The most astonishing thing about David Holmberg is that he’s somehow only 25 years old. This is a guy traded by the White Sox to Arizona back in 2010 along with Daniel Hudson for Edwin Jackson before bouncing around multiple organizations and ultimately ending up back in Chicago. Holmberg is one of the rare high school players drafted by the Sox to actually make it to the majors. He was once even thought of highly enough to be the Diamondbacks sixth best prospect back in 2013 but every time one of his parent clubs called him up, he disappointed. 2017 saw more of the same, but with slight improvements.

Holmberg isn’t quite talented enough to be anything more than a swingman and to their credit, the Sox seem to know this using him as a starter seven times this summer and 30 times as a reliever. Like just about every sinkerball pitcher ever not named Brandon Webb, Holmberg does not strike hitters out (5.2 K/9) which is fine enough when his command is on. Unfortunately, his command isn’t on terribly often and he walked more hitters than he managed to punch out. A season of just below replacement level represents marked improvement for Holmberg and there might be a place in the bullpen for him to start the 2018 season, but there are enough interesting young arms coming down the pipeline that Holmberg might be looking for work again soon enough.

Gregory Infante was another delightful case of the 2017 bullpen becoming a late 2000s Birmingham Barons class reunion. Infante had last pitched in the majors in 2010 for … the White Sox. After spending the last half decade bouncing around various minor league cities, he came to Spring Training on a minor league deal and managed to finally put it together. Strikeouts have never been a problem for Infante, and in general they never should be for someone whose fastball comfortably sits in the upper 90s. But in the last seven years, he only managed to have a BB/9 below 4 once until this year’s 3.3. Was it magic or smoke and mirrors that finally resulted in the turn around? Who knows! His peripherals suggest this mini-breakout should be repeatable enough and if not, hey, he’s at least another fun mildly successful flamethrowing Don Cooper scrapheap revival project.

Of all the players I had expected to be shipped out for prospects before the 2017 season came to a close, Nate Jones is the only one still with the White Sox and not for happy reasons. Back on Valentine’s Day, I wrote about how he could bring back a sneaky good return seeing as when healthy he’s been one of the American League’s premier yet unappreciated setup guys. His April was consistent with what we’d grown used to from him: vicious strikeouts on dominating heat and impossible sliders presaged by a waggling ball held high in the heavens.

But his elbow would not allow such wonders to be viewed for long. His ulnar nerve acted up, sitting awkwardly post-2014 TJS and required surgical repositioning in mid-July. The good news is his UCL remained intact and undamaged. The bad news is he lost a year of his prime and will now be paid far less than he would before the surgery thanks to some interesting wording in his contract. Jones should return at some point next season, giving the Sox a bonafide closer or ace setup man that may be able to tempt a contending team into parting with prospects.

Rymer Liriano is sadly saddled with the Quad-A label. He’s still young enough, but doesn’t really do anything well enough to get over that hump. In an offseason full of grabbing any and every franchise’s troubled young hitter who fell victim to roster crunches, Liriano was yet another attempt at finding something worthwhile. He only managed a .740 OPS while playing right field for Charlotte, keeping him firmly at the end of the line for MLB at bats. When he finally made it to Chicago in September, he did not impress. No corner outfielder’s defense is good enough to make hitting .220/.304/.341 palatable and the influx of new corner outfielders in the system have likely spelled the end of the line for Liriano in Chicago.

Lead Photo Credit: Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

James Fegan went in-depth detailing what was working for Giolito over at The Athletic, and the fact that his changeup was so devastating — eight of his 17 swinging strikes were against that pitch — is a great sign going forward. Giolito’s curveball was the pitch that elicited excitement during his time as a prep and minor leaguer who shot up to No. 1 prospect status, but his ability to throw his fastball, curveball, and changeup for a strike is what’s going to make him effective long term.

Giolito’s three starts thus far have shown a lot of promise. The aforementioned piece by James outlines how Rays hitters weren’t prepared for the arsenal he displayed based on video and scouting reports, so there’s reason for caution as teams see him more over the last month of the season and into 2018, but through 20 innings he’s struck out 18 and walked just four — three of which came in one start — while displaying all the characteristics of the pitcher the White Sox thought they were acquiring eight months ago.

