Beef au jus: Welington Castillo facing 80-game suspension
It was only a matter of time before the White Sox had to deal with a drug-related suspension for an active player.
Welington Castillo will be the one to set the precedent. Reports came out of the Dominican Republic on Wednesday that he’d join Robinson Cano in serving an 80-game suspension, and Ken Rosenthal verified it with a clarification:
https://twitter.com/Ken_Rosenthal/status/999472743837065216
The Sox hadn’t been completely clean this decade, even if they’d fared better than others in this area. Andre Rienzo made it to the majors with the Sox after serving a 50-gamer in the minors. The Sox also traded for prospects who had served suspensions (Michael Kopech, Jose Quintana, Tyler Flowers), and acquired a couple MLB players who had starred in rather notorious cases (Manny Ramirez, Melky Cabrera).
Castillo broke new ground as an active White Sox. I suppose the good news is that it wasn’t a player who had established an ironclad reputation and connection with the fan base. Castillo just got here, and while he’d more or less lived up to expectations with his performance — .267/.309/.466 at the plate with framing numbers on the rebound after a rough start — he hadn’t become part of the organization’s fabric.
The bad news? Well, there’s a lot of bad news. Castillo was supposed to bolster the batteries and lineup over the next couple years while testing the Sox’ abilities to evaluate free-agent hitters, and both are going to be difficult to do when missing the next 80 games.
More crucially, it hits the White Sox where it hurts on the depth chart. Omar Narvaez has been awful this season, hitting .180/.275/.246 and striking out 23 percent of the time for whatever reason, and he’s also incredibly leaky defensively, whether in terms of strikes or passed pitches. Baseball Prospectus already has him as the worst catcher at blocking, even though he’s only played part of the time.
And while Kevan Smith would normally be called up for better (decent hitter for a catcher) or worse (opponents are still running wild on him), he’s currently on the DL with an injury James Fegan said is ankle-related.
That leaves Alfredo Gonzalez as the next catcher up. He’s well-regarded defensively, but he’s hitting just .169/.279/.191 and striking out 31 percent of the time at Charlotte. Brett Austin is backing him up, but he’s one of a few catchers the Sox use to plug gaps.
If none of the Triple-A guys seem suitable for one reason or another, then you’re looking at Zack Collins. Collins is hitting .288/.461/.530 in May with an equal number of walks and strikeouts (21), but he’s also allowed six passed balls and committed four errors in just 24 games. Seby Zavala is on the disabled list with a wrist issue, and organizational catcher Casey Schroeder has taken his spot for the time being.
I’m guessing you’d see Gonzalez come up if only for the defense, while hunting for a veteran catcher who would be just about done for any other franchise (Geovany Soto remains unsigned).
And if that’s not enough, the Sox may have to make a move in the outfield after Leury Garcia sprained his knee sliding into third. Adam Engel went 4-for-4 to paper over some of the immediate pain in the outfield, but the situation looked dire when Nicky Delmonico broke his hand. This leaves Trayce Thompson as a starter until further moves are made.
The Sox have added a couple of veteran outfielders to Charlotte’s mix this week — Michael Saunders and Alex Presley — and maybe one of them will shape up enough to hold a spot in time. If the Sox want to avoid adding two players to the 40-man (assuming a catcher is one) over the next couple of days, then it looks like the Sox would have to bank on Charlie Tilson‘s May being evidence of his getting up to speed (.276/.295/.316), and not just a temporary brand of empty Triple-A adequacy. Maybe the baseball gods just want to see how far the Sox have to go to justify keeping Eloy Jimenez in Birmingham.
And to think — this all happened while the Sox were securing a winning homestand for the first time all season. It makes sense that this would be what qualifies as “fun baseball” for the White Sox in 2018.
*Looks at catcher depth chart*
“Oh god, where’s the Beef?”
*checks minor league rosters for anybody named Holstein
Yes, but is Castillo still eligible for the post season?
yes, i think players can be traded even if they are on suspension
No. Nor the All-Star game.
Au jus…. only hurts when I laugh….
Blake Swihart. Hahn, go get him.
Yeah, I think this makes sense now.
Sox are saving about $3.6m with the suspension, correct?
