The first and so far only time José Abreu reached free agency, I don't know if he ever actually considered himself a free agent. He said he would sign himself to the White Sox, the club signed him to a three-year, $50 million contract that seemed aggressive for a first baseman in his mid-30s, and Rick Hahn said nobody on either side put on a clinic in the practice of negotiations.
Abreu went out and won the AL MVP for the 60-game season of 2020, followed by a return to what had been his normal production in 2021. He once again hit 30 homers and drove in 100. He once again led the league in double plays, so the debate that dichotomy drove the last time around can probably be dusted off and reused.
Unless Abreu is the one calling off the need for such a discussion.
For his part, Abreu sounds unconcerned about any open-endedness, although this time he's the one introducing the idea of playing somewhere else. perhaps because such talks only concern him and Jerry Reinsdorf.
“My goal right now is just to have a very good season, stay healthy,” Abreu said. “Once the season ends, I will have to make a decision and see if I want to continue or if there's a chance to be here or if there's a chance to be in another place. We'll see once the season ends.”
Vinnie Duber relayed sentiments from Tim Anderson, Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez, all of which make it sound something like a swan song.
“Let’s enjoy this one,” Eloy Jiménez said Wednesday. “It is what it is. Let’s enjoy this one. This is the year. Let’s hope he comes back.”
“I think we all have to just go out and enjoy the game and enjoy it every day and enjoy every moment with him,” Yoán Moncada said through Russo on Thursday. “I don’t know what’s going to happen after this season ends. The focus has to be going out every day and enjoying it.” [...]
“He’s the one that started all this off, so I think it would be very rewarding if he was to do it with us or continue to try to compete throughout this window with us to get it,” Anderson said. “We get (the realities of the business of baseball), but for the most part, we’ll definitely be rooting him on. … His personality and energy, we definitely need it.”
It's a little bit weird, although not necessarily bad. This could reflect an understanding of the White Sox's depth chart, especially if Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets represent baton recipients. Or maybe it's just an acknowledgment of the business, especially after everybody just saw the Atlanta front office coldly and efficiently swap out fellow 2020 MVP and homegrown hero Freddie Freeman with Matt Olson.
Or the comfort with a walk year could merely reflect the depth of the understanding he has with Reinsdorf, with more of an allowance that his body might not be as cooperative three years later. Another season of 20-plus plunkings might put all options on the table.
Speaking of the HBPs, the signing of Kendall Graveman was made slightly uncomfortable by the fact that Tony La Russa accused Graveman of hitting Abreu on purpose during the ALDS. While the environment was charged thanks to Ryan Tepera's insinuation of skulduggery and the crowd's enthusiastic reception of a Jose Altuve plunking earlier in the game, Graveman hit Abreu on a 3-2 pitch, which isn't usually how it's done.
La Russa has reversed course, of course.
“Yeah, well, I apologized to Abreu when I got here. I didn’t mean to hit him,” Graveman told the media during a post-workout interview Wednesday at Camelback Ranch. “I apologized to Tony. I said, ‘I didn’t mean to, Tony,’ and he said, ‘I realized that now. In the moment, I didn’t.’ So that was a pretty good little icebreaker.”
I'm skeptical La Russa would've dropped the charges had Graveman not signed with his team, as La Russa often pursues vigorous defenses of his own dugout regardless of consistency. Liam Hendriks isn't wrong when he says the White Sox could be one of the most-hated teams in baseball, although he didn't mention how La Russa's tendencies play into the whole thing.
Graveman is with the White Sox here in part because Rick Hahn has a hoarding issue with relievers, but also because Hahn seemed to think a Craig Kimbrel trade was inevitable. He spoke more openly about dealing Kimbrel than any other player he's ever had on a roster, even though he was very obviously trying to move the former closer at the nadir of his value.
Looking at our coverage of that particular decision, I feel like this paragraph held up pretty well.
It’s worth keeping some healthy skepticism on your person, just because the White Sox are coming off a winter where they invested in the back end of the bullpen at the expense of position-player solutions. Sometimes their spending doesn’t reflect the healthiest set of priorities, and it’s fine to say so.
Welp, spring training has started and Kimbrel is still here. As long as his $16 million is on the books, the White Sox are going to be leading the league in reliever investments, whether in total dollars or portion of payroll.
Everybody is left to mitigate the awkwardness. Kimbrel said he appreciated the White Sox's transparency, and Hahn said he was open about trading him because of Kimbrel's preference toward closing, but now he'll try to get back on track as a medium-leverage option.
La Russa is content to chalk it up to a shift from the ninth inning, which always strikes me as a terribly unflattering excuse for a professional competitor, but James Fegan says Kimbrel is attacking mechanical issues that went awry in documentable ways.
“As a pitcher, there are times when we can pick up our leg and throw to home plate and not have to think about much,” Kimbrel said. “And there are times that we have cues that we have to stick to and think about all the time. Those just go in transitions. I think last year I got into a point where I got caught in a couple clicks that I tried to work through, and just wasn’t getting through them. I was dropping my arm a little bit, the ball was running. I wasn’t getting my breaking ball over for strikes like I should. Little things that can go a long way into getting outs. Just got to get it over the plate and get outs. That’s all I can really worry about.”
Kimbrel has dealt with rocky adjustments to new organizations, so it's certainly not out of the realm of possibility that he rediscovers his best form, or close to it. Here's hoping, because the only way out of this mess is through.
