Is The White Sox’ Season Already Lost?
The White Sox’ catastrophic start to the season has all but eliminated the team’s playoff hopes before the first month of the schedule has even concluded. The South Siders sit at 7-19 with a -58 run differential. FanGraphs has already dropped their projected playoff odds to 4.8%. Baseball Prospectus’ PECOTA is even more bearish, at 3.6%.
Unsurprisingly, general manager Rick Hahn and executive vice president Kenny Williams have come under fire for the calamitous beginnings of the 2023 season, though the team’s struggles date even further back than that. The Sox dropped eight in a row last September to fall from three games out of the division lead to 11 back and a .500 finish. Hahn was candid in discussing his struggles with the team’s beat yesterday (link via Steve Greenberg of the Chicago Sun-Times).
“I think that makes it clear that my job is potentially on the line,” Hahn said of the team’s awful start to the season. The 11-year GM emphasized that the team’s struggles “sure as heck isn’t on [manager Pedro Grifol] and his coaching staff” and repeatedly said of the team’s struggles: “Put it on me.”
It has indeed been a brutal start for the Sox in just about every sense. Their collective .231/.289/.373 batting line translates to an 84 wRC+ that sits 26th in the Majors. The Sox are 23rd in team batting average, 28th in on-base percentage, 22nd in slugging percentage, 28th in walk rate (6.6%) and 16th in strikeout rate (23.7%). They’ve dealt with their share of injuries, but that’s increasingly looking more like an undesirable feature of this team’s core rather than a bug. The Sox’ depth behind the core group — or rather, the lack thereof — was far from unforeseeable. I wrote about that topic back in late January in a piece for MLBTR Front Office subscribers. It’s been a perennial issue for the team.
So too has the lack of defense. Hahn, Williams & Co. sought to remedy that issue in 2023 by making the tough decision to move on from clubhouse leader Jose Abreu, opening first base for Andrew Vaughn and paving a path to improved outfield defense with Andrew Benintendi in left, Luis Robert Jr. in center and top prospect Oscar Colas in right field. The team’s overall defense is better in 2023 but is still far from a strength; they’re sitting at a combined -10 Defensive Runs Saved, -2 Outs Above Average and, most charitably, a scratch grade from Ultimate Zone Rating. Their 12 team errors tie them for 12th in Major League Baseball. Colas, meanwhile, has looked overmatched at the plate so far.
Chicago’s pitching staff — specifically the rotation — was supposed to be its great strength, but things simply haven’t panned out in that regard. Every member of the rotation, including last year’s Cy Young runner-up Dylan Cease, has an ERA north of 4.00. Veteran Lance Lynn and once-vaunted prospect Michael Kopech are both north of 7.00. The options beyond the top quintet of Cease, Lynn, Kopech, Lucas Giolito and free-agent signee Mike Clevinger aren’t much more encouraging; the Sox’ sixth starter, Davis Martin, posted a 4.83 ERA in 63 1/3 MLB innings last year. He’s out to a nice start through three turns in Triple-A this season but also turned in a 6.11 ERA in 13 starts there in 2022.
In the bullpen, the Sox have baseball’s second-worst ERA at 6.06, leading only the hapless Athletics. There was no foreseeable way to plan for Liam Hendriks‘ absence, and the Aussie closer’s announcement that he’s cancer-free and eyeing a return to the mound sooner than later is one of the game’s great feel-good stories at the moment.
Even with Hendriks sidelined, the Chicago relief corps should be vastly better than this, however, particularly given the weighty contracts to which they’ve signed free agents like Kendall Graveman (three years, $24MM) and Joe Kelly (two years, $17MM). The Sox are spending more than $42MM on their bullpen in 2023, and while Hendriks accounts for $14MM of that (and has been every bit as excellent as expected when healthy), that still leaves more than $28MM in salary committed to a group that has delivered the second-worst bottom line results in all of baseball.
