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White Sox Shut Down Dane Dunning

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White Sox prospect Dane Dunning has been shut down after experiencing renewed discomfort while working through a throwing program, general manager Rick Hahn revealed to reporters (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Scott Merkin). As if that wasn’t ominous enough, Dunning is slated to meet with Dr. James Andrews this week, and Hahn was candid about the ominous nature of his injury. “Everything is on the table including a potential Tommy John surgery,” the GM said.

The 24-year-old Dunning was the third piece acquired in the trade that sent Adam Eaton to the Nationals, joining fellow righties Reynaldo Lopez and Lucas Giolito. He’s elevated his prospect status since the time of that deal, currently checking in at No. 80 on MLB.com’s ranking of the game’s Top 100 prospects. Baseball Prospectus ranked him 76th this winter, while he currently checks in just outside the Top 100 (No. 121) on Fangraphs’ rankings.

Last year, Dunning opened the season at Class-A Advanced and moved up to Double-A after four starts — excelling at both levels. His 2018 season was cut short by an elbow sprain, but when he was healthy enough to take the mound, he worked to a terrific 2.71 ERA with 10.4 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9 and a ground-ball rate north of 50 percent. In 86 1/3 innings of work, Dunning yielded just two home runs.

Should Dunning require Tommy John surgery, he’d be the second of the White Sox’ top-rated arms to sit out the 2019 campaign while rehabbing a UCL replacement. Righty Michael Kopech underwent the same operation late in the 2018 campaign and won’t be back on the mound for the organization until the 2020 season. Sox fans have been dreaming of a rotation headlined by Kopech, Dunning and fellow highly touted right-hander Dylan Cease, but that the timeline to that potential reality continues to be pushed back by injury troubles.

Offseason In Review: Chicago White Sox

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This is the latest post of MLBTR’s annual Offseason in Review series, in which we take stock of every team’s winter dealings.

The White Sox pinned most of their offseason hopes to signing Manny Machado, and instead wound up adding a series of largely unexciting veteran players.

Major League Signings

Options Exercised

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

Of MLBTR’s top ten free agents this winter, the White Sox reportedly showed some level of interest in at least seven of them.  Their most high-profile pursuit was that of Manny Machado.  Prior to the Winter Meetings, GM Rick Hahn tried to make it clear to reporters that he couldn’t “guarantee by any stretch that we’re going to convert on these targets.”  Dallas Keuchel and Craig Kimbrel notwithstanding, the dust has settled on the offseason, and the White Sox failed to convert on any premium player they were targeting.

Looking at what the team actually did, this was a fairly typical recent White Sox offseason.  It’s just that fan expectations tend to balloon when front office brass is meeting with Bryce Harper and Manny Machado, we know the team can afford either player, and it’s about that time where a rebuilding process draws to a close.  The club hung around in the Machado bidding til the bitter end, strangely acquiring Manny’s brother-in-law Yonder Alonso and good friend Jon Jay presumably to help close the gap on an offer that fell far short.  Here’s White Sox executive vice president Kenny Williams attempting to defend the team’s eight-year, $250MM final offer, as reported by Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times: “People are lost on the fact that on a yearly basis, our offer was more than San Diego’s. The average annual value was $31 [million] and change. So it was about years guaranteed. So there is an argument that could be made that our offer was the better of the two. It certainly had more upside for him. All he had to do was basically stay healthy.”  This is almost comical, as is Williams’ assertion that if the team had gone further financially, fans would have been “much more disappointed in our inability to keep this next core together.”  The key piece of that core, Eloy Jimenez, remains a minor leaguer for the purpose of gaining control of his 2025 season.  The team’s “next core” literally hasn’t reached the Majors yet, but giving Machado an extra two years would break it up?

