The White Sox announced this afternoon they’ve signed catcher Nick Ciuffo to a minor league contract and invited him to big league Spring Training. The 27-year-old elected minor league free agency after being outrighted off the Orioles’ roster at the start of the offseason.
Ciuffo’s a former first-round draftee of the Rays (21st overall in 2013) who was regarded as one of the more promising prospects in a deep Tampa Bay farm system for a while. He’s struggled offensively throughout his career, however, and his prospect pedigree diminished as he moved towards the upper levels. He did make it to the big leagues in 2018 and he’s seen some major league time in three of the past four seasons.
The lefty-hitting backstop has tallied 56 MLB plate appearances, including six over two games with Baltimore last season. He’s a .240/.291/.370 hitter in 453 trips to the plate at the minors’ top level. The White Sox have Zack Collins and Seby Zavala as backup options behind Yasmani Grandal on the 40-man roster.
You put snot on the ball?
Better snot mention that again!
love this signing.
mostly because i know that nick ciuffo is really nick castellanos wearing a fake beard.
Dumpster Diving Rick
You spelled Conforto wrong.
The club really needs a good backup defensive catcher that can block breaking balls and sub for Grandal in important games.
White Sox doing an awesome job with the most underwhelming signings.
Minor League signing. People really need to start understanding that these virtually no impact on the team at all.
oh no, we are getting the “virtually no impact” part of it. we are just looking for some “impact” signings.
The problem is mistakenly picking up the hefty Kimbrel option was a Hahn blunder on its face from the start and even more with JR’s uneasiness with higher payrolls. It is delaying their flexibility to sign or trade for a pricey left-handed bat. They need to dump the bulk of that salary asap and just accept a lottery ticket to improve club in other areas.
Can anyone provide an example of a GM picking up an option only to flip an asset? I just don’t follow the logic of buying high and doubling down in order to sell low. Where is the demand for closers? Will Kimbrel pitch well this season?
Hendriks can’t close every game back to back so Kimbrel can alternate the closing duties on back to back days. and be back to his old role when he pitched. well. You would hope he could be a setup reliever. for some reason it doesn’t suit him as well as being a closer career wise.
Go look up how many games Liam closed out back to back, then back to back to back…easy to find. You’ll find how much a junk post you made
With Twins signing Correa the White will battle for the 3rd and 4th spot in division. ZERO improvement, losing Rodon will play out to be massive mistake
You hope these signings are for a stacked blockbuster deal in the making. They could be fixing to trade minor leaguers to the A’s again. Twins are talking to A’s about Manaea and Montas which would be a lost opportunity. Burger, Adolfo, Colson, and others all in play. Mariners are serious.
@chisoxfan
What Hahn and JR are doing is so secret, even they don’t know!
Hahn and JR know what they are doing!
They just don’t advertise it!!
Great signing, White Sucks!!
Let’s see:
TA, Abreu, Moncada, Jimenez, Robert, Vaughn, Grandal, Giolito, Lynn, Cease, Kopech, Crochet, Lopez, Hendriks, Graveman, Bummer, Kelly. Looks like a nice nucleus. Very few teams can match or exceed their nucleus. And that assumes Keuchel and Kimbrel don’t have bounce back seasons.
So they have 2 holes offensively. And one of those holes are temporarily filled by Vaughn/Sheets/Engel/Garcia until Cespedes makes it up later this year.
So the back of the rotation has ?’s. Trade rotations with the Yankees and see how well that works for you.
So the bullpen needs help. What bullpen in baseball doesn’t need improving?
But let’s panic before a ST game is played, even though there’s very little to panic about.
WSox have a lot of good individual players on paper no doubt, but the pieces somehow don’t quite fit to be a legit contender. The poor defensive fundamentals, inability of most of its pitchers to hold runners, poor defensive catchers (pitch frame element aside for Grandal), can’t hit good righties well, can’t beat good teams on the road have been exposed over a decent sample size the past 2 seasons. As it stands, they are only about the 6th or 7th best team in the AL behind Houston/4 AL East squads and arguably Seattle. Pulling for this squad to go from a bottom feeder in a division where Cle or Detroit can catch them soon….to one that’s mentally and fundamentally tougher. That may mean trading some of its young right-handed players to make it more well rounded.
CWS, you are correct the defense is not good. Sox at the bottom in turning DP’s which help pitchers get out of jams. Astros were superior defensively and will be again if Correa re-signs with them.. With TA only playing 120 games, Moncada 130 games the infield is more hype than reality. TLR knows this, he just can’t say anything. Offense isn’t everything. Great pitching cancels it, defense keeps you in the game. TA is not a good SS, he’s not durable enough to play everyday. JP Crawford played 160 games,and a gold glover that’s durable.
Poop POST….JP Crawford over TA….That comment there makes your post silly as can be
@cws
Excellent assessment. Honest and on point. With Seattle adding Ray and now Winker, add them to the list of teams better than the Sox. If the Sox played in the West or East, they would only be among teams fighting for a playoff spot because of the expanded format. They would have very little chance of finishing higher than 3rd in either division. My guess is they would not even make the playoffs. That’s the reality of their weaknesses, and doing absolutely nothing to address them after they face planted against Houston. Jays are in on Schwarber, they have a much, much better lineup already than the Sox.
Their defense is close to league worst, you are right. They will get no help there, because their RF solution includes Sheets and Vaughn, who are both natural first baseman. Engel we know will not stay healthy. Eloy is an accident waiting to happen in left. And TA7 is frankly a pretty flawed player, all hit but he just does not add anything defensively. I mean, they did a great job at the start of the rebuild, and signing their best young players to reasonable contracts. But they made Grandal their highest FA contract, and you can’t win a title doing that. Not one truly excellent FA addition since. They needed Semien, Springer, etc. Not a bunch of relievers and a couple utility players. The total contract value of Harrison, Garcia, Kelly, Kimbrel, and Velazques is like 53M. You cannot even get even one really good player for that. No willingness to commit to longer term deals to get players who would be real difference makers. Just a boring and stupid front office with little intelligence and zero imagination. And an owner who is a cheap, petty, joyless man.
Crybaby
Jhomeslice: how can you possibly know that Reinsdorf is “cheap, petty, and joyless”? Your last comment does nothing to help the argument you’ve made before it. Why give in to the impulse to attack the man?
Hey how many games did this team win last year with a number of injuries to start with? It’s a new season. Just let them play. Be thankful their is still a full season to play America’s favorite entertainment
Has Rick Hahn, Ken Williams, Jerry Reinsdorf not been paying attention to team injuries the last few years. Sox are 2 injuries away from 1st to almost worst in division. Going to be a tough team to watch unless everyone has breakout season.