TODAY: The Giants recalled Gonzalez from Triple-A today and placed him on the Major League version of the 60-day IL.
AUGUST 12: The Giants officially announced González has been claimed off waivers. He has been optioned to Triple-A Sacramento. With third baseman Evan Longoria expected to return from the 60-day injured list in the coming days, it seems likely González will wind up on the 60-day IL whenever Longoria’s ready for reinstatement.
AUGUST 11: The Giants are claiming outfielder Luis González off release waivers from the White Sox, reports Kiley McDaniel of ESPN (Twitter link). González was released on Monday when the Sox reinstated Luis Robert from the 60-day injured list.
The move was a cost savings measure on Chicago’s part. González suffered a season-ending shoulder injury during an optional assignment to Triple-A Charlotte. Players on the minor league IL remain on the 40-man roster and can’t be outrighted. To remove González from the 40-man, the ChiSox had to either place him on the major league 60-day IL — where he’d receive MLB pay and service time — or release him.
Chicago elected for the latter course of action, presumably with the intent of re-signing González to a minor league deal if he cleared waivers. Doing so saved the White Sox from paying the 25-year-old the major league minimum salary for the remainder of the year. (They’re not unique in this regard, as the Tigers and Diamondbacks did the same thing with Franklin Pérez and Jon Duplantier, respectively, this season). Releasing the player instead of adding him to the major league IL comes with the risk of losing him, however — either via claim or the player signing elsewhere after clearing waivers.
The Giants intervened to add an interesting young player with an eye towards 2022 and beyond. Baseball America ranked González the #19 prospect in the White Sox system midseason, writing that he projects as an average hitter with gap power and the ability to play some center field. He had a decent season with Charlotte, hitting .241/.352/.423 with seven homers over 163 plate appearances.
San Francisco figures to immediately place González on the 60-day IL. He’ll make the major league minimum for the remainder of the year and won’t cost the team a 40-man roster spot during the season. González will have to be reinstated from the IL at the start of the offseason. If he sticks on the 40-man roster all winter, he’ll offer the Giants a lefty-hitting depth option for the outfield. González has one minor league option year remaining beyond this season.
Ok well, if your name is Luis Gonzalez and you play in the west, you are probably good. Dang it white Sox
Being a Rockies fan that watched (the other) Luis Gonzalez play second base in the mid 2000s, I disagree with your “probably good” assessment.
The other “Luis Gonzalez” never played second base.
Yes he did. He was the starting second baseman for the Rockies in 2004 and 2005. I’m not talking about the guy that played for the Diamondbacks and Astros. He never played for Colorado at all. There was a third Luis Gonzalez. I am talking about the Rule 5 pick that played around 3 years for the Rockies.
He’s talking about a third, much more obscure, player with the same name.
Reminds me of the Warriors Joe Smith. The team invited everyone named Joe Smith court side one night and it got pretty crowded!
He’s still alive?
Yes- the all the roids have kept him young.
Meh. He was likely lost in a numbers game even when healthy.
The original Luis Gonzalez was spotted sitting near me in Section 128 of PacBell Park during the 2002 World Series. Quite a hitter he was!
Hopefully he’ll Roid-up over the winter and hit 57 taters for the Giants next year!
How could so many of the lower division teams let this guy pass by them on waivers? I mean what is really the cost of leaving him on the 40 and on the minor league IL? You won’t even lose service time? Do the Pirates, Marlins, Rockies, and Diamondbacks feel they are strong enough on the farm to pass on a free top 30 prospect from a good farm system? Silly.
The Sox farm isn’t that good anymore.
LOL…Yep, because they all just arrived and the WS are set for the next 4-5 years. People don’t get that. This is why they are drafting HS players, some of which will be in the top 100 in the next 2-3 years. In the meantime, I expect them to go to college with future drafts. The farm system is great, but we have a 5 year window – NOW!
I don’t know about that. Jared Kelley is gonna be pretty good, ditto Matt Thompson. Yolquei Cespedes and Elijah Tatis have undeniable pedigree. And word around baseball is they’ve already got a deal worked out for Oscar Colas once he’s eligible. They might not have a ton of current top 100 talent, but they’ve got extremely high ceiling guys that’ll move into those spots really, really soon.
He doesn’t go on the minor league IL, it’s the major league one. He gets paid MLB league minimum (around $575K/year prorated) and does accrue service time. But he doesn’t block anyone else.
