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White Sox’s Romy Gonzalez Undergoes Labrum Surgery

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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 Place Michael Kopech On 15-Day IL, Select Bryan Shaw

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The White Sox announced a series of roster moves this afternoon. The club placed right-hander Michael Kopech on the 15-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation. To fill Kopech’s spot on the active roster, Chicago selected the contract of right-hander Bryan Shaw. To clear space for Shaw on the 40-man roster, infielder Romy Gonzalez was transferred to the 60-day IL.

Kopech, 27, was a first-round pick by the Red Sox in the 2014 draft and came over to the White Sox in the Chris Sale trade prior to the 2017 season. Kopech had a brief cup of coffee in the majors in 2018 that lasted four starts, but became a more permanent fixture of Chicago’s pitching staff in 2021 as a member of the bullpen, where he posted a 3.50 ERA and 2.97 FIP in 69 1/3 innings. 2022 saw the right-hander move to the rotation.

Since then, Kopech’s performance has been solid if unspectacular. In 205 1/3 innings of work across 41 starts, the young hurler has posted a 3.77 ERA and 4.95 FIP. He’s posted a solid 23.3% strikeout rate during that time though his 12.2% walk rate leaves something to be desired, particularly when paired with a groundball rate of just 35.6%. Still, he’s provided solid stability at the back of the club’s rotation. With Kopech joining Mike Clevinger on the shelf, the Sox figure to rely on Tanner Banks and Jesse Scholtens to handle starts in the run-up to the All Star break.

As for Shaw, the veteran hurler was a second-round pick by the Diamondbacks in the 2008 draft and was a steady relief option for Arizona and Cleveland from 2011-17, with a 3.13 ERA and 3.52 FIP in 446 1/3 innings of work. In five seasons since then, Shaw has been far less effective, with a 5.23 ERA in 268 1/3 innings of work. He signed with the White Sox on a minor league deal back in April and has delivered a solid 4.03 ERA in 22 1/3 innings of work at the Triple-A level since then. Now, Shaw will join the club’s bullpen mix, covering the middle innings alongside the likes of Gregory Santos and Aaron Bummer.

Gonzalez, meanwhile, heads to the 60-day IL a few weeks after being placed on the injured list with right shoulder inflammation, a designation that will keep him out until late August at the earliest. The utility man hit a paltry .194/.208/.376 in 97 plate appearances for the Sox this season prior to his placement on the IL.

White Sox Recall Jose Rodriguez For MLB Debut

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The White Sox announced a handful of transactions before tonight’s series opener with the Rangers. The most notable was the recall of infield prospect José Rodriguez for his initial MLB promotion. Chicago also recalled reliever Nick Padilla, placed Lance Lynn on the bereavement list, and put Romy González on the 10-day injured list because of right shoulder inflammation.

Rodriguez, 22, is among the better prospects in a thin Chicago farm system. Baseball America slots him ninth in the organization, crediting him with roughly average physical tools across the board but expressing some concern about a free-swinging offensive approach. BA suggests he’s likely to settle in as a utility type. Keith Law of the Athletic wrote over the offseason that Rodriguez’s bat-to-ball skills could make him an everyday player, likely at second base.

While the Dominican Republic native might be a long-term regular, he’s not likely to step into that role immediately. Rodriguez gets the call directly from Double-A, where he’d been having a middling offensive season. Over 201 plate appearances in the Southern League, he’s hitting .238/.274/.429. Rodriguez has connected on nine home runs but is walking just 5% of the time while striking out in over a quarter of his plate appearances — easily the highest rate of his professional career.

In all likelihood, Rodriguez will find himself back in the minors before too long. He could make his big league debut in the interim, though, offering some middle depth for skipper Pedro Grifol behind the starting duo of Tim Anderson and Elvis Andrus. Added to the 40-man roster last winter to keep him out of the Rule 5 draft, Rodriguez is in his first of three minor league option seasons.

White Sox Designate Hanser Alberto For Assignment

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The White Sox announced a series of roster moves today, reinstating right-hander Mike Clevinger and infielder Elvis Andrus from the injured list. In corresponding moves, they optioned right-hander Jesse Scholtens and designated infielder Hanser Alberto for assignment.

The White Sox haven’t had a good solution for second base for most of the year. Andrus was signed with the idea of slotting him next to Tim Anderson but Anderson ended up missing most of April due to a knee sprain. Andrus slid over to short to cover for him but hit just .201/.280/.254 before going on the IL himself due to an oblique strain about three weeks ago.