It’s a dismal look top-to-bottom at the moment, and it calls into question the team’s direction at the trade deadline at a stunningly early juncture of the season. The White Sox would need to play at a 74-62 pace (.544) just to finish the season at .500. If we were to set the hypothetical bar for a playoff berth at 90 wins, they’d need to go 83-53 (.610) from here on out to reach that threshold. Put another way, they’d need to play at the rough equivalent of an 88-win pace (over a 162-game season) just to get to .500 and at the equivalent of a 99-win pace to reach 90 wins.
Based on everything we’ve seen thus far, that’s decidedly unlikely. The overwhelming likelihood is that the Sox will enter the summer as a sub-.500 club with minimal playoff hopes. Even if they were able to claw back into within arm’s reach of the AL Central or a Wild Card chase, the team’s farm system is once again fairly barren, and owner Jerry Reinsdorf hasn’t appeared keen on taking payroll much beyond its current levels.
The greater likelihood would be one of selling off some veteran pieces, though that comes with its own questions. It seems doubtful Reinsdorf would want to commit to a full rebuild so soon after emerging from a yearslong effort to do just that. The Sox could trade off players who are only controlled through the end of the 2023 season or perhaps through the end of the 2024 campaign, but outside of Tim Anderson and Lucas Giolito, they don’t have many appealing players in that group. And, as Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic rightly pointed out this morning, trading away only impending free agents would need to signal that the team feels it can compete in 2024, which would probably require the type of bump in payroll that Reinsdorf resisted heading into the current season — when he actually lowered payroll on the heels of a disappointing 2022 season.
There’s still a possible avenue to better days with that approach, however. The team’s commitments to Lynn, Grandal, Kelly, Clevinger, Diekman, Elvis Andrus and Hanser Alberto are all up at season’s end. That’s about $65MM in combined salary. Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez, notably, are free agents as well. The Sox currently have about $109MM committed to next year’s club, per Roster Resource, with a tiny arbitration class (Cease, Kopech, Vaughn, Garrett Crochet).
The Sox could have as much as $60MM to work with this coming offseason before they get back to their current Opening Day payroll levels. That’s quite a bit to work with, but they’ll also need to add multiple starting pitchers, try to fix the bullpen and address multiple spots in a deficient lineup and defense — and do so with greater success than their last waves of free-agent investments (e.g. Grandal, Graveman, Kelly, Dallas Keuchel).
Ultimately, there’s no easy path to salvaging the 2023 season, and the long-term questions are every bit as confounding, if not more so. Hahn surely knows he’s on the hottest of seats, but even with a change atop the baseball operations pyramid, the team will be facing bigger-picture questions. Will Reinsdorf push payroll to previously unseen levels in an effort to spend his way out of the current mess? Would he green-light another rebuild at 87 years old and only a couple years removed from a four-year step back from competitive baseball? The White Sox are in one of the least-enviable spots in all of baseball right now, and the questions will only grow louder if the team can’t quickly begin to correct course.
White Sox Outright A.J. Alexy
The White Sox have sent right-hander A.J. Alexy outright to Triple-A Charlotte, tweets Scott Merkin of MLB.com. Since there’d been no indication that Alexy was designated for assignment, the move frees a spot on the 40-man roster. The roster count now sits at 39.
Chicago added Alexy off waivers from the Twins in January. He’d bounced around the league last offseason, going from the Rangers to the Nationals to Minnesota before landing in Chicago. All those transactions were via waivers aside from the move from Washington to Minnesota, which saw the Twins send a minor league pitcher to the Nats in a small trade.
Alexy held his roster spot with the Sox into the regular season. He was optioned to Charlotte in Spring Training. The 25-year-old has started four games for the Knights but been hit hard in ten innings. He’s allowed 17 runs, largely thanks to a staggering 18 walks out of 54 batters faced (exactly one third). Alexy has been an inconsistent strike-thrower throughout his career but has never battled his control to this extent. The Pennsylvania native has walked 12.8% of opponents over 406 1/3 career innings in the minor leagues.
While Alexy hasn’t pitched at the MLB level this season, he got there with Texas between 2021-22. Over 30 innings, he worked to a 6.30 ERA as a swingman. Alexy averaged north of 94 MPH on his fastball but had more walks than strikeouts in that brief look. He’d punched out a decent 23.5% of batters faced with a 5.91 ERA in 96 Triple-A frames last year.
