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

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

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

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

Lead Photo Credit: Ray Carlin-USA TODAY Sports

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.

Leaving Brantly unprotected hardly constitutes a mistake by the front office, either.  While there are some names on the 40-man roster I might consider more expendable, room needs to be made for Jimmy Rollins, who has been annihilating the ball in Spring Training to tie a bow on his status as “probably the shortstop on Opening Day.”

However, Brantly being plucked away draws further attention to a problem that Rian Wiatt discussed on Friday: the catcher situation might be Real Bad.  There are very real questions about both the health, durability, and productivity of both Alex Avila and Dioner Navarro. PECOTA thinks that Hector Sanchez is basically identical to Brantly as approximately replacement level/slightly below.

I’m not here to split hairs between guys like Brantly and Sanchez (I suppose Brantly is a more natural fit with Navarro because he’s a lefty bat instead of a “switch hitter”?), but rather to highlight the potential for disaster at this position.  Avila and Navarro are both major-league quality catchers, but Avila has been battered and smashed into a fine paste over the last few years. Meaning, if he were to miss significant time to injury—as he did just last season—it’s going to be Dioner Navarro paired with Hector Sanchez or Kevan “I Can Hit As Long As I’m In My Mid-20s in Rookie Ball” Smith.

Given the nature of the roster as a whole, however, it’s intriguing that Rick Hahn went with this solution at catcher. Above and beyond the questions of framing that Ethan explored in the Offseason Review, this configuration carries a lot of risk in the pursuit of upside on offense. For a team with such a strong core, they may be one extremely injury prone player injury away from the position turning into a black hole. The option may not have been there, if you are pessimistic on Tyler Flowers, but one wonders if a higher-floor positional configuration wouldn’t have been preferable.

And, given how mightily the organization has struggled to repair black holes in the past, Brantly’s departure represents a loss of theoretically competent major-league depth that makes me uneasy. That won’t stop me from rooting for Brantly to jump ahead of Jesus Sucre and Steve Clevenger in Seattle, but consider me officially anxious.