Chicago’s offer to Machado came in a full $50MM shy of the contract he received from the Padres.  The Sox thought this star free agent was going to be swayed by a ridiculous $100MM in additional non-guaranteed money, or by the acquisition of his buddies?  Going into free agency, there was never a reason to think $250MM would get the job done for Machado or Harper, so why even try?  Hahn’s claim that the Sox made a “very aggressive offer” is patently untrue.  With every large market team sitting out Machado’s market and the price coming in much lower than it could have been, the White Sox still never got close.  After losing out on Machado, Hahn pledged, “The money will be spent. It might not be spent this offseason, but it will be spent at some point. This isn’t money sitting around waiting to just accumulate interest. It’s money trying to be deployed to put us in best position to win some championships.”  

Perhaps Hahn said that so that Sox fans will dream about signing Anthony Rendon or Xander Bogaerts next winter, but the Machado progression hardly inspires confidence that White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is willing to outspend the field for a premium free agent.  When Reinsdorf last did that by signing Albert Belle – over 22 years ago – Bud Selig and the owners were stunned that “the owner who’s railed the loudest and longest about curbing player salaries has just broken the bank,” wrote Jon Pessah in his 2015 book The Game.  There’s little reason to think Reinsdorf will shatter precedent again.

Given the self-imposed $250MM limit on Machado, the White Sox knew they weren’t going to get close on Harper.  The White Sox certainly explored other avenues, including upgrades at catcher.  They made a multiyear offer (terms unknown) to Yasmani Grandal, according to Robert Murray of The Athletic.  And the Sox were “in the mix” for J.T. Realmuto, according to Ken Rosenthal.  The White Sox had moved on from last year’s tandem, Omar Narvaez and Kevan Smith, deciding someone new should pair with Welington Castillo in 2019.  They went with non-tendered former Tigers catcher James McCann.  Patrick Nolan of Sox Machine disparaged the choice, writing, “The White Sox’ young pitchers have had the misfortune of throwing to tiny strike zones and guys who let the ball get away, and McCann’s poor receiving and pitch-blocking will help continue that trend.”  It’s particularly painful to see a pitcher’s dream backstop, Martin Maldonado, sign with a division rival for the same contract (although Maldonado’s asking price at the time McCann signed had not yet fallen to this level).

The White Sox made reasonable efforts to address their bullpen this winter, trading Narvaez for Colome in November and signing Herrera in January.  Colome is under team control through the 2020 season, though his salary in that season will climb even higher than this year’s $7.325MM.  He’s a solid reliever who stands a good chance of serving as the team’s closer.  They also signed Herrera to a two-year deal with a vesting option for a third season.  Herrera had surgery in September to repair a torn Lisfranc ligament in his foot, but he’s made his Cactus League debut, implying the procedure may not affect him during the 2019 season.  Herrera’s got some other red flags, such as 2018’s declining strikeout and ground-ball rates, but the 29-year-old still throws 97 miles per hour and has a chance to be a major asset to Chicago.  Along with holdovers Nate Jones and Jace Fry, this could be a decent bullpen, especially compared to the cumulative work of last year’s unit.  The White Sox reportedly showed interest in Adam Ottavino, Andrew Miller, and Joe Kelly before they signed elsewhere.

With highly-regarded pitching prospect Michael Kopech out for 2019 due to Tommy John surgery and James Shields gone to free agency (though technically still unsigned), the White Sox reportedly poked their head in on free agents Patrick Corbin, J.A. Happ, and Nathan Eovaldi, before ultimately trading for Ivan Nova in December.  Nova, owed $8.5MM in 2019, is a pitch-to-contact, homer-prone veteran who projects for an ERA around 4.60.  If you’re looking for a veteran starter who could potentially be flipped for something interesting in July, Nova doesn’t qualify.  Nor does Ervin Santana, who signed a minor league deal but seems likely to eventually earn the team’s fifth starter job.

“Fundamentally this is a baseball deal,” Hahn told reporters upon acquiring Alonso from the Indians in December, but that claim hardly stands up when looking at the types of contracts that comparable first-base-only sluggers received this offseason (MLBTR Free Agent Tracker link).  I again turn to Patrick Nolan of Sox Machine, who explains that adding Alonso at designated hitter will “either eat into Daniel Palka’s plate appearances or force everyone to watch Palka play the outfield more often,” while it also “helped out a division rival with $8 million in cash relief.”  That’s a little harsh, but in Nova and Alonso, the White Sox took on $17.5MM for a pair of players projected by Steamer and ZiPS to be worth about one WAR apiece in 2019.  It feels like spending money just to spend money.

