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Lenyn Sosa

White Sox Showing Trade Interest In Nicky Lopez

By Anthony Franco | January 24, 2023 at 7:35pm CDT

The White Sox have expressed interest in acquiring Royals infielder Nicky Lopez, reports Ken Rosenthal of the Athletic (Twitter link). There’s no indication discussions have gained traction, as Rosenthal notes that Kansas City isn’t anxious to deal the Creighton product.

Lopez, 28 in March, has spent his entire career with the Royals. He reached the majors in 2019, hitting .240/.276/.325 in 103 games as a rookie. He had a similarly rough offensive showing during his second season but earned elite marks for his second base work. Lopez’s +9 defensive runs saved during the shortened season tied for the league lead at the position, earning him another look in 2021.

The left-handed hitter looked to have taken a step forward offensively that season, at least on the surface. He posted a .300/.365/.378 line over 565 trips to the plate, with that offense checking in a hair above league average. That required a lofty .347 batting average on balls in play which he never seemed likely to sustain, and his batted ball metrics weren’t much different than those of his first two seasons. Lopez’s production indeed fell back last season, as he hit .227/.281/.273 without a home run in 480 trips to the plate.

Lopez was one of two hitters (Myles Straw being the other) who tallied 450+ plate appearances without connecting on a home run. He and Straw tied for the game’s second-lowest slugging output, narrowly topping that of Geraldo Perdomo, while ranking in the bottom 10 in hard contact. That lack of power makes him very reliant on turning grounders into singles to drive his offensive profile. That happened in 2021, but his overall .252/.309/.321 career line checks in 27 percentage points below league average as measured by wRC+.

The White Sox, of course, are eying Lopez for other reasons. While he has only slightly above-average pure speed, he’s an instinctive baserunner who has successfully stolen 36 bags in 40 attempts over the past two seasons. That skillset could take on a bit more value in 2023, as the league is introducing limits on the number of pickoff attempts/step-offs a pitcher can deploy in an at-bat.

More importantly, Lopez has shown the potential for excellent infield defense. DRS bizarrely graded him as eight runs below average at second base in 2022, but that’s an anomaly compared to his strong career marks. Statcast estimated him as three runs above average at the keystone and 5 runs above par through 406 innings of shortstop work last season. Both metrics pegged him as a quality defender at each middle infield spot in previous years.

Chicago obviously views Lopez as a potential target for their uncertain second base mix. Tim Anderson and Yoán Moncada will cover the left side of the infield. Second base is far less settled. Romy González and Lenyn Sosa look the present favorites for reps, with veteran utilityman Leury García also in the mix. Lopez doesn’t bring a ton of offensive upside but would raise the floor with his glove and baserunning.

The Royals have a somewhat questionable second base mix of their own, though, apparently lessening their desire to part with Lopez. Michael Massey is the top option after hitting .243/.307/.376 over 52 games as a rookie. That was a fine but hardly overwhelming debut showing, leaving the possibility that K.C. pivots back to Lopez if Massey scuffles. The Royals already thinned out their overall infield depth this morning by dealing Adalberto Mondesi to the Red Sox.

Lopez and the Royals agreed to a $3.7MM salary to avoid arbitration earlier this offseason. He’s under club control for three years, including the upcoming campaign.

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Chicago White Sox Kansas City Royals Lenyn Sosa Leury Garcia Michael Massey Nicky Lopez Romy Gonzalez

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Looking At White Sox’s Second Base Options

By Anthony Franco | January 4, 2023 at 8:49pm CDT

The White Sox have made a couple notable free agent moves this offseason. Andrew Benintendi was brought in on a five-year, $75MM pact to solidify the corner outfield and ensure Andrew Vaughn heads to his natural first base position. Mike Clevinger inked a bounceback deal to add some depth to the back of the starting staff.

