It's February. Do the White Sox know where their right fielder is?
Chris Getz has turned over 13 spots on the White Sox's 40-man roster since the conclusion of the World Series. In the areas where he's concentrated his efforts -- the starting rotation and up the middle -- you can at least identify a consistent theme: The White Sox have amassed a fair amount of options to start an MLB game, and maybe a couple of them will overachieve with the fortified defense behind them.
You can quibble with the plan, or you can hold it in outright contempt, but at least there's an actual strategy involving major-league players with which one can engage.
Getz can't say the same as right field. As things stand now, he stands a chance of doing less than Rick Hahn on this front. On an annual basis, Hahn nominally added a nominally name-brand player to right field -- Jon Jay to Nomar Mazara to Adam Eaton to AJ Pollock -- until he got so discouraged he thought a rookie like Oscar Colás could do no worse. It turned out he was wrong there, too.
As it stands, Getz is on track to accept the status quo for the league's worst positional situation.
There's still time, of course. There are still two weeks until pitchers and catchers report, and with the standards for right field as low as they are, the White Sox could have eight weeks to find better players, because maybe some out-of-options candidates will fall into their lap during the second half of spring training.
We've just spent a long time participating in abyss-staring. Gavin Sheets is somehow still the primary candidate for the most playing time in right field, even though he's the fourth-least valuable player in baseball over the last two years because of how much time he's spent in right field, which gave his attempt to establish a motivational arc last week some tragic undertones.
“Everybody is counting us out,” said White Sox right fielder Gavin Sheets, who was part of a group of players in Chicago last weekend for a Boys & Girls Club of Chicago event Thursday and a season ticket holder event at the Field Museum Friday. “The only thing you can do is use that to fuel us. We go out every day trying to play hard and win games, and that doesn’t change what we are going to do.
“We all know we aren’t favored to do anything this year. That’s the first time since I’ve been here in the big leagues in three years. We can use that to help us and motivate us and see what we can do with it.”
It doesn't seem like Getz can let the entire offseason and preseason pass with non-roster invitees like Brett Phillips and Rafael Ortega providing the only fresh hope for the position, can he? But then again, the White Sox seldom made the position a priority when they considered themselves contenders, so what's another layer of neglect right now?
Two other stories given additional weight by the symbolism of a new month atop the calendar.
No. 2: Dylan Cease, still a White Sox
Dylan Cease rumors no longer captivate the nation. They're instead relegated to a cursory couple of sentences in one of Bob Nightengale's Sunday columns, the latest of which tried to bring the Mariners into the chat.
The Seattle Mariners have quietly entered trade talks with the Chicago White Sox for ace Dylan Cease, with the White Sox seeking a package centered around young starters Bryce Miller or Bryan Woo.
If the Mariners meet the White Sox’s steep asking price, they would have one of the most powerful starting rotations in baseball with Luis Castillo, Cease, Logan Gilbert and George Kirby.
The Mariners then acquired Jorge Polanco from the Twins for four players. Gabriel Gonzalez, a 19-year-old A-ball outfielder from Venezuela, which removed a top-100 prospect that could fill out a suitable return for a postseason-caliber starter.
That's been the lifecycle of every Cease rumor this winter -- a potential suitor, shortly followed by a move (or three) that make it unlikely. Unless the new ownership situation in Baltimore allows Mike Elias to loosen his grip on his prospects, it's hard to see it changing, especially since Blake Snell is still on the market, and Jordan Montgomery as well.
Pedro Grifol named Cease the White Sox's Opening Day starter. It would've been funnier if he pretended that there was a competition, so he's already missing opportunities for levity.
No. 3: Tim Anderson, still a free agent
Good news for Tim Anderson: He made MLB.com's starting nine among the best free agents remaining. The bad news: That's the only place his name has surfaced. His tag at MLB Trade Rumors shows tthat the Angels were briefly tied to him in November, and that's been it.
It isn't entirely a reflection on the player, because Matt Chapman is still a free agent, as is Whit Merrifield and a handful of other infielders who have proven plenty, but Anderson also picked the worst possible market for his worst possible season. A guy like Paul DeJong can find a guaranteed one-year deal, albeit just for $1.5 million, because if nothing else, his glove should help. Anderson spent an entire year exploring the "if nothing else..." scenario, and he presented, well, nothing. He shouldn't have been that bad, and it's hard to think he will be again, but if a team with ambition wanted to bolster areas of need, Anderson is best positioned to offer BABIP, and that's not really a stat teams pursue.
For at least one more year, he still represents a valid upside play for any team with nothing at shortstop or second, so my guess is that he experiences sudden interest in a couple weeks. He'd essentially be following the path of somebody like Elvis Andrus, who had to settle for a one-year, $3 million deal at the start of spring training to be the White Sox's everyday second baseman last year. It's still a startling shrinking of his profile, at least if his last season didn't make you forget everything he was capable of.
