Fortunately or unfortunately, the White Sox's acquisition of AJ Pollock and the San Diego Padres' trade for Sean Manaea rendered a few of the P.O. Sox questions outdated in short order, but Sox Machine supporters still gave me plenty to discuss around the good/bad news.
We'll begin with the lone question on one side of the ball.
The first of the third catchers
Absent any other moves, who do you think is the favorite for the second catcher? Does Ciuffo stick around?
-- Andrew Segall
It feels like it'll be Seby Zavala because he's the only one without options, while Zack Collins is entering his last option year. Nick Ciuffo is on the outside looking in because he's not even on the 40-man roster, but I kinda like him the best of the bunch. Familiarity breeds contempt and we don't know him, but he actually has identifiable strengths, whereas it's still unclear what Zavala and Collins bring to the table. I'm guessing he'll start the season splitting time with Carlos Pérez at Charlotte, and both will be waiting for somebody to slip.
did tanking actually matter?
This might not be the best time for this particular question, but here goes: when you hear your team is doing a rebuild, you typically expect that to include a few years of tanking. That seems to be an important part of rebuilds in most sports because it gets you those top draft picks and a shot at elite talent. But looking back on the Sox rebuild and tank years, I wonder if tanking made a difference at all? Their 1st round draft picks from 2017 to 2020 have contributed a whopping 3.6 bWAR over 5 player-seasons, and trading one of them yielded at least part of Craig Kimbrel and all of his $16M salary. Can you have a successful rebuild without tanking and drafting well?
-- Ted
And this is even more of a valid question now that Garrett Crochet is undergoing Tommy John surgery.
I think we have to wait to see what Andrew Vaughn turns into before we can answer this question definitively, because he's the highest draft pick of the bunch, and could have a lot to say about the White Sox's ability to extend the window past Lucas Giolito's period of team control.
Setting that aside, I can make a mild argument that Nick Madrigal's presence generated some intangible benefits, in that he gave the Sox prospect depth and also gave the front office some confidence in augmenting the roster a core that included a league-minimum second baseman for a few years. That fizzled with the hamstring surgery and Kimbrel trade, but his projections did factor into decision-making.
Otherwise, the Sox's lack of an identifiable next wave is one of the reasons confidence isn't as high as it could be. Rick Hahn really nailed the Chris Sale/Adam Eaton/Jose Quintana trades to an absurd degree, because it's been able to mask a lot of missteps and misfortune. Perhaps the positive spin is that if the Sox need to find a next core, maybe they'll be more willing to sign potential contributors to modest contracts rather than punt entire seasons. They could've signed Lance Lynn and had him in the fold for their push, rather than trade a guy like Dane Dunning for him.
The big question
Are the White Sox a better team now than the team that faced the Astros in October?
-- Mark Sambor
Before White Sox acquired AJ Pollock, it was hard to say the White Sox improved on either side of the ball. Part of that was the fact that Carlos Rodón was such a spectacular success for $3 million in 2021, but a $50 million investment in the bullpen also seemed to overinvest in that area beyond the point of diminishing returns.
With Pollock, the White Sox made the necessary improvement on the position-player side. He reinforces all three positions of the outfield while lengthening the lineup, whether at the top or towards the bottom. The backup catcher situation is still sketchy, but that has the potential to barely register if Grandal's knee problems are behind him.
The pitching side is in dicier shape, but I think we'll have to see how many teams are in similar straits with the abbreviated spring. The White Sox might have plenty of company when it comes to scrambling for starter innings.
The customer is never right
Does any team do as much to directly insult their fans as the White Sox? Fans stuck with this team while it lost on purpose and now we’re accused of not being real fans for wanting them to sign an actual right fielder? Come the hell on!
-- Trooper Galactus
I had a hard time taking Tony La Russa's words personally. If Rick Hahn said them, my keyboard would probably be a smoldering lump, but like I wrote, when La Russa makes such a flimsy argument, I don't think he actually believes it. He's just upholding his constitutional obligation to offer a defense of his players. Taking the time to get mad gives such words more credit than they're worth.
I think the White Sox have probably been at war with their fan base for longer, but that's partially a byproduct of the continuity. The team's leadership has been around for 20 years (less for Hahn, more for Kenny Williams), and Don Cooper had decades to bristle publicly as well. Other teams would've overhauled the front office once or twice over that span, and those people would naturally want to win over fans with a fine first impression, but Williams and Hahn has been around to absorb the contempt that familiarity breeds and give it back in kind.
I will say that what Oakland is doing -- publicly flirting with Las Vegas and selling off its roster while raising season ticket prices -- is a way bigger slap in the face than anything the White Sox could ever say, although maybe their competitive streak will make them want to try.
Ramifications of universal DH
With the spread of DH to the National League now, are there any teams that seem like a good fit for Yermin Mercedes?
-- Eric Johansen
Well, Mercedes is on the 60-day injured list with a hamate injury, so not right now. But even if he weren't hurt, I think Mercedes has plenty of company in the high minors as a positionless bat, and even he seemed to acknowledge that the baggage he brought to the White Sox wasn't completely unearned. He admitted that he could've conducted himself better during the highs and lows of the 2021 season. Maybe he felt he had to say that, but the midseason retirement did him no favors.
If he can get back to raking Triple-A pitching after returning, perhaps he's a throw-in for a team in a midsummer trade. But if teams agree that Mercedes struggles to turn around major-league velocity, they might want to use that playing time for their organization's equivalent of Micker Adolfo instead.
The weight of Guaranteed Rate
I have never liked the name Guaranteed Rate Field and have hoped that that it would just be called The Gary. Do you see the park ever getting a catchier nickname?
-- Southpaw Jackson
"U.S. Cellular Field" rivals "Guaranteed Rate Field" for clunkiness, but it had a shorthand that stuck because a cell is a place where you can go. You can't go to a Rate. You can go to a Gary, I suppose, but they'd probably be better off naming it after Ron Kittle.
I think if there were a catcher nickname -- The Gary, The Rate, The G-Spot, The Friendly GaRFiens -- it would've stuck by now. Instead, I think it's in the same predicament as bowl games, in that "Guaranteed Rate Field" has crossed a threshold of shameless corporate naming that can't be salvaged with a workaround, and just has to wear it, like the way the St. Petersburg Bowl can't shake its association with Beef O'Brady's or Bad Boy Mowers. At least those are fun to say aloud.