2. Giolito wasn’t the only one of the highly touted young White Sox pitchers to flash the goods, as Reynaldo Lopez returned from his minor injury and showed his elite swing-and-miss ability after a slow start in Friday’s loss to Tampa Bay. More important than the results at this point is Lopez showing no signs of the back tightness that forced him out of an August start against the Rangers, but after a slow start he recovered to finish the day by retiring 11 straight Rays and generating 15 swinging strikes in just 85 pitches.

Whether or not Lopez can be a viable starting pitching option in the long term has been and will continue to be a point of debate going forward. But from the standpoint of his ability to challenge major league hitters with his entire arsenal and miss bats, he’s passing the test thus far.

3. Not everything has been sunshine and flowers when it comes to White Sox pitching prospects this season, of course, and with the Sept. 1 roster expansion came our second glimpse of the struggling Carson Fulmer.

Fulmer has just made one appearance since re-joining the White Sox following a disastrous appearance as the 26th man in a doubleheader two weeks ago, picking up his first career win while allowing one run in two innings of work Saturday.

There’s not much to be gleaned from the appearance in which he allowed a walk to Kevin Kiermaier and solo homer to Logan Morrison other than, maybe, the fact that he retired more hitters than he did in his start against the Twins. But where Giolito’s and Lopez’s ascent to the majors represents the duo taking the next step in their respective developments, the last month of the season for Fulmer gives the White Sox an up-close look as they attempt to figure out what, exactly, they have in the former first round pick.

Fulmer’s Triple-A season was disjointed, to say the least. If you had a pendulum with “reliever” on one end and “starter” on the other, the bob would most certainly be swaying more heavily toward the “reliever” side at the moment. But while the Fulmer living up to that potential is less of a necessity given the White Sox recent influx of prospects, he’s still just more than two years into his professional career and the Sox aren’t yet at the point where they’re willing to concede one way or the other.

This month isn’t likely to provide any sweeping conclusions about his trajectory, but a month hands-on work for Fulmer with Don Cooper and the major league coaching staff will go a long way toward helping them figure that out.

4. Fulmer was joined as a Sept. 1 addition to the roster by, to put it kindly, less-than-exciting minor leaguers in David Holmberg, and Rob Brantly, and a day later Rymer Liriano after Leury Garcia was placed on the disabled list.

Holmberg and Brantly are, quite simply, veteran September depth to the pitching staff and catching position, respectively, while Liriano represents a former top prospect given a new opportunity with a new team, not unlike Alen Hanson.

Still 26, the odds of Liriano making any meaningful contributions as a major leaguer are slim, but he joins a long list of players trying to make the most of an opportunity that might not otherwise be afforded them. He was No. 52 on BP’s Top 101 prior to the 2012 season while still with the Padres organization and rose as high as No. 39 on the list pre-2013 with Jason Parks grading him with above average arm, run, and raw power tools, giving him the future potential of a first division corner outfielder.

That hasn’t happened, of course, and 2013 was a long time ago (Jurickson Profar was No. 1 on that list, for perspective), but after solid overall production while spending the entire season at Triple-A Charlotte, he’s being given a shot, and he went 2-for-3 with a double, walk, and his first career home run in Monday’s loss to Cleveland.

Liriano’s most likely to be among the 2017 White Sox most difficult to remember on a Sporcle quiz a few years from now, but it will at the very least be interesting to see what kind of impression he can make in a September audition for which he’s been waiting a very long time.

5. Avisail Garcia’s surprising and very real 2017 season has entered its final month and he hasn’t shown a lot of signs of slowing down. At this point, even with a horrid September he’ll end the season with a career high in basically everything, and you’re looking at a final line of a WARP north of 3.0, a career high in home runs, and an OPS in the mid-.800s in ~500 plate appearances.

The latest surprising thing Garcia did this season came Monday when he got into a jawing match with Cleveland starter Trevor Bauer after fouling off a hanging breaking ball.

Here’s Trevor Bauer on his exchange with Avisail Garcia. pic.twitter.com/A5Q4Cyrvef

— Dan Hayes (@CSNHayes) September 4, 2017

We can debate all day who was in the right or wrong, who won the exchange (Bauer did strike him out), or Bauer’s history of having, uh, less-than-stellar opinions, but beyond all that, what was eye opening to me as someone who has destroyed mistakes all season long miss one, and get really pissed off at the fact that he did so.