Jay, his friendship with Machado aside, is an acceptable veteran stopgap for a club that parted ways with longtime right fielder Avisail Garcia.  Top prospect Eloy Jimenez will start the season at Triple-A after being optioned just hours ago — presumably to “work on his defense” or another semi-vague reason that will be resolved once he cannot accrue a full year of service time in 2019 (as is commonplace throughout the league with this caliber of prospect).  Until Jimenez arrives, none of the White Sox outfielders look like part of their next contending team.

The truly baffling aspect of Chicago’s offseason additions is that had they simply condensed the money offered to that patchwork collection of stopgaps, those resources could’ve been utilized to up the offer to Machado — a transformative player who’d move the needle considerably more not only in 2019 but in the long term.  The near-$50MM they spent on this offseason’s group is worth much more than $50MM in 2028-29 dollars.  Perhaps the Padres would’ve been willing to further increase their proposal had the ChiSox presented a legitimately competitive offer, but the approach would’ve been much more understandable.

2019 Season Outlook

Fangraphs projects the White Sox as a 70-win team this year, virtually no different from the Tigers or Royals.  Given the team’s run at Machado, this may seem like an incredibly disappointing offseason, but go back to something Hahn said in September 2017: “I think even under the most optimistic projections of our ability to contend, certainly ’18 and ’19 don’t include the bulk of the time when we anticipate having a window open to us.” 

So, it seems the club was willing to sign Machado or Harper at a relative bargain price and maybe make a little noise in ’19, but that duo’s free agency was always coming a year before the White Sox thought their team would be ready.  The White Sox have just $12.5MM committed to two players for the 2020 roster, so they’ll again enjoy major payroll flexibility in the offseason.  Generally, you don’t get a fourth year for an intentional rebuild, so it’s 2020 or bust for this group.

How would you grade the White Sox’ offseason? (Poll link for Trade Rumors app users.) 

White Sox Option Eloy Jimenez To Triple-A

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In what has been a widely anticipated move, the White Sox announced Wednesday that they’ve optioned top outfield prospect Eloy Jimenez to Triple-A Charlotte. The move was one of nine spring cuts by the ChiSox, who also optioned out top pitching prospect Dylan Cease, catcher Seby Zavala and outfielder Micker Adolfo.

Jimenez, 22, is not only considered to be among the game’s premier prospects but is also largely believed to be ready for MLB action. The Dominican-born slugger obliterated Double-A and Triple-A pitching in 2018, posting ridiculous slash lines of .317/.368/.556 and .355/.399/.597 at those respective levels.

Jimenez’s demotion will stand out as one of the more blatant examples of service time manipulation this spring, as the decision to send him to Triple-A is surely motivated more by the desire to gain an extra season of club control over the player rather than to further his development. This year’s regular season is 186 days long, and a player would gain a full season of MLB service by spending 172 of those days at the MLB level (be it on the active roster or the injured list). In other words, by keeping Jimenez in the minors for just 15 days, the Sox will be able to control him for seven seasons as opposed to the six seasons for which they’d control him by bringing him to the Majors to open the year.

It’s a maddening and counter-intuitive side effect of a system that has prompted pundits, players, agents and fans to call for change. For a team in the White Sox’ situation — unlikely to contend this season but optimistic that their ongoing rebuild is nearing the finish line — it makes perfect sense from a business standpoint to trade two weeks of Jimenez in a noncompetitive season for a full extra year of control over a potential premium player. For Jimenez, however, the current structure of service time and free agency delays his path to his most significant potential payday, while the fans are asked to accept that their team won’t bring the 25 best players in camp north to open the season. It’s a system in which there’s arguably no true winner, as the even White Sox’ front office will surely face a negative wave of backlash from fans and onlookers.

