And yet, they absolutely cruised, so much so that David Robertson likely had to blow dust off his shoulders when he started warming up Sunday afternoon.

This is no small part due to the Twins being absolutely terrible–a complete doormat that is only starting to realize how far away from contention they truly are. They might be at their most vulnerable right now, as they cycle through terrible veteran options (Darin Mastroianni is not a cure to Byron Buxton‘s struggles) before they just punt and let their prospects have at it.

But show me a White Sox fan who is unimpressed by this team being able to easily win games against awful clubs they should hammer and I will show you a brand new White Sox fan.

2. Speaking of bizarre news that can barely be understood, Jose Abreu‘s slow start, Todd Frazier‘s low batting average and Brett Lawrie cooling off a bit means Avisail Garcia, with his .256/.340/.463 line, is leading the White Sox in slugging percentage.

Garcia has provided false early hope before, as he carried a .300 average with moderate power all the way to the second week of June last year until posting .235/.288/.322 over his last ~400 plate appearances. The difference with buying into that hot streak is that it required hope that Garcia could suddenly just be an elite barrel-to-ball guy while maintaining all his problems with pitch selection and velocity on the inner half of the plate. There was a sky-high BABIP that he lacked the skills to maintain behind everything, and it came crashing down in precipitous and predictable fashion.

This year is powered by, well, power (an ISO over .200 at long last), and one look at Garcia’s frame and career 23 percent strikeout rate and it’s pretty clear that that needs to be a major part of making his living. Combine that with plate discipline numbers that show less swinging and less chasing across the board, and the only reason for cynicism is the cynicism that Garcia’s career invites.

He’s not doing much that has not been seen from Garcia before–crushing hangers, showing the ability to spray pitches on the outer half to all fields–but thus far he is simply showing the ability to do it reliably while curbing out some of his most egregious mistakes.

The book on how to attack him remains pretty clear–elevated velocity, especially on the inner half of the zone–and whether he can eat up mistakes at a rate that neutralizes this vulnerability feels like a long-term test for someone who was as relentlessly chewed up as he was by major league pitching in the second half. A Sox team that has its eyes on contention wants a left-handed complement to Garcia at the least, but Jerry Sands shouldn’t steal Avisail’s playing time anymore.

3. Per Jon Heyman, the White Sox are one of four teams abnormally obsessed with two-time NL Cy Young Award winner Tim Lincecum. Heyman says Lincecum sat 89-92 mph with sharp breaking stuff, but the last really productive Lincecum season was 2011 with steady velocity bleed since then.

Miguel Gonzalez is expected to start Monday night, Erik Johnson just submitted an unimpressive audition of his own and Latos has a discouraging recent injury history, beyond any concerns about his performance holding up. As such the White Sox are in a position to take all comers. But Lincecum has the potential to be significantly more expensive–in the sense that he even has something as large as Latos’ contract coming his way–than typical waiver wire refugees, without any recent history to suggest he will outperform them.

Almost any pitcher the Sox evaluate and determine there is hope for is inherently intriguing, but Lincecum’s last four years are considerably less interesting than Miguel Gonzalez’s when name recognition is taken out of the equation.

Elsewhere in the rumor mill, for what it’s worth, Nick Cafardo reports the White Sox could be in on Jay Bruce. Fresh off decidedly below-average offensive years, Bruce is currently hitting .234/.284/.467 with 31 strikeouts to six walks, but at least his bad defense wouldn’t be a factor. Thankfully, the connection to Bruce is more a general connection to all left-handed bats on the market, and there are better ones out there.

4. In addition to Gonzalez, Alex Avila is eligible to return to the team Monday from his hamstring injury. Dioner Navarro has been a house of fire at the plate since the moment Avila went down (.326/.354/.605 in 48 plate appearances) but it can be agreed that five-to-six starts per week is not great for either of these guys, no matter who should be getting No. 1 billing.

Navarro is currently the worst framer in baseball, but has strong endorsements from the pitching staff, and since Avila has not yet shown any signs of abating his multi-season power drain (one extra-base hit in 33 plate appearances), Navarro should be able to cling to a majority of the playing time.

5. Jose Quintana is second in the AL in ERA among starters, while Sale is fourth, but Sale is second in the AL in the lowest opposing OPS, while Quintana is a mere sixth, and Sale also leads all of baseball in wins, for what it is worth. cFIP has them stride-for-stride, with Sale fourth and Quintana fifth in the AL, and they are in the same order as seventh and eighth in DRA.

Point being, Quintana, a guy who had established his reputation as a good No. 2 starter with ERAs in the low-to-mid 3.00s like a metronome, is keeping pace with the best starters in the league in the early going. He was due for a hot start that got him the All-Star attention he deserves, but how you feel about the Sox’ potential to keep their status at the top of the division should have a lot to do with the ceiling of their top three starters. Save for Lawrie and Garcia, the regression arrow for the Sox offense mostly points up, but there’s no real precedent for someone like Quintana to just continually ascend from minor league free agent, to back-end starter, to mid-rotation guy, to bonafide No. 2, to All-Star/fringe No. 1. Still, he’s been steadily adding velocity, breaking pitches and elite command like rules don’t apply to him for this long, so who is to say when it stops.

Lead Image Credit: Jerry Lai // USA Today Sports Images

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

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

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

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

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

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

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