the middle by Justin Upton, gave Saltalamacchia his third walk of the game, and watched as Jacoby Jones–making his major league debut–tracked his sinker and flipped it to right to put the Tigers ahead for good. A discerning reader can probably pick out the multiple incidences of Sox pitchers being unable to get misses on their breaking stuff at this point. It was an issue.

Kinsler pushed the Tigers out to a 6-3 lead with a two-run single to left, as Jacob Turner grimly trudged through the last eight outs of the game, allowing a Martinez solo shot and another run-scoring single to Jones in the seventh to really cap off the rookie’s night.

4. Eaton was the offensive star of the night, reaching base four times, and driving in a run on his only out of the game, but the Sox went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position, which excused a shaky five-inning night for Norris.

5. Melky Cabrera left the game in the seventh with reported dehydration. There is no word on his condition going forward yet.

Team Record: 63-68

Next game is Wednesday at Detroit on CSN at 12:10pm CT

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

That’s a huge issue in its own right, but there’s no need to beat a dead horse. What I would like to bring to light is the White Sox inability as an organization to move on from the toxic assets that plague their team. Whether it’s their players, their coaches, or their front office staff, they White Sox refuse to shake up their organization and move in a new direction until it’s too late. The White Sox are a living and breathing embodiment of the disposition effect.

The disposition effect comes from the field of behavioral economics. Essentially the disposition effect refers to the backwards behavior that is observed when investors have some assets increase in value and other assets that fall in value. Investors are much less willing to sell assets that have gone down in value but they are more likely to sell assets that have increased in value.

A great deal of investors fail to understand that the future performance of an asset is unrelated to its purchase price. In turn, they believe that an asset that has gone down in value will eventually come back up, and that an asset that has increased in value may come back down, when in reality, the complete opposite is often true. An asset that has gone down in value has likely decreased in value for a concrete reason, and vice versa. Some new information about the company/product/service/etc. has come to light and as a result, the market has shifted to adjust to this new information. The asset has been revealed to be inferior to what prior estimates believed and it’s unlikely the asset ever returns to its original purchase price.

While baseball players and coaches are undoubtedly not stocks and bonds, the same general principle should be applied. For example, Avisail Garcia was a decently-touted prospect who had the raw power that could possibly translate to 30 home runs in a major league season. There was a chance he’d be a valuable player! However, as he played more and more in the major leagues, new information was revealed about him. He was horrible defensively and he had an ugly swing path that led to far too many ground balls for him to ever realize that raw power. After nearly 1100 plate appearances (which is really too many already) Garcia had made it clear that he was a toxic asset that would likely poison the White Sox chances at a playoff berth should they continue to play him. The White Sox chose to ignore the new information and rely on years-old prospect shine, and, utterly predictably, Garcia once again has ended up as a replacement-level player that dampened the White Sox chances to end their playoff drought.*

If giving Garcia so many chances to prove himself while completely failing was an isolated incident, maybe you could give the White Sox organization the benefit of the doubt. However, this is much more of a systemic issue that continues to torpedo the team. Just looking back the past five or six years, the White Sox continue to fall into the familiar trap. The most glaring example of this was the Ozzie Guillen saga that plagued the team in 2010 and 2011. The White Sox’ relationship had turned extremely toxic with Ozzie starting in the Winter of 2009 when he told Jim Thome there wouldn’t be playing time for him in 2010.

Ozzie wanted a rotating DH so he vetoed Kenny Williams’ decision to retain Thome in favor of Mark Kotsay (Side note: ugh that’s a painful memory). The feud worsened throughout the year, eventually culminating in Ozzie going off the rails after being directly questioned about Thome and Ozzie’s son Oney going on Twitter rants calling Kenny Williams a pig. The team, which was now more of a sideshow than a team, would finish 2010 with 88 wins and this was enough to prompt the White Sox to retain Ozzie throughout the entire 2011 season. Predictably, the results were disastrous. The team went “all-in” pushing their payroll to its highest point ever and, the White Sox proceeded to finish under .500 and well out of playoff contention.