For the time being, Jimenez will be asked to continue honing his skills in the minors. Perhaps the Sox will opt not to call him up on the very first day on which he’d fall a year shy of big league service, using the delay as a means of further claiming that the move was a developmental decision rather than one driven by service time. It’s likely that they’ll point to Jimenez’s .154/.154/.346 slash in Spring Training as justification of the move, though few would find it plausible that 26 spring plate appearances are more indicative of MLB readiness than the 456 PAs during which Jimenez laid waste to minor league pitching in 2018. Furthermore, the move would surely have happened regardless of his performance; the White Sox, after all, declined to give Jimenez a September call-up in 2018 despite his aforementioned mastery of minor league pitching and despite the fact that he was already on the 40-man roster.

Regardless of the specific timing, it seems quite likely that Jimenez will  be in the Majors very early in the 2019 campaign. Cease and the others who were sent out aren’t as far along in their development and will be on a more uncertain timeline to the big leagues.

To be fair to the White Sox, they’re far from the only club to take this route. The Braves held back Ronald Acuna’s promotion to the Majors last season under similarly dubious circumstances, while others who’ve been subject to this form of service time manipulation include Kris Bryant and Maikel Franco (among many others). It was a foregone conclusion that the Blue Jays would send Vladimir Guerrero Jr. down to the minors in the exact same fashion, though Guerrero’s recent oblique injury actually gave the Toronto organization a legitimate reason to do so.

White Sox Claim Josh Osich

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The White Sox announced Monday that they’ve claimed left-handed reliever Josh Osich off waivers from the Orioles. In order to make room on the 40-man roster, Chicago has placed right-hander Michael Kopech on the 60-day injured list. Osich, 30, was designated for assignment by Baltimore last week. Kopech, meanwhile, is expected to miss the entire 2019 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery late in the 2018 campaign.

Osich, 30, has spent time with the Giants in each of the past four seasons, though he’s struggled increasingly at the MLB level dating back to 2016. In 120 1/3 innings, Osich has a 5.01 ERA with 7.9 K/9, 4.6 BB/9, 1.50 HR/9 and a 51.8 percent ground-ball rate. Last year in Triple-A, Osich posted a 4.96 ERA with a 42-to-18 K/BB ratio in 45 1/3 innings.

Osich does have a minor league option remaining, and he’s also averaged roughly 95 mph on his heater throughout his career. Right-handed batters have owned him at the MLB level (.294/.385/.496), though he’s held lefties to a more manageable (albeit still unspectacular) .228/.319/.388 line in his time as a big leaguer. San Francisco designated Osich for assignment a month ago when they acquired young righty Jose Lopez from the Reds, after which he was claimed by the Orioles. Osich’s time in the Baltimore organization lasted only about three weeks, as the O’s designated him Friday upon picking up Dwight Smith Jr. from the Blue Jays.

Nicky Delmonico Sidelined By Concussion

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  • Outfielder Nicky Delmonico has been diagnosed with a “mild” concussion, the White Sox announced Friday. The 26-year-old sustained the injury upon crashing into the outfield wall in yesterday’s Cactus League contest. Delmonico piqued the interest of ChiSox fans with a strong .262/.373/.482 slash (166 plate appearances) as a rookie in 2017, but his production cratered in 2018 as he batted just .215/.296/.373. He’s been vying for an outfield job in a mix that includes Jon Jay, Leury Garcia, Adam Engel Danial Palka and non-roster invitee Brandon Guyer. Top prospect Eloy Jimenez obviously looms in waiting, though the widespread expectation is that the Sox will keep him Triple-A for a couple of weeks to open the season, thus buying an additional year of control over the vaunted slugger.

Ken Williams Discusses White Sox Pursuit Of Machado, Harper

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The White Sox took a rare foray into the high-end free agent market this winter but came away empty-handed in their attempts to sign either Manny Machado or Bryce Harper.  Machado ended up signing a ten-year, $300MM deal with the Padres, while Harper landed the most guaranteed money in baseball history ($330MM) on a 13-year contract from the Phillies.

