The White Sox have signed hurler José Ureña to a minor league deal, according to an announcement from their Triple-A club. He’ll report to the Sox’s top farm team in Charlotte.
Ureña was cut loose from a minor league pact with the Nationals last week. Chicago is his third organization of the season. He began the year with the Rockies after re-signing on a $3.5MM free agent contract. He was blitzed for 22 runs in 18 1/3 innings over his first five starts, however, and the Rox quickly moved on.
Things didn’t go much better in the Nats’ system. Ureña picked up 15 starts for their top affiliate in Rochester but managed a 6.31 ERA over 67 frames. His 8.4% walk percentage there was fine, but he struggled with home runs and only punched out 18.2% of opposing hitters.
While his 2023 performance has been below-average, Ureña adds some experience to the upper minors of the Sox’s system. He’s a veteran of nine major league campaigns, working mostly as a starter over that time. Ureña had back-to-back sub-4.00 ERA showings for the Marlins in 2017-18. He’s allowed more than five earned runs per nine in each of the five seasons since then, though he still throws fairly hard. Ureña averaged north of 95 MPH on both his four-seam and sinker during his early-season big league stint with the Rox.
Colorado is on the hook for Ureña’s $3MM salary and a $500K buyout on a 2024 option. If the Sox called him up at any point in the season’s final couple months, they’d pay him only the prorated portion of the $720K minimum rate. Ureña will head back to free agency at the start of the offseason whether he earns a big league call or not. He’ll offer some injury insurance in the interim as the White Sox play out a disappointing season.
Chicago straight playing 4D chess, trying to put out fires with gasoline. Smart.
Exactly; by the year 2038, their master plan will all be in place and even their “no rules” Animal House culture will all make sense. Pure “Genius”.
Adrian Sampson, Lamet and Spencer Watkins are available. I’m guessing Hahn is on the phone right now.
On pins and needles thinking about what the 2024 opening day roster will look like.
Oh this guy will go along with that culture perfectly, him and Tim Anderson will be starting brawls left and right.
His last name unfortunately sounds a lot like something else…
Rosé?
The White Sox seem to be collecting as much minor league fodder as possible these days
And they may need every bit of it just to get through the next 2 months. Such is life when you trade literally half your pitching staff at the deadline.
This is not how you build a farm system.
Who says this is for building a farm system? This is depth this year in case of injury and possibly, someone to come up and just eat a few meaningless innings.
Rick Hahn has a master’s in Custodial Arts
Hahn is another one of those “analytics” Ivy Leaguers(Harvard)that doesn’t know squat about baseball, but he’s got lots of important friends, is great at cocktail parties and looks good in a three piece suit.
I am thinking Urena has dirt on Manfred. How does this guy keep getting more chances?
I fear my team of the last 60 years will never get it
Dumpster Diving Ricky!
If the Sox are that desperate to lose more games, I’ll willingly offer my services.
I hope it’s to throw batting practice down at AAA.
Maybe they’re planning to lock in a room with Tim Anderson, as a favor to the rest of the mlb.
“Glass Jaw” Timmy might be in some trouble.
They are going to need as many arms as possible to get to the end of this ugly season. Especially, when they vetoed having a lottery every night to see which fan gets to pitch.
This is what happens when you do nothing to support AAA and AA and trade away half the major league pitchers
Sox not only traded a significant portion of their major league pitching staff, they have next to no starting pitching depth in the minors. It makes sense to take on as much as they have lately as they legitimately need the innings eaten. They’ve had a few successful reclamations already this season, makes sense to try to find a few that may stick for next year as they really only have 2 ‘quality’ arms in the rotation penciled in, depending on what they do with Clevinger.
138 games started and a career 4.92 ERA. Why does this guy keep getting chances?