Alexy has never previously been outrighted and doesn’t have three years of major league service. He therefore won’t be able to elect free agency. He’ll stick with Charlotte and look to get his strike-throwing back on track to put himself on the radar for an MLB look later this season. Alexy would qualify for minor league free agency at the end of the year if he’s not on the 40-man roster by that point.
White Sox Sign Clint Frazier, Bryan Shaw To Minor League Deals
The White Sox have signed outfielder Clint Frazier to a minor league contract, per James Fegan of The Athletic. Frazier has been assigned to Triple-A Charlotte. Fegan also relays that the club has signed right-hander Bryan Shaw to a minor league deal. Shaw will report to Arizona before eventually making his way to Charlotte.
Frazier, 28, signed a minor league deal with the Rangers over the winter but didn’t make the club out of Spring Training. He reported to the Triple-A Round Rock Express and got into 15 games but was released earlier this week, reportedly a mutual decision between him and the club. Prior to the release, he walked in 11.7% of his plate appearances but also struck out in 30% of them. His .250/.350/.442 batting line looks solid at first glance but is actually subpar in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, translating to a 91 wRC+.
Frazier was a fifth overall draft pick back in 2013 and a top 100 prospect in the next few seasons but he hasn’t been able to live up to that billing as of yet. He seemed to be cementing himself as a viable big league hitter with the Yankees from 2018 to 2020, hitting .267/.351/.485 in that time for a 123 wRC+. But he struggled badly in 2021, hitting .186/.317/.317 before getting placed on the injured list with vertigo in July. He didn’t return in the second half and was released at the end of the year. He signed with the Cubs last year but was designated for assignment after just 19 games.
He’s now a few years removed from his last really strong showing but there’s no risk for the White Sox in bringing him aboard and seeing if he can get back on track. They have Luis Robert Jr., Andrew Benintendi, Óscar Colás and Eloy Jiménez getting most of the playing time in their outfield and designated hitter mix right now but Colás is hitting just .221/.284/.294 through his first 22 major league games. Frazier will give the club another non-roster depth option alongside Billy Hamilton, Jake Marisnick, Stephen Piscotty and Victor Reyes. Frazier has a little over four years of major league service time, meaning he won’t be able to get to the six-year mark this year. If he happens to get back into a groove and make the club, they could retain him for next year via arbitration because he won’t automatically qualify for free agency.
Shaw, 35, is a veteran who has appeared in each of the past 12 seasons, spending time with Arizona, Cleveland, Colorado and Seattle. He has a career 3.92 ERA in 753 appearances over that span. He signed a minor league deal with the Sox in February but didn’t make the club at the end of Spring Training. He was released at the end of March but now returns to the organization on another deal. Since he’s been out of action for about a month, he’ll go to the club’s facilities in Arizona to get back into game shape before joining the Knights to provide the club with some bullpen depth.
14 Veterans With Upcoming Opportunity To Opt Out Of Minor League Deals
As part of last year’s collective bargaining agreement, MLB and the Players Association agreed to a few automatic opt-out dates for some veteran players on minor league contracts. Article XX(B) free agents — players with over six years of MLB service who finished the preceding season on a big league roster — who sign minor league contracts more than ten days before Opening Day now receive three uniform chances to retest free agency if they’re not added to the majors.
The first comes five days before the start of the season. For players who pass on that initial opt-out, they have additional windows to explore the open market on both May 1 and June 1 if they’ve yet to secure a spot on the 40-man roster. As that second opt-out date nears, it’s worth checking in on a few players with opt-outs under the CBA. We’ll also look at a few players who don’t meet those criteria but reportedly negotiated forthcoming opt-out dates into their own non-roster deals.
- Reds RHP Chase Anderson
Anderson was an Article XX(B) player who passed on his first opt-out chance. The 35-year-old finished last season with nine outings (seven starts) for the Reds, allowing a 6.38 ERA in 24 innings. He returned to the organization and has started five games for their top affiliate in Louisville. He carries a 4.30 ERA over 23 frames with a modest 19% strikeout rate while walking 13% of opposing hitters. It’s not a great first few weeks but the Reds don’t have much certainty behind their top three starters. Connor Overton is on the injured list, while Luis Cessa has been rocked for 20 runs in 16 2/3 innings.