This is noteworthy in that it was commonplace for Garcia to take a hanging breaking ball and do nothing with it through the first three years of his career. Whatever changed in his approach and ability this season has done something to his confidence to the point where he rarely does so anymore. That confidence translated to the altercation we saw Monday.

In the grand scheme of things, this means very little. Any harmless trash-talking is fun, and dare I say good in sports, so long as it doesn’t end in 90-plus mph fastballs aimed at people’s heads. That’s what happened between Garcia and Bauer Monday. Bauer obviously got the best of him this time around, but that amount of confidence in himself, as unquantifiable as it may be, is a pleasant sight out of the All-Star outfielder facing a former top prospect who has never lived up to his potential.

Lead Photo Credit: Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

The White Sox did plenty to put themselves in this position, things that have been reiterated in this space on several occasions. Among those mistakes — and I won’t say whether it’s the most important mistake or second most important mistake or 11th most important mistake, you can decide that for yourself — was their lack of depth.

You see, when a team’s chosen course of action is to plug holes with highly volatile veterans — the Austin Jackson or Justin Morneau types, or the Dioner Navarro types or even the Brett Lawrie types — having players who can fill in when, inevitably, they’re needed because of injury or ineffectiveness, is pretty danged important.

Failing to employ above-average starters was obviously a big factor in the White Sox downfall, but failing to build up their roster and minor league system with players capable of stepping into a big league role and providing even replacement-level production has also an obvious hinderance.

Fast forward to present day and a White Sox team that is expected to be bad, instead of being unexpectedly bad like we’re used to, and depth is still important, just for different reasons.

The 2017 season isn’t important for the White Sox in terms of wins and losses, but it’s still important in terms of development. Sticking to the development timeline for the plethora of prospects is key, and having warm bodies who can serve as placeholders able to hold down a major league job is integral in not forcing the White Sox hand into an early promotion.

Of course, that would prove moot if Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Yoan Moncada or others do prove to be major league ready relatively soon. All three have already seen action in the majors. But until they are ready, whether it’s June or September or 2018 or beyond, the White Sox need guys who can fill those holes.

They don’t need to fill them well, mind you, since, ya, know, winning doesn’t matter. But if James Shields is struggling to get through three innings without giving up five dingers, or Derek Holland breaks again, or Jose Quintana is traded, guys need to step in and provide any number of the 1,458-plus innings the White Sox will play this season.

That’s where the likes of Chris Beck, Dylan Covey, Giovanni Soto and others will come in, and why Yolmer Sanchez, Leury Garcia, Alfredo Gonzalez, Peter Bourjos, and Rymer Liriano actually, in some small way, matter.

It’s highly unlikely any of those guys will be meaningful contributors on the next White Sox contender, but they’re “bridge the gap” guys between now and then. And whether or not they’re able to do just that will likely impact, however minute, the White Sox ability to stick to their timeline and rebuild in a meaningful way.

Lead Photo Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Big picture, the organization already has a fairly clear path forward on the infield, with Tim Anderson adjusting to the majors and Yoan Moncada not far behind.  Rick Hahn et al. insist Zack Collins can catch, which is unlikely but not impossible, but even if he can’t he will likely slide over to first base without much issue.  The pitching plan is even more obvious, particularly given the trade hauls for Chris Sale and Adam Eaton skewed heavily to the pitching side.

The outfield, however, remains a mystery. Charlie Tilson will get the bulk of the plate appearances in center this year, and rightfully so. If he was not permanently harmed by his hamstring injury, he should be able to handle it defensively and the organization needs to learn just how much he can do with a bat in the majors. But unless and until Tilson changes his forecast, he cannot be trusted to be anything more than a bench player long term.  Rymer Liriano and Avisail Garcia are going to get opportunities to do their lotto ticket type things in the corners, and Adam Engel and Jacob May are less promising options behind Tilson in turn.

But years of misses in the draft on players like Courtney Hawkins, Keenyn Walker, and Jared Mitchell have left the system thin, with Jameson Fisher and Alex Call being the next names of note after Luis Basabe.  Basabe is years away and full of risk. Fisher and Call are college performers who were available in the third and fourth round due to serious questions about their ultimate ceiling in the majors.