Now, again rather predictably, the White Sox have held on to Robin Ventura well past his usefulness as a manager. The White Sox have long known about Ventura’s shortcomings, or incompetence, as an in-game tactician, which have hampered the White Sox ever since he took over in 2012, but they always cited the familiar refrain that he was a stabilizing presence in the clubhouse. That’s been, quite clearly I might add, disproven this season with the Spring Training Drake LaRoche debacle and then the Christopher Scissorhands incident more recently where face-of-the-franchise pitcher Chris Sale directly called out Robin Ventura for not being an advocate for the players. Robin’s in-game decisions have always stacked the deck against the White Sox, but if he can’t even control the clubhouse why is he even here?

Obviously, this trend doesn’t only apply to beloved former players-turned-managers. The White Sox have a strong history of giving playing time to washed-up veterans and failed prospects. I’ve already talked about Garcia. Dayan Viciedo was given 1800 plate appearances to prove that he was as useless as a push-lawnmower on a 20-acre farm. Jimmy Rollins’ corpse was given two months earlier this year to prove he was completed cooked. He’s now a TV studio analyst. Matt Albers, who has failed to hold hitters to an OPS below .884 in any month since April, has been trotted out in high-leverage situations. With the season lost, the White Sox continue to play Dioner Navarro and his putrid pitch framing and ~.600 OPS instead of moving on to other players. And the only thing that prevented the White Sox from desperately trying to squeeze value out of a 36-year-old Adam LaRoche was the fact that he retired before the year started.

The White Sox are stuck in a rut. They’re too obsessed with recouping value from their bad investments that they fail to realize when they’re making the situation completely worse. The front office’s refusal to replace Garcia or even Robin Ventura himself before the year and subsequently, with the season already lost, Robin continuing to play Navarro over young catcher Omar Navarez, or bringing in Albers to Wednesday’s loss instead of a younger pitcher, who also happens to be the team’s top prospect, with the game on the line epitomizes the problem. The organization knows they have the equivalent of Enron stock all over the place, but they continue to willfully delude themselves into thinking these players will rebound or turn into better versions of themselves. No one, especially the organization, benefits from this.

The best thing the team could have done is try to shake things up just to see if that works. Everyone should know by now that Navarro and Albers are awful players and Robin is a poor manager. These individuals represent no value to the organization’s future. Why not try to learn something new about someone else? When the White Sox fell flat early in the year, they could have replaced Robin to see if that would spark the team. Or maybe they could have given Jason Coats regular at-bats over Garcia to see if Coats would be any kind of an asset moving forward. These things would likely not have mattered in the grand scheme of things, but there’s a greater chance that these maneuvers would have produced better results than the status quo, which was virtually guaranteed to fail.

Sometimes little moves like that really work out and help an organization. Look no further than the 2015 White Sox team which gave playing time to Trayce Thompson down the stretch. Or maybe look outside the organization to a team like Houston who gave non-prospect Dallas Keuchel a chance to be a major league starter a few years back when the team was awful. Sometimes these long shot players pan out– look at Colombian baseball deity Jose Quintana! But the important thing is that teams would never know about these players unless they gave them a chance. They didn’t block these players behind veterans that were lost causes.

Instead, we have the White Sox, who’ve continued to try the same thing over and over, clinging to bad investments like their lives depended on them and hoping for a bounce back that’s never coming. They’ve seen the benefits of exploring new young players, yet don’t pursue this when it would benefit them most. It’s almost a perfect fit to the colloquial definition of insanity! I don’t know how much worse it needs to get for things to change, but eight consecutive seasons of missing the playoffs and four-straight losing seasons is well beyond what I would deem acceptable. I hope the White Sox can cut bait from their current approach to their future, instead of hoping that rebounds, too.

*Please don’t think I’m pinning the failure of the 2016 season all on Avisail Garcia. He’s simply one black hole of many that the front office refused to address.

Lead Image Credit: John Rieger // USA Today Sports Images

Buying, at least in the win-now sense, has been off the table for a few weeks now, but selling has been a subject of debate yet again, with many wondering if the White Sox will receive offers significant enough to convince them to part ways with centerpiece pitchers Chris Sale and/or Jose Quintana. Deals involving those two would signal that the franchise is ready for a long-term rebuild.

Likewise, smart people like our own Nick Schaefer make convincing arguments for why the White Sox shouldn’t be sellers, and should instead keep all their important pieces around with an eye toward contending in 2017.

