While we wait for the White Sox to officially announce Joe Kelly and/or Josh Harrison and/or Vince Velasquez and/or any more exciting moves they have in store, let's take a moment to touch on a few topics.
Spring training schedule
As the members of the White Sox 40-man roster roll into spring training, the Sox released the revised spring training schedule, so you can make plans for going about seeing them starting with a split-squad date against the Cubs on Thursday.
With such a short run, the White Sox aren't bothering with the whitesox.com webcasts, but instead are opting to broadcast six of nine home games over the two-plus weeks of Cactus League play. The hope is that the rest of the league will post their schedules by St. Patrick's Day so I can round up all the dates the Sox can be seen on MLB.tv, and perhaps the MLB Network.
Dylan Cease's mustache
Last September, after watching Dylan Cease's ever-lengthening beard fail to connect with the remainder of his facial hair, I proposed that he should just shift to a mustache, because the Dave Stieb lifestyle was within his grasp.
Sometimes the White Sox cooperate with requests. This is one of them.
There's a lot of anti-mustache sentiment out there, but I'd argue that a full and proper cookie-duster is superior to an incomplete beard. Adam Engel is on the clock.
The Twins are moving
To what effect remains unclear, but Minnesota has taken the division lead in activity.
On Saturday, they acquired Isiah Kiner-Falefa from the Texas Rangers for Mitch Garver, with pitching prospect Ronny Henriquez also heading Minnesota's way. Kiner-Falefa's Minnesota career lasted one whole day, as the Twins then flipped him to the Yankees in a massive deal:
- Yankees receive: Kiner-Falefa, Josh Donaldson, Ben Rortvedt
- Twins receive: Gary Sánchez and Gio Urshela
The Yankees absorbed the remaining $50 million on Donaldson's deal, so that opens up some possibilities that weren't there before, with Trevor Story the most prominent name. Meanwhile, Sánchez replaces Garver as the catcher sharing time with Ryan Jeffers.
In between, the Twins also addressed their shortage of credible starting pitchers by acquiring Sonny Gray from the Cincinnati Reds for Chase Petty, a prep pitcher they chose in the first round of last year's draft. Dan Szymborski says it's the kind of targeted upgrade that plays up larger than one player normally would:
