The White Sox are in agreement with right-hander Jeanmar Gomez on a minor league contract, tweets SB Nation’s Chris Cotillo. The Magnus Sports client will vie for a bullpen role with the South Siders in Spring Training.
Gomez, 30 in February, got off to a strong start with the Phillies in 2016 and emerged as their closer, saving 37 games for the Phils over the course of that season. However, his ERA and save total never matched up with his secondary numbers, and he was tattooed for 17 runs in eight innings that September.
The Phils held onto Gomez despite pedestrian peripheral marks, but his struggles took a turn for the worse in 2017. Gomez was torched for a 7.25 ERA in 22 1/3 innings with the Phillies this past season and ultimately cut loose in late June. He latched on with the Mariners and Brewers on minor league contracts and threw well with their Triple-A affiliates, though he never resurfaced in the Majors.
Chicago GM Rick Hahn has been active in bringing in experienced bullpen options this offseason, hoping to create depth and perhaps to catch lightning in a bottle — as he did with minor league signee Anthony Swarzak last offseason. The Sox took on Joakim Soria (and cash) and Luis Avilan in a three-team trade with the Royals and Dodgers, and they’ve added several veterans on minor league deals as well. In addition to Gomez, the Pale Hose will have Xavier Cedeno, Rob Scahill, T.J. House and Chris Volstad in camp this spring, among others. Beyond that, they swung a trade with the Mariners to acquire hard-throwing young righty Thyago Vieira, giving them yet another arm to compete for relief innings in 2018.
Steve, in the third paragraph the phrase is “took a turn for the worse” rather than “worst” as you have it written.
Aside from that, solid article!
I’ve never understood why so many people on this forum feel the need to correct everyone’s work, especially at times when it’s obviously a typo. Everyone reading this understood what he was saying.
A lot of you guys act like y’all are world class authors and come across as smug.
He’s all blowed..up
Third paragraph “though he never resurfaced in the minors.” Should be majors. Keep doing the good work Steve.
Steve: Last word in 3rd paragraph should be “majors” not “minors”. Good stuff otherwise.
Misuse of the second comma in the last sentence of the second paragraph..
What they’re trying to say Steve is you can’t write
Another solid pickup by Hahn.
Great article!
Grammar police up here.
Great lottery ticket for the sox bullpen, nothing to lose on a minor league deal.
Nothing worse than the grammar
Police!
Brutal comments haha
Well the article saying they are trying to hire an NFL writer says that grammatical and spelling errors are not acceptable.
You made a grammatical error in your comment by not including a comma after the word well.
He also doesn’t work here or on the NFL site…
Well, that’s why I don’t work for MLBTR.
Good for Jeanmar. I hope he makes the team. I always liked him when he was with the Phillies. Good Christian man.
His faith didn’t help with his ERA last year.
You tryin’ to say Jesus Christ can’t hit a curveball??
Solid move. When the Sox trade Soria and/or Gomez to the Astros in July for a top 50 overall prospect, it’ll be an even better move.
Hahn > Theo … spread the word. Don’t believe it? Hahn received the #4 prospect in baseball and another top 100 for the Cubs’ #3 or #4 starter. ROBBERY!
Yessir! Hahn also hasn’t made two of the worst free agent signings in the history of pro sports.
0% chance Astros trade a top prospect for him. Astros have only 2 top 50 at the moment, maybe 4 by mid season. No way they trade any of them for someone like Gomez.
I remember this time last year all the White Sox fans were telling Astros fans that if they don’t trade for Quintana they are going to miss the playoffs. How did that work out?
That was so last year. Get over it already! LOL.
I may have been one of those people.
The “Pale Hose?” lol, I haven’t heard that one before
Don’t think Hahn really cares that much about getting guys to throw relief innings so much as getting cheap trade chips. It’s a good way to build up prospect depth and he can keep doing it until they’re ready to actually compete. Plus, if they want to take a guy like Kopech or Fulmer and put him in the pen first like they did with Sale, it’s not like any of these guys will stand in their way. I just hope he means it when he says they’ll be active in the FA market when the time is right.
I think you’re on the mark here. Look what the modest signings of Swarzak and Kahnle yielded. I think Hahn has figured out a cheap way to manufacture trade capital with these under-the-radar bullpen signings. It’s a resource contending teams need around the trading deadline. On whether he’ll make any significant signings next off-season, there would be no bigger way to signal to the team and it’s fans that 2019 will be the season to contend than a significant signing or 2, so I suspect the team could make a splash. 2018 should reveal what they might need.