With Andrus out of action of late, the club has tried a couple of different players. Jake Burger had been playing third base, covering for the injured Yoán Moncada, and hit well enough that the club has considered moving him over to second base now that Moncada is back. He has 11 home runs in 40 games this year and an overall batting line of .270/.314/.603, leading to a 145 wRC+. Given that output, it’s unsurprising that the club wants his bat in the lineup, but he’s still only been entrusted with two innings at the keystone so far this year. Another option is Romy González, who had a terrible start to the season but has been on fire lately. He had a dismal .103/.103/.103 line through April 25 but has hit .286/.295/.667 since that time.

Manager Pedro Grifol recently spoke to James Fegan of The Athletic about the situation, essentially saying that the club will try to ride the hot hand. “I don’t think I’m going to be mixing and matching at second base,” Grifol said. “We need to win baseball games so if somebody’s playing as well as Romy (Gonzalez) is playing, then he’s going to play. If Elvis comes in and he does what he can do, then he’s going to play. Those are conversations that I’ll have with whoever’s involved and we’re going to put the best team on the field that’s going to help us win a baseball game every day.”

With the club suddenly juggling multiple options for the second base position, it has squeezed Alberto out of the picture. Signed to a minor league deal in the offseason, he made the club’s Opening Day roster to serve as a bench piece. He has since played in 30 games for the club, around a two-week IL stint due to a quad strain, but has hit just .220/.261/.390. That’s not too far off from his career line of .269/.292/.381, but it seems the Sox will roll with the younger and more exciting players in Burger and González.

The Sox will now have a week to trade Alberto or pass him through waivers. He has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and retain his $2.3MM salary. Given that financial commitment and his tepid production this season, it seems likely he simply ends up released in the coming days.

White Sox Giving Jake Burger Reps At Second Base

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The White Sox will soon welcome Eloy Jimenez back to the lineup, which would potentially cut into the number of designated hitter at-bats available to breakout slugger Jake Burger. With Yoan Moncada holding down third base (Burger’s natural position) and Jimenez taking many DH at-bats in addition to some work in right field, the White Sox are getting Burger some reps at second base, manager Pedro Grifol tells Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.

The experiment is “past the exploratory stage,” per Grifol — a strong indication that Burger will indeed slot into the lineup at second base at least occasionally. Logging work in the outfield is not under consideration at this time due to Burger’s history of Achilles injuries, but he’ll be mixed in at third base, second base, first base and designated hitter.

The White Sox’ desire to keep his bat in the lineup is understandable. Despite fanning in an untenable 32.4% of his plate appearances, Burger holds a robust .257/.315/.634 batting line thanks to a hefty 10 home runs in 111 trips to the plate.  Burger has seen a massive 31.3% of his fly-balls clear the fence for a home run. While it’s unlikely he can sustain quite that level of power output — Aaron Judge had a 35.6% homer-to-flyball rate in 2022 and was the only hitter in baseball to even top 26% — there’s plenty of legitimacy to Burger’s power surge. Statcast ranks him in the 85th percentile of MLB hitters in terms of average exit velocity, and he’s in the 93rd percentile for hard-hit balls and the 99th percentile for barreled balls.

Beyond a pure desire to keep Burger in the lineup, the Sox are surely motivated by the catastrophic production they’ve received from the second base position so far in 2023. Elvis Andrus, Hanser Alberto, Romy Gonzalez and Lenyn Sosa have combined to take all of the team’s at-bats at second base this season. That group has combined for an unthinkably bad .144/.188/.207 while playing the position. Chicago second basemen have posted an astonishing single-digit wRC+ of 5 — indicating that they’ve been 95% worse than an average hitter when weighting for home park and league run-scoring environment.

Second base has been a black hole in the White Sox’ lineup all season, and while Burger likely won’t be an average defender at the position — he’s considered well below average at third base — the Sox are content to trade off some defensive shortcomings to bolster their run production. That’s been a familiar refrain for the Sox in recent seasons, as they’ve regularly trotted out poor defensive alignments — e.g. Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets in the outfield — in the name of improving the offense. Of course, that approach was one of many reasons the Sox fell shy of expectations in 2022; last year’s White Sox ranked 24th in MLB with -17 Outs Above Average, 27th in Defensive Runs Saved (-35) and dead last in Ultimate Zone Rating (-40.5). Only the rebuilding Pirates and Nationals made more errors.

The organization’s hope heading into the season was for a more well-rounded, better defensive product on the field. The Sox let Jose Abreu walk in free agency, thus clearing the way for Vaughn to return to first base after he’d rated as one of the game’s worst outfielders. Andrew Benintendi was signed to shore up left field. Andrus, long a well-regarded defender at shortstop, was brought back to handle second base. Top prospect Oscar Colas isn’t seen as an elite defender but was expected to be an upgrade over the Sheets/Vaughn/Jimenez carousel in right field and was given the Opening Day nod at the position.

