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White Sox tidy roster as World Series nears end

The Boston Red Sox are one win away from officially christening the offseason after their wild 9-6 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 4.

The Chicago White Sox are one of the other 28 teams biding their time until the wheeling, dealing and retaining can begin, and they spent some time tidying up their roster in anticipation.

On their side, they outrighted Danny Farquhar, Ryan LaMarre and Rob Scahill to Charlotte, removing them from the 40-man roster and making all three minor-league free agents after the season. The press release includes a quote from Rick Hahn saying the club plans to stay in touch with these players and representatives, and I'm guessing that's included as a nod to Farquhar in particular.

The White Sox also tried to sneak Kevan Smith through waivers, but he ended up getting claimed by the Angels. The discussion here on Friday centered on Smith being the one decent framer among the three catchers the White Sox carried. While I'm sympathetic to his case, it seems like the arguments for the sustainability of any of the Sox' three catchers hit a dead end pretty quickly.

    • Smith: The best receiver, but enters his age-31 season as a BABIP-based hitter with a surgically repaired ankle who can't throw out runners.
    • Omar Narvaez: The team's best hitter and the youngest catcher of the three by far, but he forfeits most of his offensive gains with bad blocking and framing.
    • Welington Castillo: The best track record of the three, but also the oldest, and while the blood-doping suspension renders his numbers a small sample, the regression of his receiving has a history.

Running Narvaez out there as a starter while jettisoning Smith is very on-brand for the White Sox in that it's the worst move for the pitching staff, but it's also defensible. If any of these guys are going to mean anything to the White Sox two years from now, it's because Narvaez made meaningful gains behind the plate as a defender. I wouldn't call it likely, but it's also a shorter to-do list than Smith or Castillo. Narvaez also has age on his side, at least relative to the others.

It remains to be seen what the Angels have in store for Smith, but even if Smith cleared waivers, I expected the Sox to try trading him in order to break a good soldier free from the Charlotte-to-Chicago cycle. Seby Zavala will effectively take Smith's spot on the 40-man next month, and that's the other half of the White Sox' best in-house hopes. Smith might be the most playable in the present, but with a number of tough 40-man decisions coming -- Zach Thompson is pitching himself into consideration -- these catchers as a group aren't talented enough to command one-tenth of the active roster.

Besides, my guess is the next contributing White Sox catcher will come from outside the organization. Maybe it's worthwhile to emphasize Smith's framing advantage to make the area front of mind when the Sox go shopping, but that's about as far as the future value goes.

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