The Houston Astros released José Abreu on Friday, eating a little more than half of the three-year, $58.5 million contract they handed him after the 2022 season. He hit .124/.167/.195 over 120 plate appearances this season around an option to the minors -- Abreu's first experience of any sort there -- that failed to resuscitate his Astros career.
It's weird reading The Athletic's coverage of Abreu the Astro, which sits in stark relief to the experience of following Abreu's career as a beloved White Sox fixture, who, if anything, was underpaid over the course of his nine-year career on the South Side. While Abreu maintained his professionalism and fierce work ethic in the face of his difficult tenure in Houston, he ended up representing the hubris of owner Jim Crane and Jeff Bagwell, who decided to splurge on a marquee run producer in between pushing out former GM James Click and hiring a new one in Dana Brown.
Crane had guaranteed a 36-year-old player three seasons and more money than any free agent of his ownership tenure, a contract from which he cannot hide and that could hamstring his ballclub across the next year and a half.
The man who must mend it passed the photo at 3:05 p.m. on Friday. A team spokesperson said Crane “is not in Houston currently,” leaving second-year general manager Dana Brown to answer questions better served for someone else. Crane teamed with senior adviser Jeff Bagwell to sign Abreu two months before Brown arrived.
It'd be nice to see Abreu land somewhere else, if only because he deserves a chance at a more graceful end, but given that the three-year commitment was a true shock -- the average annual value was fine -- at least he'll be compensated for the effects of the environment. At least he had some moments in his return to October.
In the meantime, with Abreu out of the running, even temporarily, the White Sox will have fewer obstacles in their quest to own the bottom of the Wins Above Replacement leaderboard, whether by FanGraphs...
- Elehuris Montero, -1.7
- Martín Maldonado, -1.7
- José Abreu, -1.5
- Andrew Beninendi, -1.4
... or Baseball-Reference.com:
- Andrew Benintendi, -2.0
- Martín Maldonado, -1.7
- José Abreu, -1.6
Spare Parts
The tricky thing with the White Sox attempting to replicate the Royals is that there is some merit to the idea. They fired Dayton Moore and promoted an assistant in J.J. Picollo who's been able to put his stamp on the organization after absorbing a brutal first season. The catch is that Bobby Witt Jr. helps a lot, and the White Sox don't yet have one of him.
Continuing the publicity ramp-up for the Rickwood Field games next week, Dan Cichalski wrote up five other fields that hosted Negro Leagues games and still exist in some visitable way, shape or form.
Pat Hoberg, who routinely checks in with the best work calling balls and strikes on Umpire Scorecards, hasn't umpired a game this year. The league has suspended him for violating gambling rules, but Jeff Passan says Hoberg denies betting on baseball and is appealing the ruling.
Eno Sarris assigns Stuff+ scores to Nick Nastrini, Jonathan Cannon and Drew Thorpe among 15 other starters. Of the White Sox's representatives, Cannon has displayed the best combination of stuff, location, and the quality of process.
But what will he do against lefties? Modeling numbers say the changeup could be viable (107 Stuff+), but he’s allowed .850 slugging on the pitch and doesn’t seem to have great command of it. His four-seam has three inches less ride than the average four-seamer, and the models hate it. Maybe, like Spence above, the cutter will rescue Cannon. At 89.4 mph, it’s hard. It looks like Cannon can command it in on lefties and as a dual-nature pitch, he could use it both as a fastball and also as an out-pitch.
He might still be looking for a great secondary pitch against lefties, at least until his command of the changeup increases or he shows off a curve. Still, you can’t ignore that good sweeper/sinker combo at the top of this arsenal.
Having just witnessed Raley's game-tying bunt in the eighth inning of Seattle's 8-4 win over the White Sox on Monday, I enjoyed Davy Andrews' breakdown of the league's biggest -- as in largest -- bunter.
This is about the company, not the ballpark, but the Chicago Tribune published an investigation into allegations of verbal abuse and sexual harassment at Guaranteed Rate. The company has aggressively disputed the claims, with the lawyers going so far as to threaten to sue the Tribune for defamation before even receiving a list of questions.
Keith Law looks back on the 2014 draft 10 years later, and when you look what happened to the two pitchers selected before the White Sox took Carlos Rodón at No. 3, they dodged such a huge bullet. Unless you believe they would've stuck with the college starter route and drafted Aaron Nola. Then they'd still be fine.