As it stands, however, the Sox are only a marginally improved defensive club. They’re still in the bottom third of the league in DRS, UZR and OAA. Andrus hasn’t hit a lick but has played a sound second base, so swapping him out for Burger would weaken one of the few solid spots around the field in order to help beef up a lineup that ranks 20th in runs scored, 20th in home runs, 19th in batting average, 27th in on-base percentage and 20th in slugging percentage.

Jimenez’s return and continued at-bats for Burger figure to boost some of those offensive rankings. But the White Sox, who ranked as one of the game’s best defensive teams as recently as 2020, are trending toward a third straight season on the opposite end of that spectrum.

White Sox Place Elvis Andrus On 10-Day IL, Reinstate Romy Gonzalez

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The White Sox placed infielder Elvis Andrus on the 10-day injured list with a strained left oblique.  Taking Andrus’ spot on the active roster is Romy Gonzalez, who returns after his own 10-day IL stint due to inflammation in his right shoulder.

The injury occurred in yesterday’s 5-1 loss to the Astros, as Andrus reported some discomfort in his side after his final at-bat of the game.  Andrus was then replaced in the field for the top of the ninth, and the injury has proven troublesome enough to merit a trip to the IL.  The severity of Andrus’ strain isn’t yet known, though even if Andrus has only a Grade 1 strain (the lowest level of oblique problems), he is still likely to miss at least three or four weeks of action.

It has already been a rough year for Andrus, who has hit only .201/.280/.254 over 151 plate appearances.  Re-signed to a one-year, $3MM free agent deal in the offseason, Andrus was projected to be Chicago’s regular second baseman, but he has ended up getting a lot of time at his normal shortstop position due to Tim Anderson’s own stint on the IL earlier this season.  Defensive utility notwithstanding, Andrus’ lack of offensive production has resulted in a -0.1 fWAR performance through his first 39 games of the season.

Lenyn Sosa saw a lot of time at the keystone when Andrus was playing shortstop, but with Sosa currently at Triple-A, Gonzalez and Hanser Alberto figure to split second base duties in Andrus’ absence.  It’s not an ideal situation for a White Sox team that signed Andrus to ostensibly stabilize a longstanding hole at second base, though Alberto (a minor league signing) has at least hit .255/.304/.510 in his first 57 PA with the White Sox.

White Sox Designate Jake Diekman, Franklin German; Select Alex Colomé, Sammy Peralta

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May 6: The White Sox have requested unconditional release waivers on Diekman following his DFA earlier in the week, Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun Times relays.

May 2: The White Sox announced a massive series of roster moves today, including reinstating infielders Tim Anderson and Hanser Alberto from the injured list. Additionally, they selected the contracts of right-hander Alex Colomé, left-hander Sammy Peralta and outfielder Billy Hamilton, the latter move having already been reported earlier today. To make room for all of those players, righty Joe Kelly was placed on the paternity list, infielder/outfielder Romy González was placed on the 10-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation, outfielder Óscar Colás and infielder Lenyn Sosa were optioned to Triple-A while lefty Jake Diekman and righty Franklin German were designated for assignment. One spot on the 40-man roster was already open after A.J. Alexy was outrighted last week.

The White Sox have been off to a terrible start this year, going 8-21 as multiple key players have dealt with injuries. It was reported on the weekend that Anderson and Alberto would be coming back today, so those moves aren’t surprising. But it seems the club has decided to use their returns to springboard an incredible roster shakeup, with 11 players involved in today’s shuffling as they try to alter their trajectory.

Diekman, 36, has a lengthy track record of effectiveness in the big leagues but has fallen on hard times in recent years. At the end of 2021, he had a 3.73 ERA through 529 career appearances. His 12.7% walk rate was definitely on the high side but he also struck out 29% of batters faced and got grounders on 47.9% of balls in play. His ERA was a bit high at 4.23 with the Red Sox at the deadline last year when they flipped him to the Pale Hose for Reese McGuire, a player to be named later and cash. Unfortunately, he posted a 6.52 ERA with the Sox the rest of the way and has a 7.94 mark so far this year. He’s walked an incredible 22.4% of batters faced this season, exacerbating a longstanding issue and getting himself bumped off the roster.

The Sox will now have a week to trade Diekman or pass him through waivers but the interest around the league is unlikely to be widespread. Left-handed relief is always in demand but Diekman is making $3.5MM this year and has a $1MM buyout on a $4MM club option for 2024. Given his recent struggles, no team will want to take on that money, meaning he will likely pass through waivers unclaimed. Once he does so, he has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment and elect free agency.