- Angels RHP Chris Devenski
Devenski also forewent his Spring Training opt-out. The 32-year-old accepted a season-opening assignment to Triple-A Salt Lake, where he’s made seven relief outings. In nine innings, he’s allowed four runs with nine strikeouts and three walks. It’s a decent if not overwhelming performance. Devenski was an elite multi-inning relief option for the Astros between 2016-17 but he’s battled injuries and performance fluctuations since then. He threw 14 2/3 MLB innings between the Diamondbacks and Phillies last year, allowing an 8.59 ERA with a modest 17.5% strikeout rate but only walking one of the 67 hitters he faced. The Angels have a number of relievers who can’t be optioned to the minor leagues, perhaps reducing their flexibility to add another player of that ilk in Devenski.
- Nationals LHP Sean Doolittle
Doolittle bypassed an opt-out chance in Spring Training after returning to Washington over the winter. He’s spent the year on the injured list as he continues to work back from last summer’s internal brace UCL surgery. The veteran threw a live batting practice session this week and could see game action in the not too distant future (via MLB.com injury tracker). It stands to reason he’ll stick with the Nats.
- Rangers LHP Danny Duffy, OF Rafael Ortega
Duffy has spent the season on the injured list. He’s working back from forearm issues that have prevented him from throwing a major league pitch since July 2021. He already passed on a Spring Training opt-out and seems likely to do so again.
Ortega built an April 29 opt-out date into the minor league deal he signed with the Rangers earlier this month. He’d spent the spring in camp with the Yankees but didn’t crack New York’s roster and retested the market. Since signing with Texas, he’s played 17 games for Triple-A Round Rock. He carries a middling .219/.324/.313 line with one homer through 74 plate appearances. He’s drawing plenty of walks but not hitting for power and striking out a little more often than he has in recent seasons.
The lefty-hitting outfielder is coming off a reasonable .241/.331/.358 showing for the Cubs in 2022. He’s capable of playing all three outfield spots but is probably best suited for a corner. Texas has gotten strong early-season work from minor league signee Travis Jankowski and has Adolis García and Leody Taveras penciled into starting roles. The Rangers haven’t gotten much production from any of their left field options aside from Jankowski, though, and it’s questionable how long the journeyman can keep up anything approaching his current .340/.415/.447 pace.
- Rays OF Ben Gamel
Gamel, 31 next month, has been a decent left-handed platoon outfielder in recent seasons. He typically hits around a league average level, including a .232/.324/.369 line over 115 games with the Pirates last year. After signing with the Rays, he’s off to a .217/.316/.406 start in 79 plate appearances at Triple-A Durham. He’s walking at a customarily strong 12.7% clip but has gone down on strikes in more than 30% of his trips. Left-handed hitting outfielders Josh Lowe and Luke Raley have had excellent starts for Tampa Bay, which could make it hard for Gamel to play his way into the MLB mix anytime soon.
- White Sox OF Billy Hamilton
Hamilton, 32, returned for a second stint with the White Sox over the winter. He’s appeared in 14 games with Triple-A Charlotte but hasn’t produced, stumbling to a .150/.292/.175 batting line. The speedster has been successful on all three of his stolen base attempts but likely needs to show a little more at the plate to earn the pinch-running/defensive specialist role he’s played for a number of teams over the past four-plus seasons. The White Sox recently selected Adam Haseley onto the MLB roster to serve as a glove-first fourth outfielder.
- Phillies RHP Jeff Hoffman
Hoffman didn’t sign early enough to receive the automatic opt-out for Article XX(B) free agents. He negotiated opt-out chances on both May 1 and July 1 into his April deal with the Phils. The righty has pitched seven times for their top affiliate in Lehigh Valley, allowing eight runs across 7 2/3 innings. He’s punched out 13 hitters but handed out five free passes. Hoffman had a reasonable 3.83 ERA through 44 2/3 frames for the Reds last season, missing bats at a league average rate but walking nearly 12% of his opponents. The Phils only have three out of eight relievers who can’t be optioned to the minors, giving them some room to add the veteran if they’re intrigued by Hoffman’s swing-and-miss capabilities.