The White Sox should not prioritize any particular position in seeking trade returns. Generally speaking, and certainly at this stage, they should seek out the most talent possible and the prospects they think are best and sort it out later. If you want to know what it looks like when you disobey this principle, think about what the Royals got for Carlos Beltran so many years ago.

However, the organizational depth chart is screaming out for help here, and it’s something that can be addressed in a trade if the right situation presents itself.  The Mets, for example, have more outfielders than they can play, and it is starting to hinder the development of legitimate prospects like Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto.  There could be a fit here in terms of the needs of these two teams, and it’s something to keep an eye on moving forward.

Or perhaps this is simply a position they keep rolling the dice on until everything else is in place and finish the next contender off with a few free agents. As far as a team building strategy goes it’s not a bad one, as the outfield should be one of the easier problems to address.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

When the rebuild was first signaled, I thought it was basically Christmas for Carlos Sanchez, Leury Garcia, Rymer Liriano, Tyler Saladino, Garcia, and every graduated but blocked or stalled mid-tier White Sox prospect. But while these are opportunities are to be handed out pretty freely, the Sox sending out the polished but low-ceiling Jason Coats showed they are a least a little bit choosy on how they dole out 2017 plate appearances. While we understand hoping that stalled, older prospects to break out is a long shot, just how much of a longshot is something worth nagging Ethan Spalding into running queries for.

Avisail does not turn 26 until June, and Liriano is just eight days younger. Leury turns 26 in March, as does Matt Davidson. Omar Narvaez and Sanchez are both a year younger. They are all longshots, but Garcia is the one that stretches the parameters the most. To that end, inspired by Garcia, who sits at 1.1 career WARP at this point, here’s the highest career WARP for players who at age 25, had 2 WARP or less.

So, obviously there’s plenty of hope here. A lot of late debuts, or guys that flopped in very brief debuts, went on to be fringe Hall of Famers. But age has always been a factor cited by those still hopeful for Avisail, whereas our cynicism has lay in how much he has already struggled at the major league level over his 1,551 major league plate appearances. So, here’s the same search with the added condition of anyone included has to have reached 1,500 plate appearances by age 25.

There’s a lot less hope here, and not just because Garcia is already on the top-20 by these parameters and is placed right next to Dayan Viciedo by a twist of fate. Cliff Floyd is a decent enough ray of hope, since he debuted early at 20, hit inconsistently while dealing with injuries and his fits of progress on offense were undermined by defensive struggles, but Jose Guillen, a total toolshed who was totally confounding until settling into a nice prime in his late-20, early-30s, seems perfect. Michael Brantley‘s early career offense was bad, but he was hampered by a need to be moved out of center in a way that Avisail never was.

But much of this group is not a good comparison with Garcia because he cannot recoup value by becoming a plus-fielding shortstop like Dick Groat, Omar Vizquel and Alex Gonzalez, or a catcher like Michael Barrett. While there has been some more optimism about Garcia playing an outfield position of recent, his usefulness is pretty clearly defined by whether or not his bat (a career .250 TAv [true average] at this point) ever develops.

So I asked Ethan to query for the highest TAv for players who had a TAv of .250 or below, at age 25, with 1,500 or more plate appearances. Ethan immediately pointed out that this was dumb, and I would wind up someone who went 1-for-2 with a walk after they turned 26 and then stepped into another dimension, never to return. He also pointed out I would get Jean Segura, who could very well could have been a BABIP mirage in 2016. As such, Ethan decided to only include players with 1,000 plate appearances after age 25.

Guillen is still there, and Carlos Gomez and Yadier Molina, two defensive mavens pushed up well before they could contribute anything on offense, represent some of the only names on here who played after women’s suffrage was passed. But Melky Cabrera, another toolsy early debut guy who struggled with inconsistency and conditioning before rounding into form, is so obvious I hate myself for getting through this whole article without addressing him before. Cabrera has some of the best bat-to-ball skills in the game, peaked at 18 home runs in career, and was a full-time centerfielder at age 26, as opposed to a DH at age 25, so they’re still sorta (extremely) different.

The top of the scale is still on the table for even an older prospect who hasn’t gotten a chance yet, even if we have plenty of reasons to doubt Liriano, have only a tinge of hope that Sanchez or Leury would be even light hitters in the big leagues and possess little confidence that Davidson made significant progress in Triple-A, there’s a reason that air of untapped potential is more inviting and intriguing.