Also designated for assignment is German, 25, who made his major league debut with the Red Sox last year but changed the color of his Sox via a February trade. Though he got five appearances in the big leagues last season, he spent most of the year in Triple-A, posting a 2.58 ERA with a 30.5% strikeout rate and 10.6% walk rate. Unfortunately, everything has gone in the wrong direction since the deal. He has an ERA of 7.15 in Triple-A so far this season, with his strikeout rate having dipped to 26.7% and his walks up to 15%.

One of those roster spots will go to Colomé, 34, who has a long résumé of work in the big leagues, including a previous stint with the White Sox. He has a 3.34 ERA over his career but has seen his results slip in the past couple of seasons. He had a tiny 0.81 ERA in the small sample of the shortened 2020 season but saw that jump to 4.15 and 5.74 in the subsequent campaigns. He signed a minor league deal with the Nationals this winter but didn’t make the club out of camp and opted out, jumping to the White Sox on another minors deal. He has a 2.25 ERA through his first 10 appearances in Triple-A this year, but with some good luck seemingly helping him out. He’s stranded 84.9% of baserunners despite an 18.9% strikeout rate and 10.8% walk rate.

Also joining the club’s bullpen will be Peralta, which will be a bit of an early birthday present for him, as he turns 25 next week. An 18th round selection in the 2019 draft, he has climbed the minor league ladder in the years since. He split last year between Double-A and Triple-A with a combined 3.77 ERA in 62 innings, striking out 29.2% of batters faced while walking 8.5%. He has a 3.52 ERA so far this year through 15 1/3 Triple-A innings.

In addition to all that 40-man roster shuffling, the club also optioned Colás. He will still be on the 40-man but it’s notable that he’s seemingly been pushed out of the club’s plans for the time being. He had no major league experience coming into this year but was a bit older and more experienced than a typical prospect since he had already played in the Cuban National Series and Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.

He was given the club’s everyday right field job this year but has hit just .211/.265/.276 through 25 games for a wRC+ of 51. He was just added to the club’s roster in March and has a full slate of options, which the club will now use to get him some more seasoning in the minors. He hit an incredible .314/.371/.524 in the minors last year, going from High-A to Double-A to Triple-A, but only seven of his 117 games were at the highest level. He’ll now head back to Charlotte to work his way back to the majors. This could have ramifications for his service time, since he was previously on pace to get a full year in 2023 but now will end up shy of that once he spends 20 days in the minors, which would push back his free agency and perhaps his arbitration as well.

Andrew Benintendi and Luis Robert Jr. would normally be in left and center field, respectively, but the latter has been dealing with a minor injury of late. With Colás now optioned out, right field could be shared by some mix of Eloy Jiménez, Gavin Sheets and Adam Haseley, with Hamilton perhaps entering the mix as well.

Romy Gonzalez, Gregory Santos To Break Camp With White Sox

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The White Sox Opening Day roster continues to come into focus as Daryl Van Schouwen of the Sun Times reports that both utilityman Romy Gonzalez and right-hander Gregory Santos are expected to make the team out of camp this spring. The pair join outfielder Oscar Colas and infielder Hanser Alberto, who were previously reported to be making the Opening Day roster as well.

Gonzalez has mostly played second base during his 42 games in the big leagues so far, but has also appeared at shortstop, third base, and in both outfielder corners, making him a versatile bench piece for manager Pedro Grifol to utilize as needed. A career .241/.261/.350 hitter in the majors, Gonzalez doesn’t bring much to the table with his bat, but a .795 OPS in 286 minor league games and an .808 OPS this spring both indicate the 26 year-old Gonzalez could take a step forward with more exposure to big league pitching, though he will surely have to cut down on his concerning 35.2% career strikeout rate in order to do so. Gonzalez’s spot on the Opening Day roster likely comes at the expense of third baseman Jake Burger, who has posted an above average 114 wRC+ in 66 career big league games but is largely limited to the infield corners in terms of versatility. Gonzalez will join a bench that appears poised to include Alberto, Gavin Sheets, and Seby Zavala.

Santos seemed to be a potential favorite for a roster spot after Bryan Shaw and Nick Avila were told they would not make the roster earlier today. Chicago acquired Santos in December from the Giants, who Santos had pitched just 5 2/3 innings for at the big league level, allowing seven earned runs in the process. Santos has a 19.3% strikeout rate and 10% walk rate for his career across the major and minor leagues, and tends to keep the ball on the ground, with groundball rates between 50 and 60% in the minor leagues. Santos seems likely to join Jose Ruiz and Jake Diekman in middle relief for the White Sox this year, with Kendall Graveman, Aaron Bummer, Joe Kelly, and Reynaldo Lopez figuring to get more late-inning work to begin the season.

White Sox Showing Trade Interest In Nicky Lopez

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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.

Looking At White Sox’s Second Base Options

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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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