The White Sox have acquired infielder Jose Rondon from the Padres, per a club announcement. Cash considerations are headed to San Diego in return.
Rondon was designated recently by the Pads. Now, he’ll head to another rebuilding organization where he could challenge Tyler Saladino for a spot on the team as a utility piece or perhaps head to Triple-A for further development. Of course, it’s also possible the Sox will ultimately seek to sneak him through waivers.
While the Padres have not been settled at short for some time, the team has quite a few young players filtering up at the position and elected to acquire Freddy Galvis to hold things down for the coming season. That left Rondon — who was originally acquired in the Huston Street trade — without much of an opportunity and ultimately without a roster spot.
The 23-year-old reached the majors briefly in 2016 but has mostly played of late in the upper minors. Last year, he spent most of his time at Double-A and turned in a solid overall .293/.347/.442 output with seven home runs in 347 total minor-league plate appearances. With a high-average bat and good defensive profile, it’s certainly conceivable that Rondon could turn into a useful MLB asset, though he has yet to develop much in the way of power and hasn’t drawn many walks in the upper minors.
what an exciting offseason.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but this was the move I was anticipating the most. Looks like all the trades and signings that are going to happen this offseason are pretty much over.
Nice pickup
I know you are a Sox fan as am I, and I am hopeful about the future but for a guy with no power, little speed and about a 4% walk rate, I’m not seeing what there is here that makes this a nice pickup. If he even sniffs the field, something went terribly wrong.
For starters, he didn’t cost anything of value and is better than any of the SS’s the Sox currently have in their system.
If you’re expecting him to become the starting SS for the White Sox anytime soon, then you’ll probably be disappointed. If you’re realistic and see him as a potential utility player and/or organizational depth piece, you probably won’t be disappointed. He put up solid numbers for a SS last year in the minors, and he apparently has a nice defensive profile. Sorry I’m not going to judge him based off an 8 game sample size as a 22 year old in the majors.
I tell ya what, if this guy plays 75 games in the majors for the White Sox in the next 3 years, not only would I call it a successful pick up, I will also buy you a beer.
Article mentions competing with Saladino for a roster spot, who was one of the worst statistical players in all of MLB in 2017, so he has a shot as low risk utility pickup without it being sign of a problem.
Kind of a weird cycle.
White sox trade Fernando Tatis Jr to the
Padres.
Padres designate Jose Rondon and make room for Tatis Jr in triple A.
White Sox acquire Jose Rondon.
I didn’t get the trade for Shields in the first place, and Tatis is just going to make it look that much worse in the coming years.
That’s why Kenny no longer gets a say
Hahn (who I think is doing a great job) is the one that made this move. The trade was in 2016. He just missed on that one. badly.
That trade never really made any sense, but in their defense, Tatis was a basically a nobody at the time. If anybody expected him to turn into anything even remotely close to this, he would’ve signed for a heck of a lot more than $825,000. The Sox did a nice job “finding” him, but they definitely messed up by trading him before giving him a chance. I would’ve loved to see him at the top of the position prospects in the Sox farm with Eloy and Robert.
Tatis Jr will not be starting in AAA this year. That was not the reason he was designated. Tatis barely jumped from low A ball to AA at the end of last year.
Make room for Guerra and tatis there is another short stop making its way up in the padres system
More like make room on the 40 man which is why he was DFA’d.
Yes and Guerra to El Paso. If tatis does play in aa next season; no longer two short stops
Jose may have an opportunity to become a useful MLB player with the rebuilding White Sox but it was another Rondon I was hoping would come to the White Sox earlier this offseason…Hector!
Why? Hector Rondon is terrible.
Why is he “terrible?”
He is joking, “Hector Rondon” is the former cubs reliever (who has been horrible lately).
Only the best for that lights out, White Sox bullpen. Lol
Hector Rondon was a successful closer for the Cubs for two years, including his first season in that role under current White Sox manager Rick Renteria back in 2014. Had the White Sox signed him after he being non-tendered by the Cubs earlier this offseason he would have been their likey closer to begin the 2018 season.
Instead Rondon will be relegated to a late inning setup man in Houston, a role he assumed with the Cubs half way through the 2016 season when the North Siders acquired Aroldis Chapman and then continued into 2017 when they signed Wade Davis.
Glad to see him leave SD, he was a thorn in the Dodgers side last year
According to the link, he only played 8 games in 2016, none last year.
Is he thinking of Pirela
I sincerely doubt that any Padre was a thorn in anyone’s side last year
Thank God for the Padres or absolutely nothing would be happening. They even signed Dave Cameron of Fangraphs.
Maybe this is a precursor to a Machado trade! They can move Anderson to CF or make him part of a package for Machado. Or maybe they’re just compiling depth in case they need/want to shift Anderson out of SS.
Why would the rebuilding White Sox want to trade for Manny Machado the one year rental!?!?!?!?
They wouldn’t unless there’s an immediate extension.
And Machado should agree to that because…
I asked myself same question before but they have some pieces they could deal from a depth perspective. Also, it’s not unreasonable since FA’s appear to have lost value and sign Moose & maybe an Alex Cobb to shorter deals and make a push for Wild Card or division. Moncada, Machado, Abreu, Moose, Avi, Castillo, Davidson, Delmonico, Anderson with Cobb, Rodon, Lopez, Shields & Giolito as starters may just surprise some people.
You live in Denver, don’t you?
Shields would surprise me if he kept his ERA on the right side of 4.50. Wouldn’t really want Moose and Cobb thinks he’s worth an AAV of about $18M. Plus, why sign a pitcher when the organization’s greatest strength is the depth of its pitching prospects? They have Rodon, Giolito, Lopez, Kopech, Cease, Dunning, and Hansen, not to mention a likely bullpen guy who could start if he had to in Fulmer. They don’t need more starting pitching. And I wouldn’t trade for Machado unless there’s an extension in hand. I doubt he doesn’t test the open market. I’d rather they get him next year when all he’ll cost is cash and a DP or two.
Wouldn’t they have just kept Sale and Quintana if they had any intention of contending this year or next year?
White Sox should 100% sign some starting pitchers this offseason. Giolito, Lopez and fulmer will most likely be shut down at some point this year. They should be targeting your Miguel Gonzalez types on one year deals though.
Giolito and Lopez each threw right around 170 innings last year. Going up to ~200 innings is a very realistic jump for each of them. I don’t see either being shut down unless there are injury concerns.
Lol. Well Miggy is in town now. You may be right about those two though. Still only gives them Giolito, Lopez, and Shields for a full season of innings. Rodon will miss the beginning of the year so it made sense to bring a guy like that in.
The guy was in DFA limbo. The only thing this is a precursor to is one less player in DFA limbo.
Not a bad move. Every team needs a couple of good utility guys and it looks like the Sox got one without giving up anybody.
hopefully the corresponding move is to DFA/release Dylan Covey
Finally – a deal we can all be happy about.