In the wake of those enormous deals, White Sox executive VP Ken Williams defended his team against criticism from fans and pundits that the Sox should have spent more to come away with one of the two superstars.  “It’s a shame if it’s being portrayed that we were on the cheap on this thing,” Williams told Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.  “That’s really interesting because, holy s—, that’s a quarter of a billion dollars we offered [Machado] with a chance to be higher than what he’s getting.”

In regards to Harper, the White Sox had meetings with the outfielder and agent Scott Boras, but the team ultimately felt Harper’s asking price was simply too high, though Williams liked Harper personally.  With Machado, however, the Sox made a much more ardent push, including the contract Williams referenced.

Chicago’s top offer to Machado was a reported $250MM in guaranteed money over eight years, plus a pair of $35MM vesting options for the 2027 and 2028 seasons.  Additional escalators and incentives could have maxed the deal out at $350MM over the decade-long span.  Based just on the guaranteed years, Machado would’ve received an average annual value of $31.25MM per season, topping the $30MM AAV he’ll receive in San Diego.

“People are lost on the fact that on a yearly basis, our offer was more than San Diego’s….So it was about years guaranteed,” Williams said.  “So there is an argument that could be made that our offer was the better of the two. It certainly had more upside for him. All he had to do was basically stay healthy.”

Williams shared in the fanbase’s disappointment that neither player was signed, saying that, “Rest assured that no one is feeling what Rick [White Sox GM Rick Hahn] and I are feeling because every single day since June of last year, this is what we had planned for, the pursuit of both Harper and Machado.

“Harper [was] well out of our range. With Machado, we extended ourselves as far as we could without jeopardizing what we’re going to need to do in the future….Our fans would have been much more disappointed in our inability to keep this next core together.  We would have overextended ourselves had we gone to an uncomfortable level.”

Williams isn’t wrong in suggesting that a $250MM offer is a major commitment — after all, prior to Nolan Arenado’s extension with the Rockies and the Harper/Machado signings, only three contracts in baseball history had ever topped the $250MM guaranteed money threshold.  The most obvious counter-argument, of course, is that if the Sox were willing to go that far in their offer, it seems short-sighted to then ask Machado to absorb the risk for the vesting option years.  It’s no small feat for any player to “basically stay healthy” in their mid-30’s, and it’s hard to imagine any player passing on that guarantee from the Padres for 2027-28 in order to chase the opportunity for only $20MM-$50MM more in salary from the White Sox.  (I say “only” since that amount wouldn’t seem particularly enticing to a player like Machado who’d already amassed a fortune. By that same token, an extra $1.25MM in AAV is something of a drop in the bucket someone already making $30MM.)

The comments about how a Machado deal could impact future contracts might be tougher for White Sox fans to swallow.  After all, the team has just $15.25MM on the books for the 2020 season, and Tim Anderson is the only player guaranteed money in 2021 and beyond.

As Van Schouwen notes, young stars like Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Michael Kopech, Carlos Rodon, and Anderson won’t start to get expensive for years.  Anderson is already signed to an extension through at least 2022, Rodon has two arbitration years remaining, Moncada won’t be arb-eligible until 2021, Kopech has barely pitched at the MLB level, and Jimenez has yet to even make his Major League debut.  Even all five of these players did develop into stars, extensions for all on top of a ten-year Machado contract shouldn’t have been much of a stretch for a club that plays in a major market like Chicago (and just landed a new broadcasting rights contract).

Dunning Won't Throw For 7-10 Days

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  • White Sox pitching prospect Dane Dunning won’t throw for seven to 10 days after having his recent bout of forearm discomfort examined by team physicians and doctor James Andrews, the team announced (h/t: Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times, on Twitter). He’s slated to begin a throwing program at that point, assuming the pain in his arm has alleviated. Acquired alongside Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez in the 2016 Adam Eaton swap, Dunning has raised his profile with the ChiSox and has drawn his share of praise on top 100 prospect rankings throughout the industry. However, while he turned in a stellar 2.71 ERA with 10.4 K/9 against 2.7 BB/9 between Class-A Advanced and Double-A last season, the 24-year-old was also limited to 86 1/3 innings by an elbow sprain.