I’m not here to argue which direction is more logical, but regardless of whether or not the White Sox intend to contend in 2017 or go with a long-term rebuild, the one thing the White Sox should absolutely cash-in on this weekend is their bullpen.

Since a hot start that had the unit ranking among the best in all of baseball through the first month-plus, the bullpen has been an unmitigated disaster. Injuries to Zach Putnam and Jake Petricka haven’t helped, but David Robertson is having the worst statistical season of his career, Matt Albers turned into a pumpkin and the hodgepodge of characters used to fill in the holes haven’t done the trick.

Still, teams need bullpen help, and in a market where Lucas Harrell can net a return worth mentioning, surely there would have to be takers on Robertson, Nate Jones and Zach Duke. Maybe even Albers!

Investing a significant amount of money or other assets to build a solid bullpen is always a risky proposition, but it’s one good teams can justify. From a baseball perspective, it made sense for the Cubs to trade for Aroldis Chapman as he could prove vital in their quest to win the World Series.

To teams not in contention, a good and/or expensive bullpen is about as useful as (insert pun about useless things here). [Ed. suggestion: “Hope! Hope is useless”]

The White Sox are paying Robertson $11 million this year, and he’s due $25 million more over the next two seasons. Duke is making $5 million this year and another $5.5 million next season.

In baseball terms, these are not egregious sums of money, but given the fungible nature of relievers and the penny-pinching tendencies of White Sox management, they are sums of money best spent elsewhere. Offloading Robertson and Duke would, conceivably, allow the White Sox to go in the offseason with additional money they can use to improve the club elsewhere while also acquiring young players to help revitalize the farm system.

OR, given the fact that teams may be hesitant to acquire Robertson and the $25 million-plus owed to him, they could eat some of that contract in exchange for an even more highly-regarded prospect or two, something the Sox were not willing to do in 2013 when they ate only $1 million of the ~$25 million owed to Alex Rios in shipping him to Texas for Leury Garcia.

But, you might argue, if they White Sox trade their few good bullpen arms in only a semi-sell off while eyes remain on contention in 2017, how on earth will they be able to contend without anyone worth a damn in the bullpen?

This is a legitimate concern, but, again, relievers are fungible, and the White Sox have a reputation for their keen ability to identify and develop talent in the bullpen. And given their financial limitations, the reward of giving the farm system a jolt and increasing spending flexibility is worth the risk of having to rebuild the bullpen from scratch.

This is not a perfect solution to all the White Sox problems. Maybe a fire sale is worth it, maybe they should stand pat. But, regardless of which direction they go, cashing in on their expensive bullpen arms seems as worthy a venture as any.

Lead photo credit: Mike DiNovo-USA TODAY Sports

And yet, Miguel Gonzalez was up to the task, not only going toe-to-toe with Jake Arrieta, but out-dueling him for most of the night. So naturally they wasted his effort a bit before rescuing the day in the bottom of the ninth again.

1. For the third-straight game the White Sox rallied in the bottom of the ninth, and for the second-straight game they did it after blowing things in the top of the inning. J.B. Shuck drilled a leadoff single to center off newly acquired Cubs lefty specialist Mike Montgomery, advanced to second on a bunt, and raced home without a throw when center fielder Matt Szczur couldn’t get a handle on Tyler Saladino drilled his second hit of the night off the back of the pitcher’s mound and through for the walk-off.

2. A taxed Sox bullpen with both of top two guys extremely unavailable and worn out from both the Chris Sale blowup and only getting 3.1 innings from Jacob Turner on Friday, couldn’t quite nail down the 10 outs it needed to avoid bottom of the ninth heroics. Zach Duke closed out the seventh, but after issuing a leadoff walk to Ben Zobrist, Robin went experimental. Despite coming into the night with a 7.33 ERA since his earned run streak ended in early May, Matt Albers dug deep for three outs in the eighth, cranking up to 95 mph to strike out Addison Russell to closer out the frame.

But while he shocked the whole stadium with that one inning in the tank, he certainly did not have two. Javier Baez ripped a double into the right field corner to lead off the ninth, and immediately came home as Dexter Fowler followed it by drilling a liner off Jose Abreu‘s glove to bring the game to 4-3. Kris Bryant‘s broken bat single to left threatened to put the Sox in a world of hurt with no one out, but his ill-advised attempt to get in scoring position saw him gunned down at second from a strong Melky Cabrera throw. Dan Jennings came in and attempted to masquerade as a LOOGY, only to have Anthony Rizzo poke a slider off the outside edge into left to tie things up a 4-4.

