Just when it appeared that we could watch Eloy Jiménez run hard through first base without fearing for his well being, he went and injured his groin during the first inning of the White Sox's otherwise scintillating 8-1 victory over the Braves on Sunday.
Jiménez had played in 27 consecutive games, a veritable iron man streak by his standards. He hit .283/.309/.500 during that stretch before grounding into a double play in the first inning on Sunday, but now it sounds as though he'll once again force the White Sox into staving off a stint on the injured list.
White Sox right fielder Eloy Jimenez left the team’s 8-1 victory Sunday against the Braves after the first inning because tightness in his left groin. He will be further evaluated Monday and might be out for four or five days, manager Pedro Grifol said.
‘‘He’ll get some tests done, and we’ll see,’’ Grifol said. ‘‘I wouldn’t expect him in the next few days, for sure, but I don’t want to jump the gun on anything. But right now, it doesn’t look good for the next four or five days. But we’ll see what comes of it [Monday].’’
I suppose the good news is that Grifol accurately assessed Jiménez's timetable the last time he had one of these issues. He departed Game 2 of a doubleheader against the Yankees on June 8 with an issue below his left calf, and Grifol said Jiménez was "looking at 4-5 days." Sure enough, he returned after four games to start the aforementioned streak of 27 starts.
Instead, Jiménez extended a streak of four straight months with some sort of physical issue, and only one of them can be considered an aberration. Prior to the groin injury on Sunday and the lower leg issue in June, he missed three weeks in May due to an appendectomy, and spent 10 days on the injured list with a hamstring strain in June.
Jiménez is a bad bet to set a career high in games played this season, which isn't great since he set that mark with 122 back in his rookie season of 2019. Since then, he's played in 55, 55 and 84 games, and he's on pace for about 102 this time around. He's going to make $13,833,333 next year, but the Sox have the option of buying him out for $3 million in each of the following two seasons.
It's a little early to forecast whether Jiménez will be worth $16 million in 2025, but the buyout is worth keeping in the back of your mind in order to assess the kind of money the White Sox will shed over the next two years. The only meaningful obligations for that season:
- Andrew Benintendi, $17.1 million
- Luis Robert Jr., $15 million
- Buyouts for Jiménez, Yoán Moncada and Aaron Bummer: $9.25 million
- Dylan Cease's final arbitration year
- Andrew Vaughn's second arbitration year
That's something like $65 million, without any potential arbitration monsters looming. It's pretty grim that the White Sox struck all those contract extensions, and only Robert is on track to make all the club options a no-brainer, but the silver lining is that the White Sox don't exactly have to slash and burn their payroll in order to try again. It's more or less going to resolve itself in fairly short order.
