To the credit of assistant general manager Josh Barfield, his inclination was to steer the conversation toward the quality of Tommy Pham's at-bats. Among the 168 hitters who made over 450 plate appearances last season, Pham had the 11th-lowest swing rate on pitches out of the strike zone.
"It's consistent quality at-bats, kind of like [Robbie] Grossman, the spark he's been able to give us since he's coming over here, being able to stack quality at-bat after quality at-bat," Barfield said Tuesday, after Pham's minor league deal was made official in the morning. "You always want to balance the lineup. You want to make sure the pitcher has to work."
But as much as White Sox fans rightly tire hearing about makeup and clubhouse presence while performance remains substandard, Pham received a lot of praise as a galvanizing force in the Arizona Diamondbacks clubhouse in their improbable run to the World Series last season, even as the veteran outfielder's offensive numbers slipped to league average after coming over from the Mets at the trade deadline. Serving as Arizona's farm director last season, Barfield recalled Pham arriving on the heels of the Diamondbacks posting an 8-16 record in July, and fueling a rebound from the season's low point.
"We were starting to flounder in the standings," Barfield said. "When we got him, he just brought energy and professionalism. The way he goes about it, he was a big part of the reason that season turned around. He's a competitor and guys lead in different ways but I thought he did a good job over there of leading by example, setting the tone, playing hard, coming ready to play everyday and not being intimidated if things are going bad."
So with those memories in hand, there's at least a notion that Pham will soon be an interest insertion to a team that has spent the first few weeks struggling and having team meetings.
"It's no secret: our offense could use a little spark right now," Barfield said. "We're not expecting him to come in and be the savior, but we think he can come in and definitely help contribute and provide us with consistent quality at-bats."
Pham is reporting to Triple-A Charlotte on Wednesday for likely a very short ramp-up period, and will join Grossman and Mike Clevinger as another veteran player the White Sox have added who will essentially go without spring training. But Barfield said the experience and resources all these players have to simulate game action reduces their concern.
"They weren't at home on the couch, they were throwing live [BPs], facing lives, getting the work in, replicating it as best they could," Barfield said. "If you ask a lot of position players, they will tell you that spring training could be a lot shorter because they know what they need to do and can get their at-bats. More and more guys are seeing live pitching in the offseason than they used to back in the day. That helps speed up the prep."
The White Sox had an optional team stretch and batting practice on Tuesday. This is extremely normal. Teams switch up their pre-game routines all the time in response to the schedule, travel times, outcomes, vibes, theories about the balance between practice reps and physical/mental rest, etc. Rarely is there mandatory BP before a day game, for example. Sometimes in response to a late night before, teams will have a straight up “show-and-go,” where players are only required to show up a few hours before first pitch and no mandatory pregame team activities are scheduled.
I can recall in the Tony La Russa era the Sox blowing the doors off some team after a show-and-go, and naturally, doing a show-and-go the next night to keep the vibes going. Personally, I love a show-and-go. I love showing up later to work, don’t you? It is with great sadness that I must report that there have been no show-and-gos so far this season.
It also is apparently worth mentioning that the team stretch that is organized over three hours before first pitch is wholly separate from pregame stretching, which the majority of visitors to this website have shown up to a game early enough to witness in some portion. Nor does outdoor team batting practice encompass all of the pregame hitting activities for a team that has a separate indoor batting cage and a separate “hitting lab” with an iPitch machine that I have to walk by everyday to get into the locker room.
The White Sox have a lot of problems. They cannot hit. They cannot stay healthy. But I can only wish that parsing the reasons for it were as simple as taking a picture of their lineup and unintentionally giving everyone a glimpse of the practice schedule they posted for the afternoon before a game that got rained out.
A questioner lightly suggested to Pedro Grifol that Andrew Vaughn being out of the lineup Tuesday night could be the result of trying to wedge in Eloy Jiménez to DH while keeping Gavin Sheets in the lineup. Grifol made it very clear that is not the case; Vaughn was scheduled to sit because he’s struggling.
“I’m going to give him an opportunity to settle down, get some good quality work before and during the game with Marcus [Thames] and our hitting group,” Grifol said. “He’s a tick away. When you look at his video, he’s one click away and they’re making the necessary adjustments to get him where he needs to be.”
Vaughn is hitting .172/.250/.207 on the season in 64 plate appearances, and has grounded into four double plays in 16 games. Speaking to Thames’ last week, he summed up Vaughn’s issues as pertaining to timing, and agreed that calibrating his leg kick is a crucial element for that. Following up with Vaughn, he said that he’s had to work to shrink the movement in pro ball to respond to higher velocity.
None of these are fully satisfactory answers. Vaughn is not doing well against fastballs so far, but he’s not doing well against any pitches. It’s been 16 games and he’s in a rut. Hitting is hard.
“Personally I’m never trying to think about mechanics when it’s compete time,” Vaughn said. “I feel like last couple days, definitely got back into my rhythm and was putting really good swings on balls, just missing some stuff. Just gotta keep getting after it.”
In public statements, the team is hesitant to announce that Nick Nastrini is in the rotation for good. But Nastrini is slated as a probable starter for Sunday in Philadelphia against Aaron Nola. Chris Flexen is not lined up for any starts in the next five games.
Jared Shuster was optioned and Josimar Cousin was designated for assignment to clear room on the active and 40-man rosters for Jonathan Cannon, who will make his major league debut in the first half of Wednesday's straight doubleheader. Cousin has yet to pitch this season after a pair of Cactus League appearances, so he could always still clear waivers.
There is not an update on Max Stassi’s right hip beyond his placement Monday on the 60-day injured list, which is obviously its own update.
“We expect him not to play for the next 60 days,” Grifol said. “We’re continuing to evaluate that and see where he’s at. Obviously, he’s on the 60-day for a reason, and we’ll talk about that at some other time.”
Andrew Benintendi said multiple times that “I’m not trying to jinx it,” but his near grand slam turned RBI single off the wall in right-center Sunday signaled to him that his contact points on velocity might be getting back to where he prefers. He says that he’s always been a slow starter and his career numbers back him up, especially for slugging. But after two more hits on Monday, he took it as a small sign things could be turning.
"Obviously it can't get worse than how it started," he quipped.
Benintendi's in the majors too long to divulge what happened in Monday's team meeting, but the major takeaways from any meditation on a 2-14 start are easy to discern.
"Everybody knows where we're at right now. There's a lot that's been left on the field that can improve."
