White Sox, Travis Swaggerty Agree To Minor League Deal
The White Sox have agreed to a deal with outfielder Travis Swaggerty, whom the Pirates released last month. The former No. 10 overall draft pick effectively announced the news himself on Instagram. MLBTR has confirmed that it’s a minor league deal between the two parties.
Swaggerty, 26 later this week, made a very brief MLB debut last year with Pittsburgh, going 1-for-9 in his only big league action to date. He’s been injured for much of the season but had been on a rehab assignment prior to his DFA and subsequent release. He’s been healthy enough for just 72 plate appearances in Triple-A this year, batting .200/.278/.369 in that small sample. As recently as the 2022 season, he hit .254/.348/.400 (102 wRC+) in 458 plate appearances with Triple-A Indianapolis.
Prior to the 2019 season, MLB.com ranked Swaggerty as the sport’s No. 87 overall prospect, touting his plus speed, plus glove and disciplined approach while also crediting him with an average hit tool and average power. Swaggerty has regularly displayed a keen eye at the plate, drawing a walk in 11.4% of his minor league plate appearances, and he’s swiped 59 bags in 314 minor league games (20-for-25 in Triple-A last year). He’s also fanned in nearly a quarter of his plate appearances since being drafted, however, and has never topped 11 homers in a season. He’s also dealt with several injuries, most notably requiring surgery on his non-throwing shoulder after he dislocated it during a slide in 2021.
Swaggerty becomes the fourth former top prospect on whom the White Sox have taken a chance since their deadline sell-off. Chicago also claimed right-handers Brent Honeywell Jr. and Deivi Garcia off waivers and acquired righty Luis Patino from the Rays for cash. All three were, at various points over the past few seasons, among the most touted pitching prospects in the sport. There’s little harm in the White Sox taking a look at some former top prospects in the final weeks of the season — and perhaps into next year — given the thin nature of their own farm and the various holes they’ll need to fill in the offseason.
White Sox’s Romy Gonzalez Undergoes Labrum Surgery
White Sox’s utility player Romy Gonzalez underwent surgery to repair a labrum tear in his right shoulder last month, the club informed reporters (including Scott Merkin of MLB.com). He’ll miss the rest of the season but is expected to be ready for Spring Training.
It’s not too surprising that Gonzalez won’t return this year. He hasn’t played since June 17, at which point he went on the shelf with what the team had called shoulder inflammation. It was his second IL stint of the season, as he’d also missed a week and a half in early May with shoulder discomfort. The Sox moved him to the 60-day injured list shortly after his second IL placement.
Gonzalez was in the mix for the starting second base job until Chicago re-signed Elvis Andrus early in Spring Training. He ultimately appeared in 44 games and tallied 97 plate appearances in a multi-positional capacity. The 26-year-old had a .194/.208/.376 batting line and now owns a .222/.239/.361 slash in 89 contests over the past three seasons.
Since he’s already on the 60-day IL, Gonzalez isn’t currently counting against the Sox’s 40-man roster. They’d need to reinstate him to the roster or put him on waivers at the start of the offseason. In the interim, he’ll be paid around the $720K minimum rate and collect MLB service. He surpassed the one-year mark this year and wouldn’t be eligible for arbitration until the end of the 2025 campaign if they keep him on the roster.
White Sox Claim Deivi Garcia
2:34pm: The White Sox announced that they have indeed claimed Garcia off outright waivers. He’s been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. Liam Hendriks moves from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster.
1:27pm: The White Sox have claimed right-hander Deivi Garcia off waivers from the Yankees, reports Erik Boland of Newsday. The Yankees had designated the former top prospect for assignment earlier in the week. The teams have not yet announced the move (or, in Chicago’s case, a corresponding 40-man transaction).
Garcia, 24, was considered one of the sport’s top pitching prospects not long ago, ranking on most top-100 lists prior to both the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The right-hander blitzed through the lower minors after signing as an amateur out of the Dominican Republic, reaching the Double-A level as a 19-year-old back in 2018. He had success both in High-A and Double-A the following year before being hit hard in Triple-A, but struggling at the minors’ top level as a 20-year-old facing vastly older competition hardly stood as any kind of red flag.