The Sox shouldn’t expend significant resources on a mid-season MLB catcher acquisition when there’s not a meaningful game in sight. I don’t care if the new guy can’t hit a lick, only that his receiving helps the club’s young pitchers, or at least isn’t a detriment. Control of the running game a bonus. No fatties.
Has Gonzalez landed at O’Hare yet?
Operation Bobby Witt Jr. will not be thwarted by a home series win.
Also, the headline is just another reason that Jim should take over Tronc.
AJ doing anything?
He is probably still better than some of the options we currently have
I was only half joking.
It would be fun to see AJ’s reaction when he gets benched by Ricky for not running out a popup to shortstop.
Sadly, I wasn’t
He could be the first player-announcer
So was this already appealed? And if so why didnโt Hahn already find a stop-gap catcher?
I bet he tested positive during spring training and this was the result of the appeal. The timing is close on the heels of Cano dropping the appeal. (The stopgap catcher was Kevan Smith, who just went on the DL.)
Players who are appealing are not required to tell their teams in the meantime.
OK. That makes it reasonable. Did not know that was the case. One would think you would work with your employer to figure out the best way to manage the situation for everyone.
They had Kevan Smith until yesterday.
How about Yermin Mercedes? He made it to AA last year.
And to AAA this year. Joining the Knights from the Dash as of this afternoon.
What’s Tyler Saladino up to?
Oh. 270 wRC+ and .7 fWAR for the Brewers.
Good for him.
I wish him well and don’t blame the Sox for trading him no matter how well he does.
I don’t think I’d have enjoyed him actually becoming the backup catcher. But I’d have appreciated the novelty. Missed connection.
Funny how Saladino and Flowers do so well after escaping this world-class coaching staff . . .
The Flowers improvement is… who knows? Life is full of mysteries… Flowers deciding to stop striking out at age 31 and not giving up too much power in the process has to be one of them. (I could see the Sox telling him to be more aggressive as something that did hurt his walk rate during his maddening years with the Sox).
Saladino has all of 22 plate appearances up in Milwaukee, though he is hitting the snot out of the ball. I have no doubt that the rumors of the Sox messing with his swing and him going back to what he was comfortable with may be behind some of his improvement; but I’m also not adding him in fantasy.
Flowers had a .275 xwOBA in 2015, but has run a .356 with the Braves.
I thought Salad looked like a possible every day player a couple years ago, and figured his collapse since then was due to his recurring back injuries. After learning the White Sox messed with his swing after he’d had some success, and watching Flowers tear the cover off the ball for the Braves, I’m starting to think there’s a serious problem with the hitting coaches. The same thing was happening with Collins in the minors.
You just started thinking that? Outside of a couple guys here and there, the team has been full of brutal hitters for years.
Yeah, but I’d always chalked that up to bad scouting more than bad coaching. Seeing the way several hitters have been breaking out after leaving, I’m starting to think coaching is every bit as culpable.
Which hitters have had breakouts after leaving the Sox? Are we really counting Saladino’s 22 PAs in MIL as a breakout?
Tyler Flowers is one, but I can’t really think of that many more recently.
Recency bias, I know. But Josh Phegley and Marcus Semien would be two more who churned out much better seasons after leaving than what we probably thought they were capable of.
I never thought people doubted Semien’s bat… it was the fact he was a butcher at short stop (which Ron Washington seemingly fixed).
Any more info about the Sox messing with Salad’s swing?
I remember Flowers complaining about the Sox’ Minor League coaches messing with his. But hadn’t heard about Saladino.
This is probably the least important part of anything, but Castillo’s recent framing “improvement” was largely a product of BP doing another non-transparent model update, which affected his recent framing numbers in a significant way.
#framingdoesn’tmatter
Are BP Framing numbers broken for anyone else? Whenever I go to a player’s page all seasons other than 2018 mlb have 0 framing chances (and therefore 0 framing runs)….
They’re probably in the process of running another “update”.
Stellar headline
this
Can they make do for a few weeks and then just slide Joey Bart in there?
Let’s just end the Yolmer outfield project and start the Yolmer catching project.
Answers
I can’t wait for someone to intentionally walk Engel to face the catcher
Engel in May so far: .280/.357/.380 and .285 xwOBA
You know that a player sucks when pointing out that their (half of a) monthly split of an x-stat being almost 10% lower than league average is supposed to be a positive highlight.