One position the White Sox haven’t addressed thus far is second base. The keystone was a question mark last year, with five players logging at least five appearances there. Josh Harrison and Danny Mendick are gone, with Chicago declining a club option on the former and non-tendering the latter. That leaves a trio of last year’s options who stand as the top in-house candidates for reps.

  • Romy González (26): González made his MLB debut in 2021 with 10 appearances, and he got into 32 more games last season. Between those two years, he’s mustered just a .241/.261/.350 line through his first 142 MLB plate appearances. The right-handed hitter has connected on two home runs with well worse than average strikeout and walk numbers. He’s walked in just 2.1% of his trips against a 35.2% strikeout percentage. It was a fairly similar story with Triple-A Charlotte last year, where González punched out a third of the time en route to a .198/.281/.339 line over 33 games. He’d hit better in Double-A the year before, connecting on 20 homers in 78 contests in a pitcher-friendly environment — albeit with a 28.2% strikeout rate. González has some power upside but serious contact concerns against upper level pitching.
  • Leury García (32): García is an organizational favorite who’s headed into his tenth season with the club. He’s defensively versatile and has clearly endeared himself to multiple coaching staffs and the front office, culminating in a surprising three-year free agent deal last offseason. The switch-hitter has just a .253/.293/.350 career line at the big league level, though. Things were even worse in 2022, as he hit .210/.233/.267 over 315 trips to the plate. It’s hard to envision a win-now club counting on him as an everyday player, although he figures to play a multi-positional role off the bench.
  • Lenyn Sosa (23): Sosa has almost no MLB experience. He earned his first big league promotion in June and wound up appearing in 11 games the rest of the way. The Venezuela native is coming off an excellent season in the high minors. He hit well at both Double-A and Triple-A, combining for a .315/.369/.511 line with 22 home runs through 536 plate appearances. While Sosa only walked at a modest 7.3% clip, he kept his strikeout rate under 16%. One can’t be certain he’ll continue at that pace against MLB arms until he proves it at the highest level, of course. Sosa ranks 10th among White Sox prospects at Baseball America and may have the most upside of this trio, though there’d be plenty of risk for a team hoping to compete for a division title in turning the keystone over to him immediately.

The Sox have a few other infield options on the 40-man roster but none seems likely to step into the second base void. Chicago has toyed with the idea of playing Jake Burger at the keystone. He’s a better fit for the corner infield and only saw five innings of MLB action at second base last season. Jose Rodriguez and Bryan Ramos were each added to the 40-man after the 2022 season to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft; neither has any MLB experience to date. Yoán Moncada has played second base in the past, but the White Sox have deployed him exclusively at third base for the past four seasons. It doesn’t seem they’re considering moving him back to the middle infield.

Given the lack of an obvious internal solution, it’s unsurprising the club is open to bringing in help from outside the organization. General manager Rick Hahn told reporters yesterday the club could add at second base, though he indicated they were confident enough in González and Sosa they don’t consider that a necessity (via Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times). Their early-offseason activity has seemed to align with that expressed confidence, since they’ve watched the free agent middle infield market mostly dry up.

The remaining options on the open market are headlined by Elvis Andrus, who closed out the 2022 campaign with the White Sox after being released by the A’s. The veteran has only ever played shortstop in his MLB career, as he filled in there with Tim Anderson injured late last season. Perhaps Andrus is uninterested in moving to second base, though it stands to reason he’d be able to handle the position if willing to kick to the other side of the bag. Harrison is probably the next-best unsigned middle infielder. The Sox presumably don’t view him as a notable upgrade over their in-house options considering they declined to retain him on what amounted to a $4MM decision at the start of the offseason.

If not Andrus, that’d probably leave Hahn and his staff looking to the trade market. Any specific trade targets for the Chicago front office aren’t publicly known, although a few players stand out as speculative possibilities. The Blue Jays have a number of second base options and might be amenable to parting with Cavan Biggio or Santiago Espinal. The Marlins have relegated Joey Wendle and Jon Berti to utility duty after signing Jean Segura. If the Mets indeed finalize their deal with Carlos Correa, maybe they’d deal old friend Eduardo Escobar somewhere with a clearer path to playing time.