The canceled 2020 minor league season could well have impacted Garcia more than many other prospects. With no minor league games in which to play, he was rushed to the big leagues as a 21-year-old, turning in a 4.98 ERA in six starts (34 1/3 innings). His 22.6% strikeout rate and 4.1% walk rate were both encouraging, but Garcia was tagged for six home runs in that debut effort and struggled to strand runners once he’d allowed them to reach.
As with his 2019 struggles as one of the youngest players at the Triple-A level, however, Garcia’s lackluster 2020 results weren’t considered particularly damning. Jumping to the big leagues as a 21-year-old with only 40 innings of Triple-A experience is hardly an easy task, and at insofar as his ability to miss bats and limit walks, he more than held his own. The next two years, however, told another story.
From 2021-22, Garcia logged only 8 1/3 big league innings. In 2021, that was at least partially due to a lack of opportunity. The ’21 Yankees received 29 or more starts from each of Gerrit Cole, Jordan Montgomery and Jameson Taillon, with another 18 from Domingo German, 16 from Corey Kluber and 14 from Nestor Cortes. There weren’t many extra starts to go around, but Garcia’s performance didn’t necessarily merit much of a look anyway. He was torched for a 6.85 ERA in 90 2/3 innings at Triple-A that season, and his 2022 results weren’t any better; Garcia logged a combined 6.89 ERA in 64 innings between Double-A and Triple-A in ’22. He didn’t pitch in the Majors that season.
It’s been largely the same in 2023. A move to the bullpen in Triple-A hasn’t been much help, evidenced by a 5.67 ERA and sky-high 14.6% walk rate in 48 innings. Garcia allowed just one run in 5 2/3 big league frames earlier in the year, but he did so with more walks issued (four) than strikeouts (three). Command has emerged as a major problem for the right-hander, who’s doled out a free pass to 14.2% of his opponents en route to a 6.52 ERA in 214 career innings at Triple-A.
There were always some concerns about the manner in which Garcia would be able to handle a starter’s workload. Listed at 5’9″ and 165 pounds, he’s considerably slighter in frame than the overwhelming majority of big league starters. Garcia indeed has spent time on the injured list in each of the past three seasons, and his fastball velocity has fluctuated accordingly. He averaged 95.1 mph this year in a pair of relief outings — a notable bump from the 92.1 mph he averaged as a starter in the Majors from 2020-21.
Whether the White Sox plan to use Garcia as a starter or reliever isn’t clear at this point, but he’s spent the bulk of the ’23 season coming out of the Scranton bullpen. For a Chicago team that’s already waved the white flag on the 2023 season, there’s plenty of sense in scooping up a former top prospect and seeing if a change of scenery can do him any good. Garcia is in his final minor league option year, meaning he can be sent to Triple-A for the remainder of the current season without needing to go through waivers. However, he’ll be out of options next spring, so the Sox will need to either keep him on the Opening Day roster or designate him for assignment themselves — if he’s even able to stick on the 40-man roster that long.
The White Sox currently have baseball’s fourth-worst record, which gave them waiver priority over all but three teams. Each of the A’s, Royals and Rockies apparently passed on placing a claim on Garcia. The Rays were among the other teams to place a claim on Garcia today, tweets Boland, though Tampa Bay has the third-best record in MLB (and thus the third-lowest waiver priority).
White Sox Release Stephen Piscotty
The Charlotte Knights, the Triple-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, released Stephen Piscotty on Wednesday, per the transaction log on MiLB.com. The 32-year-old outfielder is now a free agent.
Piscotty agreed to a minor league contract with the Giants in February, receiving an invitation to spring training. Despite a strong showing in the Cactus League (.810 OPS in ten games), he was reassigned to Triple-A Sacramento toward the end of the spring. He requested his release before Opening Day, a request the organization granted. The veteran signed another minor league deal with the White Sox a few weeks later and was assigned to Triple-A Charlotte. Unfortunately, he didn’t exactly light up the International League, batting .232 with a .720 OPS in 51 games before his release.