After another single, and despite the lead being blown, Jennings still found a good fastball to blow by Jason Heyward to close out the inning with the tie preserved.

Everything about the ninth was both questionable and excusable. The bullpen was completely tanked, and Robin needed to find outs wherever he could, but Albers getting a two out save against the Cubs sounds ridiculous on its face, Jennings is no lefty ace, Rizzo drove in the tying run with first base open, but then walking him would be putting the go-ahead run on base and bringing up Zobrist. It was not a night where managing seemed fun.

3. Gonzalez was already working on a 2.77 ERA for the month of July on his way into the night, but had possibly his best stuff of the year Monday. Featuring an unthinkably nasty changeup with splitter action, Gonzalez needed Cabrera to make a leaping catch at the wall on Bryant in the first inning to keep the game scoreless, but settled in afterward. Striking out eight over just two walks in 6.2 innings. A hanging changeup to Baez as he began to tire in the seventh was whipped into the left field for a two-run home run, and served as his only black mark.

In the first of Gonzalez’s two gut check moments of the evening, he needed some help. After Baez singled to right and scooted to second on an Adam Eaton misplay, the Cubs utility man tried to race in and score on a two-out Bryant single to left. Cabrera’s cannon throw home initially kept Baez at third, but when Bryant got caught up trying to take second, Baez tried to race home once the Sox tried to start the rundown and was tagged out at home after a struggle at the plate with Dioner Navarro. In the second moment, Gonzalez didn’t need as much help, as he froze Russell with a two-seamer that snaked back over the outside edge to strand two runners in scoring position and close the sixth.

4. Lively nights don’t always just show up in terms of fly balls flying over the fences. The stuff was absolutely crackling from both starters in the humidity, and Arrieta looked unhittable early, and was so for at least the first seven outs. With one out in the third, Saladino rapped a double down the left field line, and came around on the next batter when Eaton roped a sinker down and in to right field.

5. After cruising through the fourth and fifth, Arrieta got his next real challenge in the unsuspecting form of Tim Anderson. The impatient rookie stayed alive slapping away fouls until he ironically struck out looking on an outer half fastball, but the die was cast for the rest of the inning. Cabrera worked a full count walk, and Arrieta fell behind 2-0 to both Abreu and Justin Morneau, yielding a single to the former, and getting a high breaking ball called strike three on the latter.

That brought Todd Frazier to the plate, who had been horribly overmatched in his previous plate appearance, caught a hanging slider and boomed it out to dead center for a decisive three-run home run to stake the Sox to a 4-0 lead.

Team Record: 49-50

Next game is Tuesday vs. the Cubs at 6:10pm CT on pretty much every channel

Lead Image Credit: Patrick Gorski // USA Today Sports Images

It wasn’t invigorating, but it left a better taste behind than his otherwise 0-for-5 day at the plate, which was replete with Abreu being repeatedly overwhelmed by fastballs in the zone; good ones, but the type of offerings that it used to be an act of derring-do to leave within Abreu’s reach. Above it all, he just looked awful. Slow to the ball, distracted, guessing wrong; any explanation for his struggles anyone would choose to offer at least sounded like it half-fit the problem, and we’ve already been over how much inside pitching he has faced, and how his kill zone has shrunk.

A challenge for national writers, analysts, and even scouts, is assessing a player without full context. Our challenge is dealing with too much. We sit through every Abreu at-bat, see every flat fastball and cement mixer slider that he pops up or jams himself with–and it really adds up in a short stretch of time–and cannot help but see a pattern. But remove the name, or maybe even slap Chris Davis‘ name on if it helps, and consider hearing the news that a hitter or Chris Davis put up a .303/.364/.540 line over the last two seasons, but is coming off two awful months, is 29-years-old and now he’s on the team for the rest of the year.

A rebound would seem inevitable, and almost undoubtedly is. As grueling and awful as Adam Dunn was in 2011, and unthinkable it was while watching him to believe that he would ever be productive again, the cold, seemingly blind statistical analysis that he would bounce back in 2012 was dead on.