Garcia turning into something is still possible, but his struggles are indicative that the ceiling he first entered the league with has significantly lowered, and we can count on one hand similar projects that meaningfully reversed the course of their offensive progress at this stage. Just as striking, is that one team sticking with that project the whole way through, while it’s not providing any current value, is virtually unprecedented. But at this point, with a rebuild pending, the absurdity of the Sox commitment doesn’t matter anymore, it’s jut bizarre.

Lead Image Credit: Jordan Johnson // USA Today Sports Images

A funny thing happened to the White Sox presumptive starting right fielder Jason Coats on Friday: he was designated for assignment. Coats will turn 27 at the start of Spring Training, his game has never been projected to translate well to the majors, and he does not figure to be anywhere near the next White Sox contender. But with the Sox roster beginning to be excavated, and with more open spaces on the way, there was a real sense that Coats had worked his way to the top of the heap of outfield candidates and earned a shot. He torched Triple-A to the tune of .330/.394/.519 in 2016, and despite debuting last year, barely got any chance to prove himself in 58 plate appearances.

Coats might not be worth an extended look, but such a dearth of opportunity pales in comparison to say, over 1500 plate appearances for Avisail Garcia. If that wasn’t telling enough, he was excised to make room for a waiver claim of Willy Garcia, a fallen 24-year-old Pirates prospect who is Coats’ opposite. He’s got the type of big tools found in waiver clam projects–big raw power, huge throwing arm–with no production to show for it (.245/.290/.388 in 790 Triple-A plate appearances) and little scouting optimism that he can cut down on the swing-and-miss in his game.

Dayan Viciedo already taught us that there are few things as tiresome as a corner outfielder with huge power who can’t barrel anything, and a huge throwing arm but poor foot speed. Coats is a solid bet to outperform Garcia in 2017 big league action, but a perfect world projection of Garcia is superior to Coats, and Coats’ likely advantage is meaningless if 2017 wins and losses don’t matter and he still doesn’t project to be a trade asset either way.

This is a very bloodless line of logic, but so is trading Chris Sale and Adam Eaton, and probably Jose Quintana, to try for a massive, and inexpensive, reboot with a top-flight farm system. The Sox have already been courting electric but volatile talents in their major trades–Moncada threatens a 30 percent strikeout rate, Kopech and Reynaldo Lopez have plenty of evaluators who believe they’re relievers–under the logic that risky prospects because less risky when you have dozens of them to try out, so why not apply the same logic to their major league fliers?

By that same logic, clearing out Coats should really be about a spot for the out-of-options Rymer Liriano, himself a formless collection of tools due to two years of development lost to injuries, but possessing far more of an actual plate approach and some actual success in Triple-A (.292/.383/.460 in 549 plate appearances in 2015).

A shade or two too bloodless for my liking is the reclamation projection signing of Everth Cabrera. The 30-year-old former All-Star spent 2016 playing in his native Nicaragua, but also spent some of it in Cuba going through three months of alcohol rehab per the publication El Nuevo Diario. He broke onto the scene in 2012 when he led the National League with 44 stolen bases (while being caught just four times), despite complicating his call-up by being arrested for misdemeanor domestic violence along with his wife. His offensive peak came when he hit .283/.355/.381 in 2013, which was hampered by him serving a 50-game suspension after he admitted taking PEDs after being implicated in the Biogenesis scandal.

If a theme was not already apparent, Cabrera’s exit from San Diego was precipitated by a 2014 arrest for driving under the influence of marijuana, and his rehab stint in Cuba was preceded by an arrest in Nicaragua for getting into a fight at a market. Before that took place, in March, a somewhat paunchy Cabrera gave an embittered interview to El Nuevo Diario where he called out MLB for trying to make an example out of him during the Biogenesis scandal despite his admission of guilt, the Players’ Union for abandoning him, the police for their aggression during his arrest, and even his wife for not being understanding enough of the difficulties of his career.

It’s not hard to find legitimacy in some of his complaints, but as a whole it comes off as a lot of defiance from someone without much of a leg to stand on. The most recent video interview with El Nuevo Diario found Cabrera newly svelte and recommitted, and the Sox are definitely signing that guy, rather than the spiraling and out of shape Cabrera from last March.

