The minor league development list was instituted in 2021, in part to stop teams from simply phantom IL-ing prospects who needed a reset, and suggestions to send major leaguers down to Triple-A to "figure things out" seemingly emerged from the woodwork three minutes after American sports talk radio was invented.
So, the White Sox haven't reinvented the wheel by how often and readily they've mashed the reset button on struggling mainstays or top prospects, least of all on a rebuilding team coming off 121 losses where almost no one has earned the benefit of the doubt. It just feels more radical because they...
- Had three of the bottom-six position players in bWAR (Tim Anderson, Oscar Colás, Gavin Sheets) in 2023
- Had Yasmani Grandal rack up -1.4 bWAR in 2022
- Had at least one bottom-10 pitcher in bWAR annually from 2017-19 (Derek Holland, Bruce Rondón, Lucas Giolito, Dylan Covey)
- Currently have Josh Rojas (-1.5 bWAR) on the roster as the second-least valuable position player in MLB
...so Sox fans have developed a level of expectation for the team's decision-makers to go down with the ship on their roster-building choices. Some of us are even old enough to remember Courtney Hawkins' year from hell at High-A Winston-Salem in 2013. But this year alone has seen the Sox...
- Pull Colson Montgomery from Triple-A Charlotte to work at the team complex in Arizona on April 30
- A similar move where Jairo Iriarte was pulled from Triple-A Charlotte to the ACL on May 12
- Pull Hagen Smith out of the Double-A rotation for biomechanical work on May 20
- Option Andrew Vaughn on May 23
- Option Jonathan Cannon on Aug. 8
The problem that becomes apparent when listing these out, is that Montgomery is the only case anyone would even hope offers a parallel to Cannon. Smith was formally placed on the IL by the end of the month, Iriarte's intervention led to a move to the bullpen that is looking permanent, and Vaughn's demotion was a precursor to the organization cutting ties, and his resuscitation happening elsewhere.
Perhaps a better parallel is just Cannon himself, since he got demoted after the first three outings of his big league career last year, went back to Triple-A for five weeks, and returned to throw 110⅔ innings of 4.15 ERA ball. In any case, if there's a tendency the new Sox front office has, it's being less wedded to allowing stragglers to play their way out of protracted subpar performance.
"It’s really hard at the major league level when you start searching," Chris Getz said. "When you go down to Triple-A the game slows down, so it’s a different pace to it and oftentimes you can just lose yourself at the major league level, where you go back down and, ‘Oh, this is what I can do. I can land this pitch and attack hitters this way.’ So I hope [Cannon] views it as an opportunity. I know he was disappointed, but he understood."
It will also be really hard for the White Sox to take a similar approach when their major league roster stops being mostly composed of players with options remaining -- it's 15 of 26 at present -- so maybe they're just using a more interventionist approach while it's still available to them.
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Luis Robert Jr. is hitting .386/.455/.561 in 16 games since the All-Star break, and Getz was more prepared to quote those figures than publicly detail the trade offers he received for the former All-Star, so it's hard to shake him out of his satisfaction for retaining his centerfielder.
"I’m glad we didn’t cut bait considering how productive he’s been," Getz said. "That just speaks to the talent that he still has. We feel like he’s part of this team. We are excited about having Luis Robert in the White Sox organization. It’s exciting to watch him go out there and play. He really can impact the game in so many different ways. When he’s playing well, the team is seemingly playing well and we are getting wins. He’s a guy we like having in this organization and we are planning on having him part of the future."
Getz continued to say that having a team that is strong up the middle is a priority for the Sox in their roster-building, and the immediate future of the farm system is such that there are few -- apologies to Brooks Baldwin -- non-Robert avenues to that. Unless their public declarations of intending to pick up Robert's $20 million option reflect more budget room to add payroll in the offseason, but the language around such matters hasn't starkly changed.
"It's too soon. We've got essentially two months of baseball left," Getz said of offseason additions. "In regards to shaping the roster, I think we need a little bit more time. But we're definitely gonna look for opportunities to add to this club."
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The White Sox seem to have an overriding offensive philosophy, if Getz's comments for why there has been uptick since the All-Star break prove to be enduring.
"It starts with the fastball," Getz said. "Will's talked about it. I've talked to the staff, at length, about prioritizing getting on time and driving the fastball, and that's really opened our offense up...
"If you're going to put up power numbers, you've got to be able to be productive on fastballs. They've shown they've been able to do that. Hitting's such a delicate thing. It comes, it goes. I look forward to seeing this ride out for a while."
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A long-term question for this player group is whether the White Sox view having two starter-quality catchers as a smart, efficient methodology for keep the position staffed with rested, capable players, or something closer to happenstance, where dealing from their surplus to fill other holes is something they will eventually consider.
The Sox continue to sound uninterested in carrying a third catcher to free up their usage of both Edgar Quero and Kyle Teel -- God, what a thankless role that third catcher job would be -- and Getz focused more on how splitting the workload has made this season less taxing, rather than guaranteeing how future campaigns will look.
"One thing that I don't think gets enough value or enough credit is how challenging the role is and how taxing it can be on a player physically," Getz said. "You're looking at two players that are in the big leagues for the first time, so to be able to balance the workload and keep these guys fresh, but also work on certain pieces of their game and their skill development to improve their ability to be a longstanding fit at the major league level.
"So I've always valued the position greatly, it's just got such an impact on the game for a lot of different reasons. I think we've all enjoyed having two quality catchers. Oftentimes you've got one catcher, and then when he has a day off you feel like you may have a hole in the line or a catcher that might not be as quality in regards to calling games or receiving. To have two solid guys is definitely a benefit to the White Sox."
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Colson Montgomery was back to using a torpedo bat on Friday night, after running out of his initial supply at the end of the road trip. The rookie indicated that he had already put in for a new order of torpedo bats prior to departing for the West Coast, but given his initial success with them, Getz seemed as alarmed that he ran out as anyone.
"Gosh, I hope so," Getz said when asked if Montgomery's new order had come in yet. "And if he didn't, I'll put the order in for him. I haven't checked in on that, but it's probably worth checking in on."
