If the White Sox surprised with their 40-man roster additions at the deadline to protect players from the Rule 5 draft Tuesday afternoon, it was only by the mildest of degrees.
The Sox added Cristian Mena and Jake Eder to the 40-man, which makes sense given how starved the organization is for upper-level pitchers. Neither Mena nor Eder look ready for the majors at this point, but given that Mena reached Triple-A last year and Eder was supposed to before his control problems set in, they're pretty much one small tweak away from being able to throw a low-leverage inning at a time.
Wilfred Veras was the only White Sox prospect who had a case, and while he hit .309/.346/.533 for Birmingham last year, he struck out 145 times against 28 walks on the year, and his corner outfield play is still a work in progress. The position players who tend to be selected in Rule 5 draft usually have the ability to play multiple positions and offer plus speed off the bench, and Veras doesn't have those skills.
The White Sox's 40-man roster is now at 37, which leaves them room to maneuver if and when former players of note are on the wrong side of a numbers game. Cal Quantrill, freshly DFA'd by the Guardians, looks like the most prominent casualty of the Rule 5 deadline, but $6.6 million is a big arbitration projection for somebody whose shoulder problems seemed to eliminate his margin for error, so it appears that teams aren't clamoring to trade anybody of value for him. If he's available for a straight claim, the White Sox could do worse, although they lack the defense that helps a guy with Quantrill find success despite such a paltry strikeout rate.
PERTINENT: White Sox don't have to sweat 40-man roster decision deadline
Without getting into a debate about his broadcasting style, there are two problems with a team like the White Sox dismissing somebody like Jason Benetti. First, the stars aligned to pair a nationally ascendant broadcaster with a franchise that is content to loiter in a sinkhole, and that kind of fortune shouldn't be taken for granted.
The other part is, while Benetti himself might not be the type of person to torch the White Sox, he seems to have a lot of friends in the industry who have platforms, so he'll continue to get and answer a lot of questions that give some clue about how he feels the White Sox conduct themselves.
He appeared on Richard Deitsch's Sports Media broadcast (thanks to RWShow, who mentioned it in the discussion under Monday's podcast), and when answering a question about what kind of broadcast the Tigers want from him, he left some room between the lines:
"[The Tigers] want to have the best telecast in Major League Baseball. And they want to do it by, number one, making sure that fans who don't understand analytics have the opportunity to, if they want to. But if they don't, they get everything they want to out of the baseball show, as well. Stories about players, fun at the ballpark, strategy, whatever it might be. They want the ballpark to come alive, and they also want new age fans to have the ability to have the touchstone of analytics, too.
"It's very clear with who they have installed in the front office with Scott Harris and Jeff Greenberg, and then A.J. Hinch is the manager — a guy who played baseball but also was in a front office and understands analytics very deeply, and mixed and matched lineups as well as anybody in Major League Baseball last year.
"But they also want to have fun. They also want to enjoy the ballpark. They also want people to come every day and have a smile on their face. I do like to have fun. I do like to have a good time doing baseball, and sometimes you're gonna miss and sometimes you're gonna hit, but the stuff that happens in the ballpark is the most glorious part of doing baseball. And they want that. They didn't say we'll tolerate that. They said we want it."
Deitsch asked Benetti about whether he talked to the White Sox after meeting with the Tigers, and Benetti said that he next talked to the White Sox after the deal was done. He said he was free to sign a deal with the Tigers once the White Sox granted permission to interview, and he had no interest in using the Tigers for leverage. He said that he felt the Tigers were his future based on the respectful, above-board way they pursued him, so forward he went.
When Deitsch told Benetti that he didn't quite understand why local teams wouldn't see value in a national broadcaster being their guy, Benetti said that no matter how many other jobs and sports he did, most people who met him in person wanted to talk baseball.
Sure enough, when a Washington Husky dropped the ball on a 1-yard-line in the annual celebrating-too-soon mishap last Saturday ...
... Benetti's call of it circulated around social media, and the comments are full of Tigers fans who are happy he's their guy, and White Sox fans who are sorry to see him go.
PERTINENT: Jason Benetti did the hard part