Well, his actual wRC+ for May is 107. I think the xwOBA was intended to help determine whether it was flukey or not.
Pretty much, but there’s been improvement there too. There are some green shoots here. And, fwiw, Yolmer ran a .284 xwOBA in 2017 (he’s at .315 this year).
Over/Under on first squeeze bunt is set at 5 1/2 games.
innings?
This team is going to be rough(er) as hell to watch.ย
Time to get Collins and Jimenez up to Charlotte.
Welp, good luck Tilson and Alfredo. Yikes…
I have some hope that Tilson will be amount to something (what and how long that takes, dunno). The catching, however, is going to be U-G-L-Y.ย
Alfredo Sauce should be an upgrade defensively over Narvarezย
This is my new favorite nickname. If all the meat is leaving the menu, we might as well have some butter, cream, and cheese.
The 2018 Chicago White Sox: Inducing a Stroke Anyway We Can.
If Kevan Smith gets healthy, at least he good looking.(Also nice hair)
jimmy, you gotta raise your standards, my man! This team isn’t full of uggos like it has been in the past. Kevan isn’t good looking by comparison anymore.
I was introduced to him by his Mom. He is in fact very good looking.
Congrats on the sex!
That was mostly for Laura, but thanks. His mom was cute!
If Tilson does not play today then his ย 2nd ML game could be Detroit where he was injured in his first MLB appearance, almost 2 years later.ย
Thanks Wellington, you dick. My 8 year old son is a big fan. Now the inevitable drug talk happens later today. “Some drugs heal people, some drugs people take for fun, some drugs help you hit dingers or stay healthy throughout the course of a season b-b-b-b-uuuttttt…drugs are really fucking bad.”
“some drugs were taken and abused heavily by players in the 70’s but we like those guys, so we pretend like it didn’t happen”
“And it’s okay when NFL players do it and no one bothers to even question NBA players.”
“some drugs”
In the 70’s I did all the drugs. Also,I don’t have to pretend, I don’t remember what happened.
At least he took responsibility.
That’s nice. I wonder what percentage of major leaguers take responsibility rather than obfuscate.
Considering what he tested positive for, there’s zero possibility of it being an accident or some tainted supplement or something, so I’m glad he didn’t even try.
Just another example of him half-assing it. A real grinder would have thrown up a website for a made up tainted supplement.
He’s never been very good with his defense.
Maybe Ryan Braun has those statistics handy.
Goddamn it beef you idiot, you better take responsibility. But Jim does bring up the point that good thing it’s someone who just came from the outside and not someone we’ve grown to know and love from the inside.
I would have been heartbroken if it was Jose
Too soon!
Better this statement than Cano’s “I was just doing what my doctor told me, medical condition, blah blah nonsense.”
EPO? ย Was Castillo going on Le Tour De France?
Yes.
EPO (Erythropoietin) was Lance Armstrong’s candy juice…It artificially increases the red cell ‘production’ hence the amount of oxygen ‘reserve’ one carries in his/her blood to be released to muscles in long stretches of continuous effort.
From a baseball player’s perspective that was the dumbest suspension ever…Castillo should fire whomever prescribed him the dope because it is pretty much useless for any baseball related activity…Long distance running, long distance swimming, long distance cycling, high-altitude mountain climbing, etc… Maybe soccer…That was plain stupid and idiotic…What, he couldn’t do diamond laps in ST?
Has anyone ever been suspended by MLB for using EPO besides Welington?
Agreed. Strangest MLB PED suspension.ย
What about for preventing muscle cramps? e.g. if they’re anemia-related.
I am not a medic…The lack of blood supply might cause muscle cramps…Not the amount of blood oxygen…
https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/muscle-spasms-cramps-charley-horse#1
EPO increases blood oxygen by increasing red blood cell production. Red blood cells and cramps also are/can be related to iron deficiency.
Well…He’s got three months to chew on spinach and mitigate his iron deficiency.
Funny but spinach isn’t a good source of iron.
But that was what I was told when I was a little boy…”Wanna have Popeye’s (strong as iron) forearms? You’d better eat your spinach!”…And then according to http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=43 1 cup of spinach contains 36% of the recommended daily iron intake.