- Brewers OF Tyler Naquin
Naquin was an Article XX(B) free agent who didn’t break camp with the big league club. He split the 2022 campaign between the Reds and Mets, combining to hit .229/.282/.423 over 334 trips to the plate. The left-handed hitting outfielder has played in 12 games for Triple-A Nashville, hitting .273/.319/.409. He’s not hitting for much power in the early going and has never been one to take too many walks. Naquin spent a bit of time on the injured list this month but was reinstated earlier in the week.
Milwaukee lost center fielder Garrett Mitchell to a season-threatening shoulder procedure and has gotten middling offensive production from rookie outfielder Joey Wiemer. They’re soon to welcome Tyrone Taylor back from the injured list, though, and Naquin’s serviceable but unexceptional Triple-A production may not force the front office’s hand.
- Tigers RHP Trevor Rosenthal
Rosenthal has had his last couple seasons washed away by injury. He lost 2021 to thoracic outlet syndrome and hip surgery, while his ’22 campaign was wiped out by hamstring and lat strains. The Tigers took a look at the one-time star closer in Spring Training and kept him in the organization with their highest affiliate in Toledo. Rosenthal pitched twice in the season’s first week before being placed on the minor league IL with a sprained throwing elbow. Jason Beck of MLB.com tweeted yesterday that Rosenthal is headed for physical therapy, suggesting he won’t be ready for game action in the near future.
- Giants RHP Joe Ross, C Gary Sánchez
Ross is recovering from last June’s Tommy John surgery and will spend most of the year on the injured list. He bypassed his first opt-out chance in March and seems likely to do the same next week.
Sánchez’s May 1 opt-out was built into his contract, as he didn’t sign early enough to receive the automatic opt-out under the CBA. The general expectation was that the veteran backstop would play his way onto the big league roster. That was particularly true once San Francisco lost Roberto Pérez to a season-ending shoulder injury. Sánchez hasn’t done anything to force the issue with Triple-A Sacramento, though.
He’s hitting a woeful .191/.350/.213 without a home run and a 25% strikeout rate over 13 games. Sánchez connected on 16 longballs in the majors for the Twins last year but only reached base at a .282 clip. There’s a path to playing time behind the dish at Oracle Park. Still, Sánchez’s early performance hasn’t been what the organization envisioned. Promoting him would lock in the prorated portion of a $4MM salary for this season, which could prove a disincentive for the club.
- Twins RHP Aaron Sanchez
Sanchez served a depth role for Minnesota last season, logging 60 innings over 15 outings (ten starts). He was tagged for a 6.60 ERA at the MLB level but performed well enough in Triple-A the organization brought him back. He’s started five games with St. Paul this season, logging 22 1/3 innings. While his 2.42 ERA is excellent, it belies a middling 19.2% strikeout percentage and a huge 17.2% walk rate. Minnesota has quite a bit more rotation depth than they did last summer and would probably look to players already on the 40-man roster (i.e. Simeon Woods Richardson and Louie Varland) before tabbing Sanchez if injuries necessitate.
- Padres RHP Craig Stammen
Stammen suffered a capsule tear in his shoulder in Spring Training. The 39-year-old has spent the year on the injured list and has admitted the injury might unfortunately end his career.
White Sox Notes: Anderson, Alberto, Crochet, Hendriks, Moncada
The White Sox provided reporters with some updates on various injured players and their paths to rejoining the club, with James Fegan of The Athletic among those to relay the information (Twitter links). The ones closest to return are infielders Tim Anderson and Hanser Alberto, as they will be starting rehab assignments with Triple-A Charlotte tomorrow.
Anderson, 30 in June, has been on the injured list since April 11 due to a knee sprain. He was initially estimated to miss between two and four weeks, so it’s still possible for him to come back in that time frame. One of the club’s better players, his absence has corresponded with a dreadful downward slide in the standings. The Sox were 5-6 when he hit the shelf but have gone just 2-12 since, now sporting a record of 7-18.