But it was definitely the beginning of the end. Big slumps are not death knells, but they’re also not meaningless. As much as being committed to Dunn through his early flop and slow fade hamstrung the Sox from seeking alternatives, the prospects of Abreu–always warned to a big-body player without plus athleticism who could age quickly and poorly–being in decline would send even deeper ripples through the organization’s future.

And in the immediate, it could cripple this season, which has not had all its promise wrung out just yet. Any time the topic of Abreu has been raised during postgame media scrums, the responses from teammates and coaches has been some variation of “he’ll be fine,” or “we know he’ll be fine,” and sometimes, in truly verbose moments, “he knows what he needs to do, and he’ll be fine.”

What else is there to say?

There is no alternative. As difficult as needing to pivot from reliance on Abreu would be over the next few years, it’s impossible in 2016. No franchise-anchoring bat is available in the trade market or on the waiver wire.  A common rebuttal whenever fans or media get caught up in a certain move they want to see made is to point out how marginal it is. A hastily named replacement for an incompetent manager, a top prospect getting his feet wet at the highest level, a slightly above-average veteran riding a hot streak coming over for a half-season rental, are all hard-pressed to provide more than an extra win by themselves, and it’s a rare division race that can turned by so little.

This doesn’t make these moves not worth doing, and anyone knows there’s a list of to-do items the Sox could stand to put their focus to over the next month, but it pales in importance to whether Abreu, a five-to-six win player at his peak by most measures, can return to form quickly or if–or for how long–he remains a replacement-level ghost. It may be hard for one win to change a season, but a far sight easier for three-to-four to have that effect.

One player doesn’t dictate the whole season, but the White Sox are four games over .500 despite Abreu’s .242/.305/.379 start because the rest of their core (Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Adam Eaton, Todd Frazier) has mostly been as advertised, and in some cases, better. Abreu is the only figure in flux, and until he falls into place, even if every needed trade, call-up and roster tweak is made, we won’t know what the Sox can be.

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

1. Or so it seems when a 1-1 tie is broken in the 13th inning of the rubber match in New York, when much-maligned reliever Matt Albers hit for himself — lest the Sox burn the last of their bench — and blast an opposite field double on a 2-2 count, advanced on a wild pitch, and scored the winning run on a Jose Abreu sacrifice fly.

If all these words strung together weren’t already a clue that the Theatre of the Absurd had broken out in Queens, the White Sox dugout’s raucous and delirious celebration would have given it away. It was Albers’ third hit in 37 career plate appearances, and his first run scored.

2. Albers, having already worked a scoreless 12th, returned for the 13th and pitched over a two-out walk (Sox pitching walked 13 Mets hitters) and nailed down the win. After a seven-game losing streak, the Sox have suddenly won two in a row, and won their first series since the beginning of May.

The bullpen, control problems aside, earned themselves some redemption after a horrific series in Kansas City. David Robertson, Nate Jones and Albers all delivered two shutout innings apiece in relief of starter Miguel Gonzalez.

All told, White Sox relievers delivered 13 innings of shutout ball during the series.

3. Gonzalez himself threw five one-run innings, dancing over leadoff walks in four of those innings, and in most respects taking a discouraging step back from his last two outings. He somehow walked Mets starter Jacob deGrom twice. One of those, of course, was leading off the inning. Three double plays among the five the Sox defense turned in all helped Gonzalez minimize the damage.

It would be nice if Gonzalez could keep from walking the park when he’s not facing the most hyper-aggressive lineup in baseball, but a starter who does nothing but shut down the Royals wouldn’t be the most useless guy to have in the organization anyway.

Backup catcher Rene Rivera, who was inexplicably Mike Piazza this entire series, singled home the Mets’ only run with two outs in the second.

4. deGrom, for the most part, was his old self against the White Sox. He struck out 10 over seven innings of work for his first double-digit strikeout game of the year, and a towering seventh-inning home run from Todd Frazier on a 93 mph fastball was the only mark against him.

5. The 13th inning sacrifice fly from Abreu was a small bit of redemption for an otherwise awful day. He went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts, dropped his batting line to .242/.305/.379, and struck out on all high fastballs to end a big scoring opportunity in the 10th.

Once the thrill of this shocking and strange victory subsides, real concern about his miserable season can return.

Team Record: 29-25

Next game is Friday at Detroit at 6:10 p.m. CT on CSN

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