Had I waited five minutes to publish my last post, I could have forgone the murky rumor stage of the Nomar Mazara acquisition and presented a straightforward, immediate analysis.
Alas, the White Sox indeed acquired Mazara, trading 2018 second-rounder Steele Walker for the privilege, so two separate posts you receive.
To sum up my stance on Mazara: He's better than what they ran out in right field last year despite his flaws, and there are ways he can be useful, especially if the Sox find somebody else to face left-handed pitching. However, they have a poor history of asking too much from players who never rise to the challenge, and Mazara's flaws feed into the their teamwide shortcomings.
Hahn's quote on the press release covers Mazara the player, but something he said before the trade more fully explains the rationale.
There's nothing wrong with that idea, especially since Mazara is only a year older than Walker, who is trying to show that he's meaningfully better than Blake Rutherford. Hahn's only going out on a limb if Mazara is Plan A for the yawning chasm in right field, because Mazara wasn't good enough to hold that job for a team that's trying to contend.
Perhaps he's emboldened by the luck the Sox had with James McCann, who had an All-Star season after getting non-tendered by the Detroit Tigers of all teams. And hey, the White Sox refused to settle for McCann's surprising adequacy, but instead aimed way higher and hauled in Yasmani Grandal. Hahn could be amassing more than he's patching, just in a less satisfying order. Not all the precedents in play are awful.
It's just that most of them are, and so nobody should trust that the White Sox can cut corners successfully. Even Hahn shouldn't. This whole rebuild and the resetting of the payroll was supposed to allow the Sox to point a money cannon at their problems, instead of being compelled to thinly spread money around to a bunch of players who are as likely to be cuttable as they are valuable. Mazara, set to earn a projected $5.7 million in his second arbitration year while still searching for his first 1 WAR season, fits that mold like he ordered it himself.
My hope is that when we assess the depth chart in a month, Mazara is there as 20-homer depth at right field and DH, and the Sox have at least one better choice for the corner. Otherwise, they run the risk of restoring the position to where it was in 2016, which wasn't nearly enough. Perfect may be the enemy of good, but there aren't quotes about the toll of mediocrity because guys like Voltaire didn't think anybody would be actively seeking it.