The club is obviously better when Anderson is a part of it. Dating back to the start of 2019, he has 51 home runs and 58 stolen bases. His .317/.346/.471 batting line in that time amounts to a wRC+ of 122. Any club would be worse off when subtracting that kind of production, but his replacements have fared quite poorly. With him out of action, Elvis Andrus has become the everyday shortstop, but he’s hitting just .195/.260/.230 on the year for a wRC+ of 37. The second base position, which was previously covered by Andrus, has been mostly split between Romy González and Lenyn Sosa in that time. González is currently hitting .129/.129/.129 for a wRC+ of -39 while Sosa’s line is .122/.143/.220, -8 wRC+.
The tremendous drop-off from Anderson’s typical production to those numbers has surely played a role in the club’s recent struggles, making his imminent return fantastic news for the club. He’s been floated as a speculative trade candidate this summer if they fail to return to contention, given he’s in the final guaranteed season of his contract. However, the club has an affordable $14MM option for 2024 with a $1MM buyout.
There’s also good news in the return of Albero, on the IL with a quad strain, though he’s more of a role player. His career batting line of .271/.293/.380 translates to a wRC+ of 77, which isn’t terribly exciting but would still mean the club would have options to turn to when others are struggling.
Just slightly behind those two is left-hander Garrett Crochet, who missed all of last year due to undergoing Tommy John surgery in April. He’s getting a check-up in Chicago but would be approved for his own rehab assignment if everything looks good there. The southpaw has a career 2.54 ERA in 60 1/3 innings, striking out 29% of batters faced against a 10.7% walk rate. Getting him back in the bullpen would surely give the club a nice boost back there.
Another boost for the bullpen could be coming as right-hander Liam Hendriks, who has missed all of this season so far while undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, though he recently shared the good news that he’s been declared cancer free. He’s just slightly behind Crochet, as he will report to Chicago for his own pre-rehab checkup next week. He’s become one of the most dominant relievers in baseball in recent years, racking up 119 saves in the previous four seasons with a 2.26 ERA and 38.8% strikeout rate in that time.
While it’s great that those four players are making progress towards their respective returns, there’s one bit of news that’s less encouraging, per Fegan. Third baseman Yoán Moncada, who was been on the injured list for about two weeks due to back tightness, has been diagnosed with a protruding disc that is touching a nerve and causing pain in his glutes. While the issue is supposedly improving, Moncada still won’t be starting a rehab assignment during the current eight-game homestand that begins tonight. General manager Rick Hahn said that these issues don’t require offseason surgery about 80% of the time.
That’s surely not ideal information since Moncada’s IL placement originally seemed to be fairly precautionary. There was a period of a few days where it seemed he and the club were hoping to avoid an IL stint altogether but it’s now clearly more serious than initially thought. More updates will surely be forthcoming but it doesn’t seem like he’s close to a return and future surgery isn’t completely off the table.
Moncada has been fairly hot-and-cold in his career but was on a heater this year before the injury popped up, hitting .308/.325/.564 through his first nine games. Thankfully, his absence hasn’t created as much of a hole in the lineup as Anderson’s has, as Jake Burger has filled in with a .213/.309/.596 showing. Still, it’s a discouraging update on a key member of the core for a club that was held back by significant injuries last year and has been battling them again this year. His contract runs through 2024 with a $25MM option for 2025 that has a $5MM buyout.
White Sox, Nash Walters Agree To Minor League Deal
The White Sox have brought in right-hander Nash Walters on a minor league deal, per Baseball America’s transactions page.
Walters has one of the smaller major league careers you’ll see, having recorded a solitary out in his solitary big league appearance last year for the Angels. That’s too small of a sample size to draw any meaningful judgement, so it’s easier to look to minor leagues where Walters posted a 4.60 ERA over 47 innings at Double-A last year in the Brewers’ system.
A third round pick by Milwaukee in 2015, Walters worked his way up through their system but was purchased by the Angels at the backend of last season, which also brought about his big league debut.
