The White Sox announced a few moves before tonight’s series opener with the Angels. They selected outfielder Corey Julks onto the roster and activated Shane Smith from the 15-day injured list. Chicago optioned outfielder Will Robertson to Triple-A Charlotte. They already had an opening on the active roster for a pitcher after trading Adrian Houser to Tampa Bay yesterday. Smith will take the ball tonight.
Robertson had just been recalled on Wednesday after the Sox traded Austin Slater to the Yankees. That subtracted a right-handed bat from their outfield. They’ll reset that balance by bringing up the righty-hitting Julks in place of Robertson, a lefty bat. Julks is a 29-year-old who made 93 appearances with the Astros as a rookie two seasons ago. Chicago acquired him last May in a minor trade. He made 66 appearances and hit .214/.275/.306 with three home runs.
That unsurprisingly was not enough for Julks to hold his roster spot all winter. He went unclaimed on waivers and remained with the organization in a non-roster capacity. Julks hit his way back to the big leagues with an impressive .295/.373/.470 slash line in Charlotte. He has connected on 10 home runs and stolen 13 bags while taking walks at a solid 10.3% clip. Julks can’t really play center field, but he can take some at-bats against lefty pitching form the left-handed hitting corner outfield duo of Andrew Benintendi and Mike Tauchman.
They should’ve called him up earlier & tried to flip him at the deadline…easier said than done though since they evidently couldn’t even move Tauchman.
Tauchman at 5 years older is also five times the player Julks is. Apparently the goal is to win 63 games. To be fair the team is much improved. The last twenty games have been good.
Julks is a solid player, I’m surprised the Sox didn’t call him up sooner.
The article pretty much answered that. He can’t play CF. With all the time Robert missed, he probably would have been up here if he could play CF.
I was just saying as a bench bat at the very least, and I think Julks could play CF in a pinch if he had to. He’s easily an above average defender in a corner with his plus speed. Believe he stole 20 bags in his rookie year in Houston in not a full season
The Sox wanted to keep Tauchman because they have an option on his contract for next season.
He’s having a great season… several teams would have loved to add him to their rosters.