As the White Sox start to make their mark on trade deadline season, they have a few flaws they need to address on the position player side. In some particular order:
No. 1: Outfield depth. I think it's fair to call Andrew Vaughn a left fielder at this point, even if that's not his calling. It's not fair to call Jake Lamb an outfielder or Brian Goodwin a center fielder, but they've been in those respective positions every other day. Maybe Adam Eaton comes back from the injured list reinvigorated, but if he can't, the Sox have no other internal solutions.
No. 2: Second base depth. Every game Leury García starts at second robs the Sox of an experienced center fielder, and García's dealing with a leg issue of his own. Tim Beckham can theoretically step in, but he's a below-average defender and doesn't do much to help the White Sox's issues against right-handed pitching. He's never been on a team with a winning record, which is not to say he's not a winning player, but more that a team has to be a certain level of desperate in order to find him a suitable candidate for real playing time.
No. 3: Left-handed bat. The White Sox are hitting .218/.306/.342 as a team against right-handed pitching in June, good for the third-worst OPS and second-worst ISO in the American League. This could theoretically improve if Yoán Moncada and Yasmani Grandal get going, but that can't necessarily be trusted for one reason (illness) or another (catcher in his 30s).
No. 4: Power. The White Sox are tied for last in the American League in homers with a not-nice 69, including a second-lowest total of 16 in June and a third-lowest slugging percentage for the month (.375). José Abreu leads the White Sox with 12 homers, which has him tied for 48th on the MLB leaderboard. Any help in this department would be appreciated.
No. 5: Good health. This should go without saying, but in a season where one of their players blows a tire on a weekly basis, the White Sox probably can't afford to get cute.
(They can also use bullpen help, but just about every contender seeks the same.)
The White Sox would be well served to solve at least two of these issues, but they'll have to do so with a limited budget -- not so much in terms of cash, but prospect value. All of the White Sox's top prospects have graduated and are necessary to their immediate goals. All of the remaining notable names on the farm are contending with at least one fatal flaw, or are too young to understand what their final forms may be. The worse the contract situation, the more likely the White Sox can afford the cost.
Here comes the first real rumor of the season, courtesy of Jerry Reinsdorf's relay man:
An Eduardo Escobar reunion doesn't cure everything that ails the White Sox offense, but it helps some. His 15 homers would lead by the team with a 25-percent margin to spare, and while he's played more on the left side of the infield over the course of his career, the metrics have favored his recent work at second base more than any other position.
As for the other departments, he's a switch-hitter, albeit one who is reliably worse against right-handed pitching, whether this year ...
- vs. RHP: .230/.280/.431
- vs. LHP: .272/.314/.530
... or over the last three years.
- vs. RHP: .241/.301/.450
- vs. LHP: .277/.309/.503
This makes him a more powerful, infield-only version of Leury García. Which is fine, because a more powerful version of García is an adequate starting second baseman, at least on a team that has fixtures everywhere else in the infield. He's just more the kind of player that rounds out the bottom of the order than the top half of one, so if Moncada, Grandal and José Abreu are still scuffling, Escobar's impact is likely to be limited.
Perhaps the most appealing thing about Escobar is his price. The remainder of $7.5 million is a lot for an average player with a sub-.300 OBP the last two years, so it shouldn't cost much to pry him loose from an Arizona Diamondbacks team that is a staggering 1-17 in June, and should keep their powder dry for a bigger move later. Escobar's mild underperformance is part of the problem, but the specific shape of his contributions could help the White Sox if he's freed from that quicksand.
The biggest catch isn't his talent, but his condition. He's supposed to undergo imaging on his right quad today after departing Sunday's game against the Dodgers. He hit an RBI single in the bottom of the fourth, only to require a defensive replacement in the top of the fifth. Any bad news on this front pretty much either undermines the immediacy of the specific rumor, renders Nightengale's tweet as more of a signal for the White Sox's interest in other deals, or turns Escobar into a cash considerations/PTBNL move if Arizona wants to get out from under the financial obligations the rest of the way.
Let's take the above criteria and provide a tidy summary of this idea using the "House Hunters" report card:
(Photo by Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports)