The A’s would presumably consider offers on Tony Kemp. That’s likely also the case for the Cubs and former White Sox Nick Madrigal, who lost his starting job after they signed Dansby Swanson to push Nico Hoerner to the keystone. Longer-shot trade candidates include Ha-Seong Kim and Gleyber Torres, although the White Sox might have to dip further than they feel comfortable into a shallow farm system to land either of those players. The same is true of Nolan Gorman, who debuted for the Cardinals last season but could be available in a deal that lands St. Louis immediate MLB help in another area. That’s not an exhaustive list but highlights a few players the Chicago front office could check in on.

Figuring out second base is presumably the top priority for Hahn and his group. Even if the front office genuinely is confident in González and/or Sosa to step up, adding a veteran complement as insurance for that unproven duo makes sense. The organization might not have much more spending capacity after the Benintendi signing. None of the remaining free agent options should break the bank, though, while a player like Espinal or Berti projected for a fairly modest arbitration salary shouldn’t be difficult to fit onto the books.

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Chicago White Sox MLBTR Originals Lenyn Sosa Leury Garcia Romy Gonzalez

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White Sox Place Danny Mendick On Injured List With Torn ACL, Select Lenyn Sosa

By TC Zencka | June 23, 2022 at 2:43pm CDT

The White Sox have placed infielder Danny Mendick on the 10-day injured list with a torn ACL, the team announced. Infielder Lenyn Sosa will have his contract selected from Double-A as he joins the active roster. In other moves, Adam Engel was placed on the 10-day injured list with a strained right hamstring and Gavin Sheets has been recalled from Triple-A. Eloy Jimenez was also moved to the 60-day injured list.

Mendick was having a bit of a breakout season, at least through 31 games, slashing .289/.343/.443 over 106 plate appearances. That’s not really enough playing time to call it a true “breakout,” but Mendick was nevertheless filling an important void at shortstop while Tim Anderson was out. There was at least the possibility that Mendick would take over at second base now that Anderson returned. Josh Harrison and Leury Garcia have been splitting time at the keystone, but Harrison has produced just a 79 wRC+ while Garcia has produced an even more abysmal 25 wRC+.

To take over at second, the White Sox could turn to promoted prospect Lenyn Sosa from Double-A, per Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.  Sosa has played all over the infield in the minors for the White Sox. Sosa was Chicago’s 11th-ranked prospect, per Baseball America, ranked 21st by MLB.com, and 14th by Fangraphs. Sosa has seen his stock rise this season with his power as he has posted a .197 ISO on the year. He is not a big tools player, but he’s nonetheless posted an impressive .331/.384/.549 line in 289 plate appearances in Double-A this season. If he can continue to produce, Sosa could solve the White Sox issues at the keystone. That’s a lot to expect of a 22-year-old without Triple-A experience, however.

Sheets returns to the big league roster, stationed in right field for tonight’s ball game. In Triple-A, he appeared in nine games, slashing .270/.308/.541. That kind of production in the bigs would keep Sheets in the lineup. After all, right field has been a collective effort this season for the White Sox, with Sheets, Engel, AJ Pollock, Adam Haseley, and Andrew Vaughn all getting starts. Nobody has started more than four consecutive games in right field this season, with Vaughn reaching that mark just once.

Engel had started the past three games in right, but he now heads to the injured list. The 30-year-old has slashed .240/.297/.349 over 158 plate appearances, good for just an 86 wRC+. Engel has long been considered a solid defensive outfielder, which is where he adds his value. That’s been no less true this season when he’s posted 5 DRS across the three outfield spots.

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Chicago White Sox Transactions Adam Engel Danny Mendick Eloy Jimenez Gavin Sheets Lenyn Sosa

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