The journeyman began his career with the Cardinals, who selected him in the first round of the 2012 draft using one of the compensation picks they received for losing Albert Pujols. Piscotty made his big league debut in 2015, slashing .305/.359/.494 in 63 games and even earning a down-ballot Rookie of the Year vote. He was promising enough in his first two seasons to earn a six-year, $33.75 million extension that would keep him under contract until 2022 (with a club option for 2023). However, he struggled at the plate in his third season, and the Cardinals would trade him to the Athletics the following winter.
Piscotty bounced back in his first season with the A’s, hitting a career-high 27 home runs to go along with an .821 OPS. However, his bounceback was shortlived; his 2019 season was plagued by injuries, and his offensive numbers plummeted again. His struggles only intensified in 2020 and 2021; his strikeout rate soared, his power disappeared, and injuries continued to take their toll on his body. In 117 games from 2020-21, he posted a 28.1% strikeout rate, a 6.1% walk rate, and a .133 isolated power, good for a .632 OPS. The 2022 campaign was more of the same, and the Athletics eventually released Piscotty in August. He has not played a game in the majors since.
The Reds took a shot at Piscotty that summer, signing him to a minor league contract and assigning him to Triple-A Louisville. He spent the rest of the year with the Louisville Bats, electing free agency after the season.
Now a free agent once again, Piscotty is available for clubs that might need outfield depth at Triple-A. He’s no longer the hitter he was during his peak from 2015-18, but still just 32 years old, a team might be interested in taking him on as a fixer-upper project.
White Sox Sign Jose Urena To Minor League Contract
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.
White Sox Acquire Tyler Naquin
The White Sox acquired veteran outfielder Tyler Naquin from the Brewers in exchange for cash, the teams announced. Naquin will head to the White Sox’ Triple-A affiliate in Charlotte and is expected to be in the Knights’ lineup tomorrow, tweets Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.
[Related: How to acquire players after the trade deadline]
Naquin, 32, was eligible to be traded by virtue of the fact that he hasn’t been on a 40-man roster or major league injured list at any point this season. He signed a minor league pact with Milwaukee back in March and has spent the entire season to date with their Triple-A affiliate in Nashville. The seven-year big league veteran has slashed .284/.333/.432 with six homers in 160 plate appearances this season. He’s been on and off the active roster a few times due to injury — most recently some minor shoulder troubles.
A first-round pick back in 2012, Naquin made his big league debut in 2016 with Cleveland. He’s logged Major League time each season since, also making stops in Cincinnati and Queens, hitting at a .264/.318/.444 clip in 1811 MLB plate appearances. Naquin has experience in center field but is better suited to play a corner. He’s a left-handed hitter who’s been held to a meager .210/.272/.339 slash against lefties but has tagged righties for a much heartier .274/.326/.468 slash in his career.
While Naquin won’t immediately jump onto Chicago’s big league roster, the uncertain state of the South Siders’ outfield could get him a look at some point. Top prospect Oscar Colas struggled considerably in right field early in the season before being optioned to Triple-A, and he hasn’t improved in a month since his recall. Dating back to July 4, Colas has hit .229/.253/.289 with a 29.9% strikeout rate and 3.4% walk rate in 87 plate appearances. The White Sox do have some outfield alternatives in Triple-A who are already on the 40-man roster — Clint Frazier, Adam Haseley — but both have been in the minors for more than a month now.
If the Sox ultimately feel there’s no spot on the big league roster for Naquin, they could still trade him a second time this month. They’d likely only pick up cash in return, as is common in post-deadline swaps of this nature.
White Sox Sign Chris Muller To Minor League Contract
The White Sox signed righty Chris Muller to a minor league deal over the weekend, according to an announcement from their Triple-A team. He’s been assigned to their top affiliate in Charlotte.
Muller, 27, has yet to make his big league debut. He received his first major league call from the Rays in May but was optioned back out without making an appearance. After he suffered an injury in Triple-A, Tampa Bay released him. The Rays brought him back on a minor league pact but released him again last week.