He’s still only seen a handful of innings at the highest level of the minors, with the bulk of his work coming at Double-A. He’ll spend time at Triple-A Charlotte for the White Sox though, where he’ll provide the team with some relief pitching depth.
White Sox Sign Stephen Piscotty To Minor League Deal
Veteran outfielder Stephen Piscotty has joined the White Sox on a minor league deal and been assigned to their Triple-A team in Charlotte, per a release from the Knights. Piscotty was a free agent after the Giants released him at the end of spring training.
An eight year MLB veteran, Piscotty has appeared for the Cardinals and Athletics during his career, slashing a combined .255/.324/.430 over 726 big league games.
He last appeared for Oakland last season, putting up a .190/.252/.341 with five home runs over 139 plate appearances. That was another season of generally declining offensive output for Piscotty, who was considered an above average hitter by wRC+ for most of the early parts of his career.
A first round pick by the Cardinals back in 2012, Piscotty burst onto the scene with a .305/.359/.494 rookie year in 2015 which saw him finish sixth in NL Rookie of the Year voting. He’d continue to put up good numbers for St Louis, posting a .268/.346/.438 line with 38 home runs between 2015-17, and they’d extend him on a six-year, $33.5MM deal in April of 2017.
The majority of that contract was played out elsewhere though, as Piscotty was traded to Oakland ahead of the 2018 season. It started brightly, as Piscotty posted the best full season of his career in 2018, hitting 27 home runs and getting a 126 wRC+. Things tailed off after that though, and Piscotty has been below average since 2019.
The White Sox are fairly well stocked in the outfield, with Andrew Benintendi, Luis Robert and rookie Oscar Colas manning the positions, but the bench picture is not quite as clear and if Piscotty can find his hitting touch at Triple-A it stands to reason he could factor in off the bench for the big league club at some point.
Matt Foster Undergoes Tommy John Surgery
White Sox right-hander Matt Foster underwent Tommy John surgery this week, per Scott Merkin of MLB.com. The righty was placed on the 15-day injured list at the start of the season due to a forearm strain and was transferred to the 60-day last week.
Foster, 28, has spent his entire career with the White Sox thus far, having been selected by them in the 20th round of the 2016 draft. He worked his way up to the majors and debuted in 2020, showing promise that year by posting a 2.20 ERA in 28 2/3 innings. He struck out 28.4% of batters faced while walking 8.3% of them and got grounders on 35.8% of balls in play. He wasn’t quite able to maintain that pace in the two subsequent seasons, however, registering a combined 5.14 ERA in 84 innings with a diminished strikeout rate of 22.3%.
Foster will now be out of action for the remainder of this year and part of 2024 as well, given the typical Tommy John recovery time of 14 to 18 months. He’ll accrue a full year of service time while on the IL all season, which will get him beyond the three-year plateau and qualify him for arbitration for the first time in the coming offseason.
Liam Hendriks Announces He Is Cancer Free
White Sox closer Liam Hendriks announced some good news about his health today on Instagram. “How It Started VS How It’s Going….,” the post says. “REMISSION.” After the thankful palms together emoji, it continues. “It’s official. I’m cancer free.”
Hendriks, 34, announced back in January that he would be starting treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The club didn’t provide many specifics about his expected absence in the subsequent months, but they deliberately chose not to put him on the 60-day injured list, in case he was able to return less than two months into the season. The righty himself then announced a couple of weeks ago that he had completed his chemotherapy treatment, which were clearly successful based on today’s update.
It’s a tremendous bit of good news for Hendriks, his family, teammates, fans of the Sox and baseball fans in general. Hendriks has made connections all over the league throughout his lengthy career, which has seen him suit up for the Twins, Blue Jays, Royals and Athletics, before he signed with the White Sox prior to the 2021 season. He established himself as one of the game’s premier closers with Oakland in 2019 and has racked up 114 saves since the start of that season, trailing only Kenley Jansen and Josh Hader among all pitchers in the league during that time frame.
It’s still unclear how much time it will take for Hendriks to return to game shape for 2023, but more information about that will surely be forthcoming in the days and weeks ahead. For now, the most important matter is settled and MLBTR joins the rest of the baseball world in congratulating Hendriks on his recovery.
