Shortly after the Mike Clevinger news broke on Tuesday afternoon, Ken Rosenthal tried to cut the tension of the room with an hors d'oeuvre of a trade rumor in case White Sox fans wanted something and somebody else to think about.
Whether it was intended as a diversion or just inadvertently timed, my internal reaction was "Not now, Ken." But since I've used up my allotment of time and space on the Clevinger situation until further news emerges, we may as well circle back to the second base solution Rosenthal floated.
I still say, "Not now, Ken," and it only has a little to do with his Lopez's Naperville roots, or his track record. Sure, too much of his career production resides in a year that wasn't the most recent one ...
| Years | PA | SB/CS | BB/K | BA/OBP/SLG | bWAR | fWAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 565 | 22/1 | 49/74 | .300/.365/.378 | 4.3 | 5.9 |
| 2019-20, '22 | 1074 | 14/9 | 65/155 | .228/.280/.292 | -0.1 | 0.9 |
... and if you put strength in the larger sample, then the Sox were better off tendering Danny Mendick for nearly a quarter of the price.
No, it's more that the White Sox are already dealing with alarming amounts of Kansas City Royal in their diet. The coaching staff includes Pedro Grifol and two others he brought from the Royals coaching staff, and Andrew Benintendi is the centerpiece of the offseason. That may already be too much.
We've seen the White Sox overindulge on Royals cast-offs before, whether it's Mark Teahen or several Kansas City relievers, which reminds me of this A.J. Pierzynski quote:
In 2007, veteran Sox hitters underperformed, new faces didn’t pan out and the bullpen was atrocious with a 5.49 ERA.
“It was never a good idea back then to bring in the Royals bullpen,” Pierzynski said. “Basically we traded for the whole Royals bullpen. That wasn’t good.”
The White Sox did fleece the Royals in the Joakim Soria deal in 2018, but that represents the only real good to come out of acquiring recent Royals, and they failed in their attempt to flip him into younger talent. Everybody else has more or less flopped.
And after watching the White Sox limit their pitching acquisitions to three pitchers who all overlapped with Ethan Katz in the minors -- Clevinger distant, but among them -- I would prefer to see more diversity in their ecosystem.
While Royals GM JJ Picollo didn't thoroughly shoot down the rumor in his interview on MLB Network, he didn't add fuel to the fire, either.
"We really need the depth in the middle of the infield. We have a young second baseman in Michael Massey, and Nicky Lopez has been with us for a number of years. It's going to be a difficult thing for us to part ways with Nicky Lopez. Certainly understand why there's interest in him, but for where we are right now and the value Nicky brings to our club, we expect him to be a Royal in 2023."
