The White Sox announced that Opening Day center fielder Jacob May has been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. A corresponding roster move will be made tonight. As CSN Chicago’s Dan Hayes writes, May winning the Opening Day gig in center was a surprise that was fueled by a strong spring performance, but his 2-for-36 start to the season ended his first taste of the Majors. “He might have been a little overmatched,” manager Rick Renteria said of May. “That’s just the bottom line. You want to make excuses for it. Might have been a little overmatched right now. … His energy has always been the same. It’s very consistent. He’s done everything for the work in the field and working with the guys in the cages and everything else we could have asked of him.” With May in Triple-A, Leury Garcia figures to continue to receive quite a bit of time in center field. The 26-year-old is off to a .306/.323/.484 start to his season through 65 plate appearances.
More from the AL Central…
- Indians outfielder Austin Jackson exited last night’s game with an apparent injury, as MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian writes. Jackson seemingly injured his left leg or foot when attempting to leg out an infield single, as he landed awkwardly on the first base bag. As Bastian points out, Jackson had left knee surgery last season, though manager Terry Francona said after the game that Jackson’s foot would be examined rather than his knee. Jackson was able to walk off the field under his own power, though he was in noticeable pain after beating out the throw to first base. The 30-year-old Jackson is off to a nice start with Cleveland, hitting .273/.368/.485 through 38 plate appearances.
- The Tigers optioned right-hander Joe Jimenez back to Triple-A on Sunday, and MLive.com’s Evan Woodberry writes that he was sent down with the specific goal of improving his slider. The 22-year-old Jimenez was knocked around for six runs in 3 1/3 innings in his most recent stint with the big league club. “…[T]hat slider could be the difference-maker, in terms of making the jump to the big leagues and sticking,” said manager Brad Ausmus. Tigers relievers have a league-worst 6.19 ERA on the season, and Jimenez is the team’s most promising relief prospect, so it stands to reason that he’ll likely be back with the big league club in the relatively near future.
- Minor League Baseball announced yesterday that former Twins general manager Bill Smith has been hired as an assistant to president and CEO Pat O’Conner. “[Smith’s] wealth of experience in all aspects of Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball will be helpful as we continue to grow our operations and improve the teams’ ability to serve our fans and partners at Major League Baseball,” said O’Conner of the hiring. “Bill is respected throughout the industry and his abilities are unquestioned.” Per MiLB’s release, Smith will focus on facility improvements, scheduling and minor league baseball’s international leagues.
Naquin needs to be back in the majors
Yep! The way he’s hitting in Columbus, I expect him to be called up quick like.
Don’t hold your breath, Tito doesn’t want Naquin up. He’ll just play golden boy Lonnie and cheatin’ Abe more. If anybody is called up it’ll be an extra reliever
He’ll just start Michael Martinez in CF.
Ugh.
May was more than a little over matched. But what else would you expect from someone out of the White Sox system.
we have a top 5 farm system.
Yes, but the organization is still lacking in impact position prospects with high hit tools, particularly in the outfield. That makes signing Cuban OF Luis Robert a high priority later this month for the White Sox. Only 2B Yoan Moncada (#1), C Zack Collins (#6) and CF Luis Alexander Basabe (#8) appear in the organizations top-10 list of prospects, the rest are pitchers. In addition, Basabe’s best traits are his speed, arm and fielding, not his hit tool.
They have a good system that was stocked with players from other teams. Who is the last hitting prospect the white sox developed? And before you say Tim Anderson, I think this season is showing that it was perhaps too early to call him a total success after last year. So before that?
Feels like the answer is Frank Thomas. Been a while since the Sox drafted and developed a position player who amounted to anything.
Precisely why they should be looking for OF prospects in exchange for Quintana. The lack of talent in the outfield has really hurt the organization over the last few decades.
The organization has definitely been lacking in elite level hitting prospects over the last couple of decades. They did produce some outstanding hitters prior to that.
In addition to HOF slugger Frank Thomas, that list would include 3B Robin Ventura and OF’s Magglio Ordonez and Carlos Lee. The latter two were traded off the team more or less at the request of manager Ozzie Guillen who desired a club capable of playing ball more in the style of an NL club where he was a coach prior to becoming the White Sox skipper.
Joe Crede might have been the best White Sox position prospect developed since then and he was drafted all the way back in 1996 as a high school selection. He didn’t make his MLB debut until 2000 and wasn’t a fixture in the White Sox lineup until late July of 2002. He was an impacting hitter and defensive 3B for nearly 5 seasons before chronic back issues cut his career short. Crede was an instrumental part of the White Sox 2005 championship club as was another White Sox draft pick from 1998, CF Aaron Rowand.
Aaron Rowand? Joe Crede? They only came up, like, FIFTEEN years ago!
This.
It’s still the same terrible system it was before. The ranking was just boosted by outside talent. The previous prospects didn’t get any better and the fundamental problems the system had are still there.
So prospects don’t count if they are acquired from other organization? lol
Btw-The White Sox have revamped their player development system in the past couple of years and did receive pretty good grades from their most recent Rule 4 draft last June which included some position prospects with decent enough hit tools. C Zack Collins (#6) OF Alex Call (#14) and OF/1B Jameson Fisher (#15) were all advanced college bats who now appear in the organization’s top-15 list of prospects. Time will tell if they can be developed sufficiently enough to earn a promotion to the parent club.
“So prospects don’t count if they are acquired from other organization? lol”
When you are talking specifically about the white sox ability to develop position players, then no, having good hitting prospects from other teams in your farm system does not count as an argument against that.
Yes, we all know the White Sox have had problems developing position prospects. They still used an extremely valuable resource in home grown organizational asset Chris Sale to acquire both 2B Yoan Moncada and CF Luis Alexander Basabe, among others.
Personally, I don’t give a rat’s a$$ if the organization doesn’t get credit for drafting them as long as they become fixtures for a contending White Sox club in the next few years. Boston can take all the credit they want but the White Sox will still play a part in their overall development as potential impact MLB players.
Btw-The White Sox also signed an impacting international FA slugger of their own in Jose Abreu following the 2013 season. Since he was already an advanced bat coming out of Cuba I suppose they will never receive proper credit from fans like yourself in identifying him as a talent who never needed a day of minor league development. That’s just fine with me.
Dumping a couple of high-level prospects in a system does nothing to improve it. You still have the same coaches, scouting and drafting that lead to the problem.
Except for the fact that they’ve made changes in all those aspects within the last two years. But don’t let facts get in the way of your argument.
There is literally no correlation whatsoever
The lack of positional depth in the organization since 2005 is a legit criticism. Yes, there have been both coaching & scouting changes since, but the results are still lacking. There isn’t even the sniff of potential for a Schwarber, Byrant, Russell, & Baez to emerge at roughly the same time. it remans to be seen whether Hahn will continue to aim for top prospects regardless of position or start narrowing the focus on depth weakness.
Any fan saying he didn’t get enough for Sale & Eaton is in denial of how quickly the rebuild stalled afterwards. All teams know that if they want Q they better have a Sale like offer.
A 14-11 won’t change Hahn’s goal of trading short-timers Abreu, Frazier, Melky, & Robertson before the deadline, but 30-20 will. In the past Kenny would deal propsects for rent-a-players at that juncture. Even if that should grow to 45-30, I expect Hahn to maintain a longer term focus.