As promised, here's the second part of this week's P.O. Sox mailbag (see the first half here). Consider this my giving of thanks to the fine Sox Machine supporters who are worth thanking.
From Bill:
Of all the right fielders that are free agents or potential trade targets who are 3 best fielding RIGHT fielders
Do you count Mookie Betts? If so, Mookie Betts easily tops this list.
If he doesn't count, there's a clump of them when setting your sights lower. Kole Calhoun, Mitch Haniger and Joc Pederson are hanging out. Josh Reddick is hanging in there, but he's the oldest of the group by a year, his numbers have slid more than the others, and he's coming off shoulder surgery. Avisaíl García posted his best-ever numbers in right for Tampa Bay this past year, although I can't imagine he's available. Michael Conforto would also count if he's available, but Brodie Van Wagenen said trading Conforto is hard to imagine.
If you extend your search beyond right fielders, then Jackie Bradley Jr. is the best theoretically available defender available. Just imagine a late-inning alignment of him, Luis Robert and Adam Engel. Just imagine it.
Southpaw Jackson asks:
Should the Sox try and trade for Robby Ray? Heard the Dbacks are open to move him. If so what do you think it would take?
If he had more than a year remaining before free agency, I'd be interested. I think his style -- lots of strikeouts, lots of walks, lots of pitches over not many innings because of all of the above -- is what I imagine Carlos Rodón would look like if Rodón could ever make it through a full season. That's a useful profile, but not one that might not lift a pitching staff in any given season.
Jayson Stark said the Diamondbacks are interested in controllable pitching, which the White Sox don't really have.
Asinwreck asks:
If Yasmani Grandal is scouting players for the front office, who might he help bring to Bridgeport?
Unlike the web the White Sox constructed to lure Manny Machado, only to get saddled with Yonder Alonso and Jon Jay, Grandal's Miami ties seem less overt. Searching for people he's worked out with leads to Zack Collins and the Biogenesis scandal. The former is already around, and most of the guys involved in the latter are out of baseball.
If you simply extend his network to potential White Sox targets Grandal has played alongside, you get Pederson, Mike Moustakas and Yasiel Puig. I have a sense the White Sox have never been on Puig's wavelength despite the talent and Cuban ties that would otherwise make him an intriguing fit, but if the White Sox wanted to look at Puig as a potential solution to right field, I imagine Grandal could give them a sense of what living with the guy is really like.
From bobsquad:
I expect the Sox to go fishing in the tertiary tier of veteran FA starters. (I'm thinking the likes of Gio Gonzalez, Brett Anderson, Andrew Cashner.) Estimated price range for a pitcher of this ilk?
Hey, Gonzalez is another Miami-based guy Grandal has played with, but given the White Sox drafted Gonzalez and involved him in three trade deals, I'm guessing they're well versed in his personhood.
Anyway, Kyle Gibson just signed for three years and $30 million, which seems about what third-tier free agent pitchers landed last year, so I wouldn't expect any sort of inflation downstream. None of those guys should cost more than $5 million -- Gonzalez and Anderson didn't last year -- although all three of those pitchers have a history of prioritizing where they pitch over maximizing their earnings.
From Andy:
Most of us have our preferred SP's we'd like to see the Sox go after, but who do you guys think are some available relievers (FA's and trade) the Sox could/should feasibly pursue?
I've generally been short on time this fall, and one of the first casualties is thinking about relievers. There are just too many of them, and too many anonymous ones who randomly become great with One Neat Trick, to feel like I'm going to outthink a team to a hidden gem. That's one case where I'll more or less assume that any team going out of its way to acquire an arm has a reason for doing so.
After watching the Kelvin Herrera Yearlong Rehab Stint, I really don't trust the White Sox to have success with a Dellin Betances or Jeremy Jeffress, two guys I've enjoyed watching pitch in the past. That's about all I have to go off right now.
And lastly, Jim asks:
Do the Sox framing numbers over the past few years looks a little worse due to umpires' general bias against younger, less established players? Young pitchers seem to not get those strikes on the edges as often, does that then make the catcher look worse at framing based on the numbers?
No, they just have a history of getting bad framing years from guys with bad framing histories. James McCann's second-worst framing year came in 2015 on a Tigers staff that featured Justin Verlander, David Price and Anibal Sanchez. Dioner Navarro's second-worst framing year came with the 2008 Rays team that made the World Series. Alex Avila had a worse year after leaving the White Sox, despite playing half the season for a 92-win Cubs team. The difference is that those teams had the pitching talent to overcome favorable strike zones, whereas the White Sox don't.
I can see why the age cards might seem stacked against the White Sox during the rebuilding era, where the Sox often struggle to win the strike zone against teams with more veteran pitchers and veteran lineups, and Steve Stone will talk about umpires giving said veterans breaks on the mound or at the plate. But Iván Nova went from being framing-neutral over his time with Pittsburgh and the Yankees to the second-most punished pitcher in 2019 with the White Sox, according to Baseball Prospectus, and that was a control-oriented veteran pitcher throwing to veteran catchers. It's easier to say the White Sox didn't value framing, or overestimated their ability to impart it upon the guys they acquired, and leave it at that until we can visit a year's worth of data with Grandal.