Image courtesy of USA Today Sports.
White Sox Notes: Moncada, Sheets, Burger
The White Sox recently placed third baseman Yoán Moncada on the 10-day injured list due to back soreness, and it seemed like maybe he would be able to quickly return. He had already missed a few games as the club was deciding whether or not to send him to the IL, suggesting it was a fairly borderline case. With the ability to backdate an IL move by three days, it seemed reasonable to expect him to return after a week of rest, but manager Pedro Grifol tells reporters, including Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times, that Moncada will likely be sent on a rehab assignment.
“He’s getting better, but there’s a process to this thing,” Grifol said. “Now he’s missed significant time to where there’s going to be some added stuff to his progression and his return.” He also says that “Third base is a reactionary position; there’s some diving involved; there’s a lot of movement” and that “there’s a good possibility that he will [go on a rehab assignment].”
Injuries have become a bit of a running theme for Moncada over the past couple of years. He made multiple trips to the IL last year due to a right oblique strain, a right hamstring strain and then a left hamstring strain. He was limited to 104 games on the year and a paltry .212/.273/.353 batting line when healthy enough to take the field. He launched out of the gates here in 2023 by hitting .308/.325/.564 in the early going but that progress has now been stalled by these back issues and his return might now be kicked a little further down the road than initially expected.
The IL stints of Moncada, Eloy Jiménez, Tim Anderson and Hanser Alberto have opened up opportunities for other players on the roster, such as Jake Burger and Gavin Sheets. James Fegan of The Athletic recently profiled the pair, who have become close such close friends that they’ve started referring to themselves collectively as “Shurger,” even joking about selling split jerseys or T-shirts.
Both players have made the most of their recent opportunities with offensive outbursts. Burger has smacked five home runs already in just 11 games, currently sporting a video game batting line of .276/.353/.862 and a 219 wRC+. Sheets’ line isn’t quite as gaudy but it’s still an impressive .310/.429/.414 for a 149 wRC+. However, like many White Sox players of recent years, the offensive potency has come with defensive questions, with Fegan highlighting an error made by Burger against the Orioles and a misplay made by Sheets against the Twins recently.
This was also an issue for the White Sox last year, as first baseman Andrew Vaughn was pushed to an outfield corner, with his poor defensive work out there undoing a lot of what he provided at the plate. The club let José Abreu walk in free agency in order to put Vaughn back at first, but they still have Jiménez as the designated hitter most days, meaning anyone else in the lineup needs to play the field on a regular basis somewhere. “I think he wears more of it because there were some guys out of position last year, and the team wore it, right?” Grifol said to Fegan about Sheets playing the outfield. “And the organization wore it. And maybe that’s what’s a part of it. I don’t know, I don’t know what people think. I know what we evaluate and what we see, and the work we see being done. And it doesn’t mean he’s going to go out there and have a great defensive game. He might not. He might make an error, he might make two. It doesn’t change the fact that we have confidence in him playing the outfield. If we didn’t, he wouldn’t be playing out there.”
Sheets has a career tally of -8 Defensive Runs Saved and -7 Outs Above Average in the outfield, along with a -7.0 from Ultimate Zone Rating. But with his hot bat, it seems like the club will keep trying to run him out there on occasion, though he’s clearly fourth on the outfield chart behind Luis Robert Jr., Andrew Benintendi and Óscar Colás. Burger’s been taking the hot corner while Moncada is out of action, where his career numbers are -6 DRS, -6 OAA and -2.1 UZR. Getting Moncada back would surely be an upgrade in this department, as he has career figures of +1 DRS, +8 OAA and 15.8 UZR at the hot corner. Burger’s bat should keep him in the lineup regardless, but he won’t be able to maintain a 55.6% HR/FB rate all year long.
Coming into the season, many viewed the White Sox’ roster as one that had plenty of top level talent but shaky depth that could be exposed by a few key injuries. The season is still in its early stages but the club hasn’t done much to shake that reputation. They’ve seen multiple lineup regulars and key relievers hit the injured list, leading to a 7-12 start that they will hope to climb out of in the weeks to come.