The White Sox still haven't officially announced the signing of Martín Maldonado, but they did announce how they're going to alleviate the logjam in the catching depth chart by designating Carlos Pérez for assignment.
The White Sox DFA'd Pérez to make room for Chris Flexen's one-year deal, and that'll make playing time at Charlotte and Birmingham a lot easier to allocate among the remaining prospects.
Before, it looked something like:
- White Sox: Max Stassi, Martín Maldonado
- Charlotte: Carlos Pérez, Korey Lee
- Birmingham: Edgar Quero, Adam Hackenberg
And now it looks something like:
- White Sox: Max Stassi, Martín Maldonado
- Charlotte: Korey Lee, Adam Hackenberg
- Birmingham: Edgar Quero, Michael Turner
Feel free to toggle Hackenberg and Quero, or shuffle Turner out for somebody like presumed non-roster invitee Chuckie Robinson. Regardless of the specific permutations, you get the point.
It's fair to say the White Sox were never enamored with Pérez, based on the fact that Korey Lee received as many plate appearances in a dud of an audition in 2023 as Pérez did over a few cups of coffee spread out over two years. He didn't play enough to accumulate meaningful defensive stats, but I remember watching the Knights in person and hearing then-manager Wes Helms loudly griping that Pérez didn't set up close enough to home plate to get low strikes.
Still, the DFA could merely trigger a trade given the scarcity of rosterable catchers around the league (the Diamondbacks traded Seby Zavala to Seattle as part of the Eugenio Suarez deal, after all). The return wouldn't be much, but I can see Pérez running a high BABIP for one year and turning that into a couple of jobs, and that represents an upgrade over third catchers elsewhere. Pérez isn't going to make or break any plans in Chicago, though. The future of the position is all about the players who remain. As for the past, make sure to take Ted's catcher quiz from Saturday.
For those wondering whether the White Sox are going to capitulate to the state of the roster and officially call it a rebuild, Daryl Van Schouwen relayed some quotes from Pedro Grifol that indicate a game plan of denial.
Van Schouwen's article was primarily about the dozen or so pitchers the White Sox can run out to the mound over the course of the 2024 season to soak up starts, but he pivoted at the end to mention the additions of Maldonado and Stassi to help develop all the young arms, and capped it off with Grifol's assessment on the position-player side:
‘‘I put our team down on paper, and our lineup is pretty good,’’ Grifol said. ‘‘We’re missing TA [Tim Anderson], and a healthy, good TA is hard to come by. But other than that, if we’re healthy, our lineup is pretty good. We just have to continue to address the pitching.’’
Here's that team on paper, with wRC+ and fWAR, in order to see for yourself. For reference, 100 is average for the former, and 2.0 for the latter:
| Player | POS | wRC+ | fWAR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Martín Maldonado | C | 66 | -1.2 |
| Andrew Vaughn | 1B | 103 | 0.3 |
| Nicky Lopez | 2B | 77 | 1.1 |
| Yoán Moncada | 3B | 98 | 1.2 |
| Paul DeJong | SS | 66 | 0.3 |
| Andrew Benintendi | LF | 87 | 0.0 |
| Luis Robert Jr. | CF | 128 | 5.0 |
| Gavin Sheets | RF | 61 | -1.4 |
| Eloy Jiménez | DF | 105 | 0.4 |
The "if we're healthy" argument applied last year, when Tim Anderson could've theoretically returned to All-Star form while Yasmani Grandal dead-cat-bounced back to average, alongside the perpetual uncertainties of Luis Robert Jr., Yoán Moncada and Eloy Jiménez. Only Robert beat the odds, and staring at even slimmer chances of the rebuild's pillars holding up, Chris Getz chose to punt the vacant positions for 2024. Any health-dependent arguments rely on Moncada and Jiménez carrying twice the load. Good luck.
Still, it's worth marking Grifol's words, if only because he expressed similar optimism last year, including a phrase in the quote Van Schouwen relayed that caught my eye.
“I spent a lot of time researching where to put who, to best give us the value and the production that we need to maximize our run scoring. And when you put the names down on paper, you realize this lineup is pretty deep. And then when you add Andrus to the lineup, it gets even deeper."
Grifol probably has this lineup written down next to the unspecified list of things he could do better. As somebody who loves himself some pens and paper (Muji and Rhodia, respectively, but I'm always up for trying recommendations), I don't knock Grifol for his analog habits as much as I do his inability to make sensible cases to the public, and it doesn't seem like he's made any headway in this department.