As a Sox fan, Gonzalez feels like a prospective 4th outfielder/bench piece, without a ton of upside. There’s always a chance that he breaks out, but I don’t think the chances are high. Would have like to have kept him for depth in the minors, but it doesn’t seem to be a significant loss.
He can go on the minor league IL if he is OPTIONED. He can’t be outrighted off the 40 man, but he can be optioned to the minors since the injury happened in the minors.
The Rockies FO isn’t sure which way is west.
Pretty much yep
Exactly what i thought.
3Livers: Where’s your Biden graphic defamation??! Equal Time, you know…
pretty reckless to let a prospect like this go. sometimes it works, but the ability to 60-day a guy like this makes it an easy move. just as reckless as SEA doing the same with that RP they let go of, though Gonzalez is an even better prospect.
“Reckless,” says the armchair GM. *rolling eyes*
because GMs are infallible…
There’s a difference between an experienced GM making a move that ultimately doesn’t pan out and him being “reckless.” Call me crazy, but I suspect Hahn considered all of the implications of releasing the .241 AA hitter on his team more than you did.
Delapane was the guy I was thinking of
The White Sox OF is pretty loaded and young. Losing this guy is hardly reckless.
Could be another sneaky good pickup for Zaidi.
There’s nothing “sneaky” about it.
You got it bud
There’s nothing prominent/front page about it either. Nobody that isn’t a Giants/White Sox fan probably even batted an eye at a transaction like this, however if he’s hitting .260/.330/.500 with 13 homers half way through the 2023 season, I’m sure they’ll refer to this move as somewhat sneaky. They had a day where the following guys all HR’d, and one of the Giants writers referred to them all as sneaky-good Farhan acquisitions. Solano(minor league deal)
Yaz(traded for Tyler Herb)
Ruf(minor league deal)
Flores(2yr/$6m deal)
Wade(traded for Shaun Anderson)
Also, what makes it sneaky isn’t that nobody knows about it, it’s that it’s a deal for a guy nobody wanted yet the giants may see a bright future in. Every transaction is posted, however not every assignment/instruction from the training staff is. They view him as someone who can help the club someday, and other teams didn’t. If he’s successful, this was a transaction that didn’t move the needle, thus making it a “sneaky good” deal, as Farhan gets to add to his reputation of finding diamonds in the rough, with guys nobody wanted. If he’s successful, Farhan gets the rights to brag “always knew he had it in him” and so forth. That’s what teams do whenever it’s a low risk pickup. If they perform, the club gets production from an unlikely area and it makes them look like they knew something other clubs didn’t because anyone could’ve had him. Kris Bryant in the other hand, moves the needle. Farhan doesn’t look like a genius for getting Bryant, as anyone can figure out “get 29yo former MVP=makes team better”. He gets credit for the moves that don’t pop up. The moves that get one required article on trade rumors and nothing else. The guys nobody expects to do anything. That’s why if they produce, it looks like SF knew something other clubs didn’t.
Lmao don’t pretend like macdaddy96 is the first person, nor the last, to call Farhan add-on’s that end up producing “sneaky good deals”. It’s an extremely common term. Extremely common, due to finding success in unlikely places.
Zzz
Nice blog Andy.
how you doin? thanks for the essay. now go look at Gonzalez #’s.
Keep in mind that the Giants, with the best record in baseball, were the only team who put a waiver claim in for this guy so it doesn’t seem like he was well-regarded by the other 29 teams in the league. This is a typical Zaidi gamble, but a lot of his gambles have paid off the past couple of seasons. At best, this kid becomes a 4th OF (which can be valuable) but he’s not a future star, or most likely not even a future starter in this league.
Hope this move doesn’t come back to haunt the Chisox like the one involving that other outfielder, Fernando Tatis.
Wait pretty soon chitown311 will tell you you’re wrong that that move wasn’t actually a bad one because nobody knew he was good then. You know because that isn’t a fail on their Scouting and Development.
Oh wait my bad – I forgot he only comments on Cubs posts never mind.
From watching him play he screams 4th outfielder type vibes. He’s a major leaguer, but no way will they lose sleep over losing him.
*Whispers* White Sox fans said the exact same thing about Fernando Tatis, Jr.
Tatis was 17 at the time. Things like that happen. Luis is 25, you can get a pretty good idea of their skill sets at that age.
Every White Sox move from now until the end of time……I hope this prospect doesn’t end up being as good as Tatis!!! LET IT GO people! Every……single…..team has traded a prospect and ended up regretting it. The deal was really only bad at all because Shields ended up sucking!