Cabrera hit just .227/.267/.285 and stole only 20 in 28 bases in 119 games over 2014 and 2015 in the majors, so uncovering the premium talent buried within probably takes far more than just a new training regimen. Carlos Sanchez, Leury Garcia, and certainly Tyler Saladino are all likely superior to Coats on the major league level, which is to say nothing of how much playing time Moncada will soon consume, but perhaps it’s the same idea. Cabrera, once a basestealing menace with plus on-base skills from the shortstop position, has had higher highs than any of them. If he’s a starter-level talent again, he proves more valuable than giving opportunity to glorified utility guys.

Or it’s just a minor league deal; besides the ones that indicate a lack of emphasis on personal conduct, there are not supposed to be bad ones.

Lead Image Credit: Kim Klement // USA Today Sports Images

It’s not exactly a developmental position. The only qualified DHs under the age of 30 last season were Khris Davis and Corey Dickerson (Davis is 29), and is mostly occupied by aging players whose elite bats have kept them in the game past the death of their defensive utility. The Sox don’t figure to have any of those types unless they force that status upon Jose Abreu against his will, so they will probably be filling it the other commonly seen way: a rotating cast of players with some power potential and no consistent defensive home.

While reviewing a still in-development effort by Baseball Prospectus to project playing time for the 2017 season that I probably shouldn’t be discussing yet, I couldn’t help but notice that Sox DH was…a hodgepodge, to put it politely. They basically listed every position player on the 40-man who is not already a regular at another position, and they were not wrong to do so.

Avisail Garcia saw the most time there in 2016 of anyone returning, which, gives him some vague theoretical leg up. Melky Cabrera is still on the team, can hit, and is a declining defender who would figure to take some days off playing the field if he sticks around for a while, Rymer Liriano and Jason Coats are corner outfield types who will be looking to squeeze into whatever gap they can fit in, and Matt Davidson is on the 40-man roster, and thus in the mix. And this is alongside the possibilities of guys like Abreu, Todd Frazier and Brett Lawrie swinging over for some occasional PAs, just because they’re currently around.

Garcia is likely the worst defender of the three corner outfielders, but his power drought only ended when he got into the field more in the second half. He only slugged .366 as a DH in 2016, compared to .435 as a right fielder. It’s hard to work up a great reason to project success for Davidson, as he got nearly 2000 plate appearances in Triple-A alone before a mild, still strikeout prone (26.4 percent in 2016) turnaround earned him a short-lived call-up last season, but how is anyone too stalled to give a shot when Garcia is still in the mix?

Liriano is the freshest face in this regard, since the last significant playing time he received saw him hit .292/.383/.460 with San Diego’s Triple-A affiliate in 2015. He seems like a longshot to perform well enough in Spring to win a job, given that he will have a full year of injury rust to knock off, but really is just a mystery box since he was a raw prospect who showed promise but has now missed two years of development. But everyone has a specific advantage over Coats, who is otherwise projected by many to lead the field in playing time. Coats was only added to the 40-man roster last Summer, and can easily be stashed in the minors without risk of being claimed off waivers, whereas Liriano and Davidson cannot.

Coats has never suffered through a long stall in production at any stage of the minors, and has certainly earned a shot on a rebuilding club, but lacks the standout tools to project him as a consistent regular. If not wanting to lose a guy on waivers was enough to give Jerry Sands an Opening Day slot last year, it could definitely keep Coats in Charlotte for the start of April.

A sentiment we’re at risk of losing when discussing the turgid mechanics of figuring out playing time, is that unless Melky just becomes a full-time DH, none of these guys figure to fill the position particularly well. Davidson was supposed to have plenty of power, but also strike out a ton and hit for a low average that would make his offense an asset only if he could stick at third base. Liriano was always revered as a toolshed, and his throwing arm and athleticism were supposed to help prop up the unrefined elements of his game at the plate, and Garcia was looked upon similarly but with more reverence for his speed and hit tool, and all three have seen hopes of fulfilling those past expectations dim drastically.

So all three are options to slot at DH for the sake of giving them at-bats and a chance to prove themselves, but are not necessarily great fits that would preclude the Sox from finding a veteran bat and hoping they hit well enough to be flipped for prospects. Mets writers have been very keen to suggest the White Sox relieve New York of their inability to trade Jay Bruce, but that could be a very expensive and thankless favor.