A former 17th round pick, Muller is strictly a bullpen option. He’s worked 20 innings across 16 appearances with the Rays’ top minor league club this season, posting a 4.95 ERA. His 24.4% strikeout rate was solid, but he walked a lofty 12.2% of batters faced. It was a similar story the year before, when Muller fanned 28.1% of opponents against a 12.7% walk percentage en route to a 4.91 ERA in 58 2/3 Triple-A frames.
Chicago traded away a number of relievers at the deadline, leading to MLB calls for the likes of Declan Cronin, Bryan Shaw, Edgar Navarro and Lane Ramsey. That thinned the Triple-A depth, making it a fairly sensible landing spot for Muller to look for his initial MLB appearance.
Keynan Middleton Criticizes White Sox’s Clubhouse Culture
The White Sox have been among the most disappointing teams in MLB this season. While Chicago entered the year with a top-heavy roster, they expected to compete with Minnesota and Cleveland in a lackluster AL Central. The division has been as bad as expected, but Chicago started slowly and never looked like a viable playoff team.
As a result, the Sox moved a number of veterans before last week’s deadline. One of the players shipped off — middle reliever Keynan Middleton — criticized Chicago’s clubhouse culture after being traded. The now-Yankees righty told Jesse Rogers of ESPN last night that players “came in with no rules.”
“I don’t know how you police the culture if there are no rules or guidelines to follow because everyone is doing their own thing. Like, how do you say anything about it because there are no rules,” Middleton continued. “You have rookies sleeping in the bullpen during the game. You have guys missing meetings. You have guys missing (pitcher fielding practices), and there are no consequences for any of this stuff.”
Middleton first joined the organization on a minor league deal in January. He’d bounced between the Angels, Mariners and Diamondbacks over parts of six MLB seasons before signing with Chicago. While Middleton participated in big league Spring Training, he wasn’t on the MLB roster until the Sox selected his contract in mid-April.
From a performance perspective, the 29-year-old had one of the better stretches of his career in Chicago. He worked to a 3.96 ERA with a 30% strikeout rate over 36 1/3 frames, allowing the Sox to flip him to New York for minor league righty Juan Carela even though he’s an impending free agent. However, Middleton was clearly displeased with the culture, which he said predated his arrival.
“When I got to spring training, I heard a lot of the same stuff was happening last year,” Middleton told Rogers. “It’s happening again this year, so not sure how I could change it. They don’t tell you not to miss PFPs. They don’t tell you not to miss meetings, and if it happens, it’s just, ‘OK.”
He directed his criticism primarily at the team’s position players, saying that while the pitching staff “went about our work the right way … the rest of the team struggled to do the right thing.” Of course, the mention of skipped pitcher-fielding practices would only be a problem for the pitching staff.
One of Middleton’s former teammates backed up his assertions. Veteran starter Lance Lynn — who spent two and a half seasons with the Sox before being traded to the Dodgers last month — briefly addressed Middleton’s comments this afternoon (relayed by Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times). “I was (with the White Sox) a lot longer than Key was. He’s not wrong,” Lynn stated.
Chicago has a first-year manager in Pedro Grifol. Hired last offseason after Tony La Russa resigned because of health concerns, Grifol had no previous MLB managerial experience. Middleton’s and Lynn’s comments imply that what they perceived to be a lack of accountability began during the La Russa era and has continued under Grifol’s leadership.
General manager Rick Hahn defended Grifol this afternoon. “It does take a manager a certain amount of time to implement the culture that they want,” Hahn said (link via Bruce Levine of 670 The Score). “I know early on Pedro wanted to observe and follow what the culture was in the clubhouse before he started putting thumbprints all over it.”
However, Hahn pushed back at the extent of Middleton’s criticism, taking a swipe at the reliever in the process. “Quite frankly, it’s a little bit ironic that Keynan’s the one saying this because my last conversation with him face to face was a week ago in this clubhouse where he sought me out to apologize for his unprofessional behavior – unprofessional behavior that Pedro had called him out on and had an individual meeting with him about, and Keenan wanted to apologize for,” Hahn said (link from Tori Rubinstein of NBC Sports Chicago). “I told him at the time I figured that was a one off and not something that anyone need to get into greater detail of. And he shared that he understood there was a trade deadline coming up and that if we moved him, he would be very interested in returning to us as a free agent.”