So they don’t want to pay him the minimum salary and accrue service time? Instead, they lose him for nothing. Is his value that low or is the team that cheap? It’s not like he is making millions or even a million.
Good question. Evidently he wasn’t worth spending $150k or so to find out.
I was wondering (and still kinda are) if there’s an implied gentleman’s agreement among GMs to let players like him go through waivers so that the team can save $$$.
Because otherwise it makes no sense why take such a big risk, and also why no other team took a chance other than the 1st place Giants with the best record in the MLB, literally the last team that could have claimed him.
are?
Checking baseball-reference, I see at least 8 Luis Gonzalezes — although only 4 reached the majors.
Considering the luck and power the Giants are getting this season, this one is sure to hit 57 home runs.
Since the Giants seem incapable of drafting/signing/developing their own outfielders, got to try and mine the systems of other MLB teams to get them. It’s only money…
Get ready for Heliot Ramos…. Bozo
Sorry, Yourself, Bozo.
Still waiting for Mac Williamson, Jarrett Parker, Gary Woods.
Ramos, Bishop, Matos who are in the SF top 10 alone. Canario who we just got Bryant for, Reynolds who is now one of the top OF in the league.
Really good point, since Williamson, Parker, and Woods, are the only OF prospects ever to fail to make much of an impact.
Gary Woods? Are you thinking about Gary Brown?
Old regime drafted those guys, so those players irrelevant now
none of them, save Reynolds, who is on another team, have proven anything yet, to be fair.
the worst of the bunch
I’ll withhold judgement till I see what they do in the Majors.
Parker, Williamson and Brown were all well regarded in their day.
nentwigs:
Teams have finite resources. When it comes to draft choices, the higher picks are best player available. But after the top prospects they tend to focus on certain areas. The Giants chose to focus on pitching, due to the high rates of both failure, and injury, associated with pitchers.
Their first couple of titles were pretty much accomplished on the backs of a core of homegrown pitchers, Lincecum, Bumgarner, Jonathan Sanchez, and Cain. I think that approach worked. Even Vogelsong, signed as a FA, was drafted and developed by the Giants.
That’s the result of focusing on pitching. IF and catching were also areas that made major contributions towards their titles. Those teams were built on pitching and defense.
Plus OF is the easiest area to address in free-agency. With the kind of success the Giants have had, it’s a little nit-picky to complain about them not developing an out-fielder. But if you want to argue with success, have at it.
To be fair Williamson was looking pretty solid till his concussion gave him a unnatural fear of walls.
What? I hate the Giants, but this is an odd take. The Giants are in the middle of a rebuild with a new front office. You can’t judge their player development this early. The last regime traded a lot of their prospects. One of them was an outfielder named Bryan Reynolds.
Zack Wheeler as well recently, but one of the funnier ones was letting Duvall go because they didn’t think he could be a serviceable outfielder, then they trade Reynolds for McCutchen. Way to subtract 2 good prospects that play outfield for like nothing because Cutch did not move the needle. Front office fail.
I agree with what you said, but I’m curious why you and so many others hate the giants? Genuinely curious.
I am a life time giants fan but I absolutely have no illusions about the team, or how much fortune and luck played into their three rings.
As far as players on the team, there aren’t stars much more likable than posey, Crawford, and Bryant. And I have heard only good things about Zaidi and the front office.
I’m a Dodgers fan. I cannot not hate them.
As a life long Giants fan I can respect that. Looking forward to the best playoff series ever this year. Honestly if I hadn’t bet 1k on the giants in April to win the WS I would be more interested in that playoff series than I would the rest of the post season
Cold take
I dont know, Adam Duvall and Bryan Reynolds turned out pretty good. Giants have always never held back from trading top prospects for potential playoff runs (Zach Wheeler for Carlos Beltran still burns)
I would of released Jake Lamb instead of Gonzalez.
Farhan never stops transacting.
Transactors gotta transact.
Given his age and injury his value as a prospect is likely compromised to the point of not being with the $. That and perhaps they feel they have better options for the 40 man prior to the rule 5.
No real surprised he got claimed. Though I am a little surprised he fell all the way to the Giants. I’m a little suprised one of the rebuild teams didn’t gamble on him. I don’t expect a lot out of him, but he could develop into a useful player someday.
He seems like a guy who would be a ok 4th outfielder.
I would think that the fact he has another option year available plays here. And can’t see why some lesser teams couldn’t “stash” him for 2021 and go from there.