But maybe the Sox should be in the business of doing expensive favors with little chance of paying off; they have all of $69 million in pre-arbitration obligations for 2017 and figure to shed Frazier’s expensive third year of arbitration at some point, not to mention David Robertson and possibly Cabrera’s contract. If the budget-conscious Mets are willing to sweeten the pot with a prospect to have Bruce taken off their hands, it becomes a worthwhile maneuver. The Sox could similarly do well to inquire just how disenchanted the Cardinals are with Matt Adams, and see if the 28-year-old could reclaim any of his promise on the South Side. The Cardinals have a lot of infield options and no true first base bat, and would probably be interested in shedding some of them for Abreu, while we’re at it. And that’s before we glance at a slow-playing free agent market that still has Chris Carter, Pedro Alvarez and Mike Napoli hanging around.

Just because the big league club is set to become a clearinghouse for reclamation projects doesn’t mean they need to be inherently overmatched ones, and the realm of hitters with some chance of success who are too risky for contenders to take a chance on does not end at the Sox 40-man roster, and they would be wise to leverage their ability to survive a flop.

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

And, uh, it’s a bit of mismatch.

Liriano is the type of toolsy, post-hype Quad-A guy that winds up on waivers when he is 25 years-old, and might not be news that leads the website unless he’s acquired in late-October. That a Spring Training beanball led to him missing all of 2016 with facial fractures and concussion symptoms means he’s had less failure at the major league level than other players with his profile (he turns 26 next June), it does mean that he just missed an entire season with facial fractures and concussion symptoms.

There are probably way too many Avisail Garcia parallels here for anyone to get very comfortable. To list them out, we have:

–Big right-handed raw power that has yet to show consistently in game situations

–Once lauded for plus-speed that has little chance of sticking, given his six-feet, 230-pound frame

–Technically “toolsy” but is still relegated to an outfield corner and is unlikely to be good enough defensively to be worth it if he’s not a plus hitter

–An injury robbed of him of an opportunity to show his worth during a rebuilding year, and now it’s a guess as to whether he could contribute to a winning major league team

In this case, Liriano has lost out on two years, as he spent 2013 recovering from Tommy John surgery on his throwing arm.

The plus side of the ledger for Liriano is less yellowed and dog-eared than Avisail’s, however. While he will not be making any return to a top-100 prospect list anytime soon, and is out of minor league options–which mutes hope of him providing minor league depth–Liriano has just over 120 bad major league plate appearances to his name, rather than the thousands Garcia and Dayan Viciedo racked up. The last time he played in games where people cared about the statistics, he hit .292/.383/.460 in 549 plate appearances for the Padres’ Triple-A affiliate in 2015, drew a 11.7 walk rate, and stole 18 bases in 26 tries.

The odds are stacked against Liriano, who was always a raw talent that has now missed two years of crucial development time, but he’s the type of guy major league teams would still give a chance to at this point in his career. The question is what kind of chance is he getting?

The 2016 Brewers, openly in a strip-down rebuilding mode, were an ideal environment for Liriano to get hundreds of major league plate appearances before tragedy–or more literally, a baseball–struck. If the 2017 White Sox are the same sort of team, then they will be a fine home for Rymer, but likely a grim outfit to watch overall.

But if the 2017 White Sox are trying to contend for a playoff spot, then they will be a team that should be fairly hard for Liriano to make, unless he is so undeniably brilliant in Spring that the Sox must break camp with him.

Consider a Sox team like the one envisioned in our offseason plan, where they have acquired an everyday centerfielder, and signed proven veteran bats to contribute at DH. Liriano would need to prove himself more important than having an extra up-the-middle defender or pinch-runner on the roster, or somehow make Melky Cabrera look expendable, which would be an uphill battle. The Sox would likely need to try to make some minor Conor Gillaspie-for-Jeff Soptic type deal at the end of camp to get something back for Liriano, or just option him and likely lose him, which would be unfulfilling but also not cost them anything.

But another Sox team that seeks to compete, but breaks camp with a skeleton roster akin to the last two seasons, could potentially be taking a chance on Liriano in a significant role, which is the only scenario in which this acquisition becomes regrettable.

Adding more talent to the organization is never bad, and Liriano is that, but how he’s used will probably be the big determining factor in how his Sox tenure is remembered.

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