Unlike the situation with Eduardo Escobar, where a reporter who is often relays what the White Sox are thinking and doing specifically connected the player to the team, there is no such grist with the Adam Frazier rumor mill. His name merely surfaced when Nick Madrigal tore his hamstring because he's pretty much everything the White Sox could use from one player ...
- Plays second base and outfield corners
- Contact-oriented bat with some pop
- Left-handed hitter with strong career performance against righties
... on a team that has everything lined up to trade him at his peak.
- Last-place team trying to rebuild
- Player enters final year of arbitration at age 30 after season
As Mike Petriello put it:
The only problem: Frazier is playing a little too well, and the Sox didn't do anything to suppress his value this week. Frazier raised his line to .324/.390/.463 after the two-game series in Pittsburgh. He leads the National League in hits (91) and doubles (24), which offsets his modest home-run contributions (three). Throw in an enviable closeness between his walk (26) and strikeout (35) columns, and Frazier is on pace for a 5-WAR season.
He's on pace for a career year, but it's not completely out of nowhere. The gains are coming entirely from his hit tool -- or, if you're skeptical, his .361 BABIP. Statcast puts him in the fifth percentile for average exit velocity and hard-hit rate, although his 98th-percentile whiff rate generates its own luck. His ground-ball rate is at a career low, while his line-drive rate is nearly 30 percent. Balance it out, and Statcast gives him an expected batting average of .290, which is legit.
Frazier did what he could to show sustainable skills to the White Sox. He went 3-for-8 with a homer, double and walk. The homer came on the 10th pitch of a battle with Lucas Giolito, one of 25 pitches he coaxed out of the White Sox's righty Tuesday night.
He came back the next day and went 2-for-5 with a single against Dylan Cease and that double against Codi Heuer. He also had a couple of good swings on Aaron Bummer and Liam Hendriks during the series, including a line drive on Hendriks' high fastball. Luis González tracked it down for the game's penultimate out.
From a sample size of two whole games, it's tempting to take his short, quick left-handed swing that can turn around and life velocity and project a number of cheap homers into the Kraft Kave at Guaranteed Rate Field. He's also the kind of player who would actually add to the top half of any White Sox batting order after plugging him into second base, whereas an Escobar-like addition adds more power, but doesn't lengthen a lineup.
PERTINENT: Eduardo Escobar checks some boxes ... if he's healthy
Frazier would also give the White Sox a head start in solving an outfield position whenever Madrigal is ready to return, and serves as insurance in case that recovery isn't smooth. If it turns out by some small miracle that the Sox don't need Frazier's specific skill set, they could turn around and trade him again, kinda like the Oakland A's won out in the long run by trading Addison Russell for Jeff Samardzija, then flipping Shark to Chicago for Marcus Semien and Chris Bassitt.
The question comes down to cost. If the Sox could package up a couple of prep/teen players for Frazier's services, they might already have him. If Pittsburgh wants somebody closer to contributing to a 26-man roster, the Sox don't really have that quintessential MLB-ready talent. Thanks to the injuries, everybody who could theoretically help the White Sox has already tried their hand at it this year.
That's what makes Jake Burger's recent breakout so intriguing. There's the fact that he's a terrific comeback story and seems like a guy worth rooting for, but if he somehow looks no worse for the wear after missing three years and shows some capability of filling in at a few positions around the diamond, he might be the equivalent of found money to a team whose 26-man roster still renders him redundant.
PERTINENT: An in-person look at Jake Burger's big night
It feels a little too soon to say, but it's probably also a little too soon to think about acquiring Frazier, whose ability to cover multiple positions while hitting at an All-Star level should make a few teams come calling. As long as the White Sox don't have to act now on either front, both situations should be fun to watch play out.
Here's your Adam Frazier "House Hunters"-assed scorecard:
(Photo by Charles LeClaire/USA TODAY Sports)