The iron in spinach is in a form that’s difficult for humans to absorb.
not like beef liver but its pretty good.
Is Yolmer in the Outfield still a thing?
Disney needs to make this happen.
TTJ
Matt Davidson seems to be injured, somehow, as per Roster Resource. That’s why Rondon is DHing yesterday and today.
Back tightness
Dear God, Daniel Palka is batting 4th for us today….
My poor mother is going to the game today, and she’s not going to know who anybody is except Jose.
It is probably better she doesn’t know.
I decided to work from home today and I’m excited to watch the game out of the same sort of sick fascination one gets when driving by a car crash.
That isn’t that bad. It’s way better than batting Nicky D in the four whole. At least Palka has some threat of power.
What does EPO do for a baseball player? I get it for endurance sports like cycling, but baseball?
Speculating, but catching requires a lot of endurance to stay in your squat, at least relative to other mlb positions. Perhaps he needed some help to chase Fulmer’s pitches all over the zone?
That!
Gus Triandos probably used EPO
I donโt get it. ย Triandos career ended in 1965.ย
He used to catch Hoyt Wilhelm (ask pnoles)
He was good but no J C Martin
This made me lol. It also reminded me of Camillo Carreon, the guy J C replaced. Carreon tried to catch Wilhelm with a mitt the size of a garbage can lid. He still didn’t have much success, and when MLB put a size limit on mitts he was screwed.
It increase blood cells production which makes you less prone to feel fatigue
Wellington has to be the 1st MLB suspension for EPO. The potential gain from EPO is minimal vs common side effects, sore joints & muscle pain.ย
“The White Sox have claimed catcher Dustin Garneau off waivers from the Athletics, per a club announcement. Righty Miguel Gonzalez was bumped to the 60-day DL to create a 40-man spot.”
So last we’ll see of Miguel? And anyone got some hot Garneau takes?
Pretty pathetic except for career 0.3 WAR…
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/g/garnedu01.shtml
If you squint you can pretend like we claimed Justin Morneau.
Kenny always repeatedly gets almost his guys.
Folks, folks, let’s get Willians Astudillo.
Without Leury, can the Sox still keep 13 pitchers? Right now, Trayce is the only backup outfield and Rondon is the back up infielder.
Pretty rough when you’ve already given up four runs before Josh can even get the game thread up
Make that 5.
Nah, six
If there is no game thread, can we just pretend today never happened?
Would probably be for the best
Yeah… now that Beck’s in, it really would be for the best
Didn’t notice they had started when my gf texted asking “Oh no. What’s the fastest a pitcher has ever been pulled for being bad?” So it seems safe to go ahead and write this one off
There’s one now. https://soxmachine.com/2018/05/24/first-pitch-white-sox-vs-orioles-4/
Tilson getting a 103 mph lineout seems like the highlight of this game so far.
Would be ironic if Dunning ends up being the most valuable return piece of the Eaton trade
Everyone is losing that trade. Meanwhile, everyone is winning the Sale trade.
Nats still have three years of control for Eaton after 2018. Even with his injury history, I would say that the trade is tilting towards the Nats.
The trade is tilting towards the Nats because they acquired a major leaguer who could contribute immediately. It’d be a disaster for the Nats if they hadn’t benefited more to this point. The Sox still have about 18 player-seasons to cover Eaton’s value. Odds are it’ll be roughly a wash for both teams.
The Nats have benefitted to this point? I mean, I guess they’ve gotten a win out of the 28 games he’s played.
Ironic like rain on your wedding day, maybe.
Hard to fathom but Narvaez now leads the majors in passed balls.
Not THAT hard to fathom. Dude sucks.
Not hard to fathom, but still impressive he’s done it as a backup.
Is anyone else somewhat frustrated that Renteria continually chose to pair his awful receiving backup with the rookie starter who has control problems?
Starts with Narvaez:
Giolito: 5/10
Shields: 4/10
Gonzalez: 2/3
Santiago: 2/4
Covey: 1/2
Fulmer: 1/8
Lopez: 1/9
I believe this was an issue with Rodon, but Giolito’s problems are bigger than his catcher’s skills (or lack of)