And please, enough about 40-man crunches. Most of those are simply made up. Losing good players in Rule 5 is ALWAYS an evaluation problem, not an availability one.
The only team I see with a problem is Tampa, and that’s only because quite a few of their lower tier prospects are becoming eligible this year.
What do you mean by “made up”?
The 40-man roster crunch doesn’t even apply here, because Gonzalez can be stashed on the 60-day IL and not take up a spot.
This is purely an instance of the White Sox being cheap. Nothing more.
The reference was to the off season 40man, where the IL disappears.
Made up in the sense that just about every team has AT LEAST 2-3 players it could easily cut loose, and they’d pass through waivers. No other team wants your #38, 39, and 40 guys either. It’s dramatically over blown.
Gonzalez has a shoulder injury but haven’t heard extent of the injury or what it is.
Went to the Charlotte Knights site and saw some highlights, homered on consecutive nights and a great catch a few days before he hit the IL.
For less than 1/3 MLB minimum salary and ability to stash on the 60 day IL this was a no brainer for the Giants.
Man he’s still playing? What is he 60?
Good to see this signing as a Padres Fan (nothing earth shattering that can keep our hopes down of catching up in the NL West (which we will)…..
I guess that charge to the top of the division will have to start tomorrow.
As a fellow Padres fan, I say with the greatest respect, but have you actually watched the team this year? We don’t have the pitching, or the depth in our lineup to catch the Giants or the Dodgers. I understand being optimistic, but anyone who legit thinks we’re winning this division is smoking something.
We should just hope to cement the WC spot and try to put Darvish up against the best Dodgers or Giants have in a 1 game and cross our fingers.
dreamer
The Next Yaz ?
I truly had no idea the baseball universe felt this passionately about Luis Gonzalez lol.
Why is this in the future tense?
I don’t get why the Sox did not just keep him. I KNOW it was not about money, time or roster spots – so why let him get away?
How can you say you know this was not about money, when that is what it’s about. I say that believing it was in context of the Sox questioning whether he was worth the money, but clearly money is what it came down to.
Still have not heard what the shoulder injury is. That might explain why White Sox let this kid go. Expected recovery time and/or how well others come back from whatever it is.
Somebody throw us a bone here!
Given the waiver wire process, there were 30 other teams who didn’t claim him before the Giants did…that should tell you something. Wish him well and glad he’s going to bank some coin for a couple of months.
Never know, teams passed or gave up on Lamonte Wade, Mike Yaz, Alex Dickerson, Donovan Solano, Darrin Ruf, and Thairo Estrata, all of whom have helped the Giants this year. Farhan Zaidi has been pretty good at getting players. I believe he also had a hand in getting Turner, Muncy & Taylor when he was with the Dodgers. I know one thing, he would not have traded B. Reynolds!
@msq 28 other teams.
29 teams passed on him, but that’s no proof that no one else was interested. Passing on a waiver claim in the hope he’ll be released would mean paying him the prorated league minimum. That’s kind of SOP for a lot of guys that get waived.
It’s probable that more than one team hoped he would clear. That Zaidi made the claim as the last team with the option to do so, looks to me like Zaidi didn’t want to risk losing him. Once he cleared he had the choice of going wherever he wanted.
I did learn somethingabout the waiver process I don’t chit about it and still don’t
getting him drinking the SF roid water and watch him explode on the scene
Better than breathing that yellow LA smog.
This is entirely Tony LaRussa’s fault. He hurt Mercedes’s feelings by holding him accountable which then hurt Luis Gonzalez’s feelings. Gonzalez started playing poorly as a silent protest of LaRussa which led to him being put on waivers.
Lol, faux millennial
You can blame LaRussa for this 100%. However, is because of his man crush on Jake Lamb. Not because he hurt the feelings of a career minor leaguer that had a month of success and at best a 4th outfield option in Gonzalez. Are you going to give LaRussa credit for keeping this team in contention despite losing 4 of their 9 starters to serious unifies throughout the season? Or do you only blame him for the bad stuff?
@jaysa
You missed the joke.
he hasn’t been that good with the white sox. then again, SF has a roster full of misfit toys that they’ve shaped into a playoff team. might hurt to lose this dude for nothing. optics already arent great.
If he is not a Surfer dude Kapler won’t like him.If he does not wear fish net thong and sunbathe on the rocks and let the sun hit his private parts he won’t fit in with Kapler.
Lol ok, haven’t heard that one before
You got me picturing Darin Ruf as a surfer dude in the ways you describe. So thanks for that, jerk.
Please have D-back type potential!!!