Hahn conceded the club has unspecified “cultural issues” and admitted “we need to improve the leadership in that room.” However, he denied the assertion that any player fell asleep in the bullpen mid-game or that players were free to skip meetings. “One thing we’re not going to do is stand idly by while false reports are put out there about the character of the men that remain in that room,” Hahn said.
The White Sox host Middleton’s new club for a three-game set this week. They entered tonight’s game with a 45-68 record, the third-worst mark in the American League.
MLB Issues Suspensions Following Guardians/White Sox Brawl
Per a league press release, Major League Baseball has suspended White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson for six games and Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez for three games following the benches-clearing brawl between the two teams over the weekend. The league also announced one-game suspensions for Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase, manager Terry Francona and third base coach Mike Sarbaugh. White Sox skipper Pedro Grifol was also suspended for one game. Guardians infielder Gabriel Arias and White Sox righty Michael Kopech were both fined an undisclosed amount.
Anderson and Ramirez are both appealing their suspensions, which will be held in abeyance until the appeals process has been completed. Clase will serve his suspension tonight, as will both managers. Sarbaugh will serve his suspension tomorrow.
The suspensions stem from a Saturday altercation on a slide at second base. Ramirez dove headfirst into the bag and felt Anderson applied a tag attempt to the head with too much force. Ramirez claimed after the game that his issues with Anderson predate Saturday’s contest, and he also alleged that Anderson was the aggressor and instigator of the fight (link via The Athletic). Anderson has not yet commented publicly.
White Sox Claim Brent Honeywell, Select Lane Ramsey
The White Sox added a pair of right-handers to their 40-man roster, announcing that Lane Ramsey‘s contract was selected from Triple-A and that Brent Honeywell Jr. was claimed off waivers from the Padres. Right-hander Gregory Santos was placed on the bereavement list in a corresponding move.
San Diego designated Honeywell for assignment on Wednesday, one of a few transactions made to make space for the Padres’ trade deadline acquisitions. Honeywell has a 4.05 ERA/4.31 SIERA over 46 2/3 relief innings this season, with a solid 48.9% grounder rate but below-average strikeout (20.5%) and walk (10.2%) rates. The righty had some of the highest hard-contact numbers in the league, and a solid 7.2% barrel rate hasn’t quite been enough to limit the damage, as Honeywell has allowed eight home runs.
These shaky numbers notwithstanding, simply getting onto the mound represented a great result for Honeywell after years of injuries. A top-100 regular during his days as a prospect in the Rays system, Honeywell has already undergone four different surgeries on his throwing elbow, including a Tommy John procedure. As a result, Honeywell’s MLB resume prior to this season consisted of a three-game cup of coffee with Tampa Bay in 2021, with Honeywell tossing 4 1/3 total innings.
Honeywell was a low-cost winter signing for the Padres on a split contract, and it’s safe to say both sides were probably satisfied with how the deal worked out. It is quite possible San Diego would’ve preferred to keep Honeywell if he wasn’t out of minor league options, so with a 26-man roster crunch, the Padres had to risk losing him on a waiver claim. It isn’t surprising that the White Sox (and probably some other teams) had an eye on a former top prospect who might finally be healthy and ready to perform, and since Chicago is out of the race, they’ll have the rest of the season to evaluate Honeywell and see if he might be in their plans for 2024.
Ramsey was a 23rd-round pick for the White Sox in the 2018 draft, and the 27-year-old is now on the verge of his debut appearance in the Show. Now in his third season at Triple-A Charlotte, Ramsey hadn’t much success at the top minor league level, with a 5.79 ERA over 79 1/3 innings (pitching as a reliever in 70 of 72 appearances) with a 25.34% strikeout rate and an ungainly 15.36% walk rate. Ramsey is something of a prototypical hard-throwing reliever who hasn’t quite been able to translate that velocity into control or a higher-tier strikeout rate, though the White Sox coaches will get a closer look at his live arm during his stint in the majors.