In the brief amount of time that's lapsed since we discussed the frequent, thorough dissections of Oscar Colás' spring training ups and down, there's more to discuss.
First, James Fegan reported out a story of Colás' relationship with the new coaching staff, which goes back to his offseason work with José Castro and Mike Tosar in Miami.
As Tosar and hitting coach José Castro both identified, Colás can be vulnerable to breaking balls dipping below the zone. But like many left-handed power hitters, he’s also got the bat path to golf thigh-high fastballs into the bleachers, so eliminating the lower half of the zone isn’t the answer for him either. Part of Colás’ maturation will be trusting that his plus bat speed allows him to track and recognize spin on back-foot breaking balls without rushing his decision. And part of his winter was Tosar and Castro trying to simulate that development by spamming him with low breaking balls from a high-velocity pitch machine to crystallize what Colás should be looking for.
“You can see in spring training, I’ve been more selective with the pitches I’m swinging at and I can recognize better those breaking balls that are going out of the strike zone,” Colás said through an interpreter. “Once you go to the batter’s box with a plan, you should be OK if you execute your plan. If you don’t have a plan, you’re going to get in trouble. For me, I know if I see a breaking pitch that is at my hips or down, I don’t swing at that because I know that’s going to be a ball. That’s my plan. That’s something I have to execute.”
Based on what we've seen in Colás time in the organization, it seems like he'll do all the necessary work on his shortcomings if somebody identifies them and maps out solutions. That's all well and good if those coaches are in house, and maybe the White Sox finally found some.
Colás then reinforced some of Grifol's observations about controlling his efforts with an eventful sequence on Friday against the Cubs.
He reached on an opposite-field single off lefty Drew Smyly, but then was picked off by Smyly's left-handed move. Marquee was in the middle of showing a graphic of the White Sox's WBC participants, so there wasn't a good angle of how badly Colás was fooled.
The next inning, Colás was charged with an error on a routine throw to second base after Ian Happ's single. It wasn't a great throw, but it also seems like the kind of hop that Erick Gonzalez could have caught on the fly, especially since Happ had checked up at first base.
But Colás' spring is all about balancing the concerns about the finer points against his easily recognizable strengths. Adhering to this format, a day later against the Padres, Colás entered as a pinch-hitter and blasted his first homer of Cactus League play.
Colás is now hitting .407/.429/.556 over 28 spring training plate appearances.
Carlos Rodón remains irked
Apparently, Steve Greenberg is chatting with all of the White Sox's exes.
Following up on his revealing interview with José Abreu that shed some light on the dysfunction of the 2022 White Sox, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist talked to Carlos Rodón, who successfully harnessed the power of his grievances against the Sox's financial decisions into landing $183.5 million over a seven-year period between the Giants and Yankees.
‘‘I don’t want to come off as a [expletive] toward the White Sox, but I’ll say this,’’ he says now. ‘‘When I got non-tendered, I wasn’t hurt, but I took it as a slap in the face. And maybe I deserved it. It was a business decision. It’s business, nothing personal. It’s a movie quote, as we know, and it’s true.
‘‘But as a player, you’d better take that personally. Because if you don’t, you’re just going to be done. I took it personally, and it gave me an edge — and that’s what made me get here now.’’
I think a player can only make this argument if he signed with another team after being non-tendered, because even if he can't fall into Kyle Schwarber's luck and get a better deal on the open market, he can at least say he signed with a team that believed in him. By coming back to the White Sox two months later for $1.5 million less than his projected arbitration earnings, he proved the Sox right at that moment in time.
He definitely proved the Sox wrong for not issuing the $18.4 million qualifying offer after the 2021 season, and that one is a clear-cut victory for him. It's just not the easiest one to trumpet at the moment since he'll open the season on the injured list with a forearm strain.
There doesn't seem to be much value in debating the veracity of Rodón's grudges either way, because he admitted that they might've been something he needed to invent to drive him. Don't fall for the bait like I did.