Dane Dunning Experiencing Forearm Discomfort

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  • There was some ominous news out of White Sox camp, as Bruce Levine of 670thescore.com tweets that pitching prospect Dane Dunning is due for a closer medical look after experiencing forearm discomfort. The talented young righty has shown quite well ever since he cracked the professional ranks and entered the 2018 campaign as a consensus top-100 prospect leaguewide. Unfortunately, he missed half of the 2018 season owing to an elbow sprain. The hope was that Dunning would be able to pick up where he left off this spring.

Spring Injuries: Davis, Palka, Mesa, Sandoval

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With Spring Training games underway, we’ll use this post to track some of the minor aches and pains as they flare up around the game…

  • A mild left calf strain has kept Khris Davis on the shelf for the beginning of Spring Training, per MLB.com’s Jane Lee. There’s not much cause for concern, but the A’s don’t want to rush Davis until he is back at full strength. He’s listed as day-to-day for now, though the issue has flared up a couple of times since the start of camp. Shutting down all baseball activity is the prudent move for Davis, who is of course a central piece for Oakland’s offense. The 31-year-old DH hit exactly .247 in each of the last four seasons, while his slugging has increased year-over-year, from .505 in 2015 to .524 in 2016 to .528 in 2017 to .549 last year. Davis is a key contributor in just about any scenarios that has the A’s challenging Houston for the AL West crown. 
  • White Sox right fielder Daniel Palka was pulled from a Spring Training game in the second inning today with left hamstring tightness, per Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune. Palka was hitting cleanup for the White Sox, who lost their first two spring contests in a pair of split-squad games on Saturday. Palka became a fan favorite while slugging 27 home runs for the Southsiders as a 26-year-old rookie last year, but he’ll need to develop other parts of his game to survive Chicago’s rebuild. His overall slash line of .240/.294/.484 combined with subpar defense in the outfield corners leaves much to be desired. 
  • Highly-touted Cuban prospect Victor Victor Mesa left Sunday’s Spring Training game with a right hamstring strain, per Wells Dusenbury of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The Marlins 22-year-old outfielder left the game after running out a grounder. He will return to Jupiter to be re-examined, though it would not appear to be a serious injury. He’s listed as day-to-day. Hamstring injuries can linger, of course, and the Marlins will want to be extra cautious with their prized acquisition as they prepare him for his first professional season stateside.  
  • Pablo Sandoval tweaked a side muscle, though it does not appear to be anything serious. The Giants will hold him back a day or two, but rest appears the only course of action as of now, per Henry Schulman of the SF Chronicle (via Twitter). Sandoval isn’t the player he once was, but he did rebound at least a little bit from his horror show days in Boston. Last season, Sandoval hit .248/.310/.417 across 252 plate appearances, which is production the Giants will take given their minimum salary commitment. 

White Sox Sign Preston Tucker To Minor League Deal

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The Chicago White Sox announced (via Twitter) a minor league deal for outfielder Preston Tucker. He has been invited to Spring Training, where he will wear number thirty-two.

Tucker has bounced around a bit the last few years, going from the Braves to the Reds and back to the Braves in 2018 after coming up in the Astros’ system. For his career, he has yet to find his stroke, hitting only .222/.281/.403, though he was close to league average with Atlanta before they traded him away the first time. Tucker, 28, was hitting .256/.307/.444 through 62 games when the Braves sent him to Cincinnati as part of the Adam Duvall trade. Atlanta bought him back from the Reds in early September, though he didn’t see much action the rest of the way.

Tucker represents a nice buy-low gambit for the White Sox, who have some at-bats to give in the outfield with Daniel Palka, Jon Jay and Adam Engel atop the depth chart for now. Veterans Brandon Guyer and Leury Garcia have also been brought in to camp to compete for a backup role. Tucker consistently put up monster power numbers in the minor leagues, and he has suffered from perennially low BABIP numbers at the big league level. There’s definitely some late-blooming potential here for Tucker, who finds a nice landing spot in Chicago where, if he makes the team out of camp, he could receive a real opportunity to establish himself early in the season.

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