It's not often the White Sox can say this about a veteran acquisition, so get ready to drop the balloons:
Joakim Soria's tenure worked out as planned for everybody.
He came. He saw. He soaked up some saves, figured out how to engineer an above-average strikeout rate without other worrisome peripherals, and now he'll get a chance to conquer with the Brewers.
If Soria made the Sox sound a little like a rebound relationship, it pretty much was.
"I enjoyed my time here," said Soria, who will join the Brewers on Friday in San Francisco. "I like the guys in here; the chemistry in here was really good. I always had fun with this group, but this is business and I'm going to a new team and new family. I'm going to try to get to the playoffs."
But that's fine, because that was always the best-case scenario, and the White Sox acquired an interesting-enough prospect for a rental closer in Kodi Medeiros.
Instead, it's the Royals who have to answer the embarrassing questions. They're the ones who kicked Soria to Chicago, and only to save the $9 million owed to Soria in 2018 (they kicked in $1 million to cover the buyout in the mutual option). The White Sox sent nothing Kansas City's way in the three-player trade, and that $1 million is now with the Brewers.
Over the last few weeks, Royals fans ... have noticed.
The worst part is the Royals didn’t even do a straight two-team salary dump trade. They added in one of their more valuable available controllable trade assets in Scott Alexander and basically attached a salary dump to his return in a three-team deal, almost surely significantly hurting the return they got. I don’t why they did this (as this goes against a general rebuilding team’s goal in acquiring the most talent possible).
And:
https://twitter.com/jazayerli/status/1022551745862557697
Rany Jazayerli's point is a slight overstatement, because I wouldn't use the same descriptor on Medeiros (a first-round pick in 2014) and Wilber Perez (a 20-year-old righty pitching in the Dominican Summer League). Still, even if Medeiros only meets his most likely outcome as a left-handed situational reliever, it's better than what the Royals received for Soria, which was the privilege of giving $1 million to a division rival to avoid paying $8-9 million for a useful reliever.
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As for Medeiros, "likely LOOGY" seems to be his track. He hasn't hit the upper half of his projections when the Brewers drafted him with the 14th-overall pick.
There's still room and reason for him to start, because the results are there. He has a 3.14 ERA and 107 strikeouts over 103 inning as a 22-year-old in Double-A Biloxi, so everybody's seen worse. The counterpoint is that he's already running a 10 percent walk rate, and nine unearned runs buoy that ERA, so his stats have a superficial sheen to them.
The numbers alone suggest he could go either way, but the evaluators, who have seen Medeiros' stuff stall without the command to compensate since draft day, are leaning toward relief work, whether it's Eric Longenhagen:
Scouts this year who have seen Medeiros say that he has to ease up in order to get the ball in the zone. Those control and command issues have equated to a walk rate of 4.5 per nine innings during his career. Without improvement, he's likely to wind up in the bullpen.
I have never bought into Medeiros as anything more than a LH specialist.
Medeiros’ command projects to fringe average out of the pen, as he lacks the physicality and consistency to repeat for long stretches. His command backed up on him as his 96-pitch outing wore on.
Sure enough, he's showing a bullpen profile in his splits. He's built a lot of his Double-A numbers on his success against left-handed batters:
- vs. RHB: .261/.359/.384
- vs. LHB: .160/.254/.280
Righties aren't killing him (yet), so the Sox can keep running him out there and see if they can address the repeatability issues. His slider can defuse matchup advantages when it's on.
The White Sox should know something about Medeiros, because they've seen plenty of him over the last two years. He's faced the Birmingham Barons just once this year with Biloxi, but he pitched against the Winston-Salem Dash six times in 2017 as a member of the High-A Carolina Mudcats. They've seen him pitch well, and they've seen him pitch poorly. They probably have an idea or two, but whether it can work is a more open question.
Medeiros arrived at the White Sox just in time, because MLB Pipeline had just updated its top 30 prospect list. There isn't question about whether Medeiros' ranking is in the middle of a bunch of stale numbers. Instead, it appears that he's in the right neighborhood:
17. Zack Burdi
18. Konnor Pilkington
19. Kodi Medeiros
20. Jordan Stephens
21. Jimmy Lambert
The fact that Medeiros is already tough on lefties means the White Sox will probably have to put him on the 40-man roster after the season. When Ian Clarkin already occupies a spot, that's merely a matter of simple accounting.
It feels like a slightly light return given the consensus bullpen projections, but I'll give it time. Medeiros has a high floor with a little bit of ceiling left in terms of his MLB utility, and the White Sox sent some cash with Soria, so they presumably acquired a player they wanted. Who can say whether that means anything, but adding to the Lambert level of prospects serves a purpose at this stage.
We'll have a better idea once the rental relief market comes to a close on July 31. The Nationals could flood it, as they're contemplating ditching impending free agents like Kelvin Herrera, Ryan Madson and Shawn Kelley if they flop in a four-game set against the Marlins this weekend.
The Nationals won the opener 10-3, so perhaps the deadline will light the fire they needed. If it doesn't, Herrera could be dealt for the second time this season, and Royals fans once again will prepare for yet another troubling reflection of front office fortunes.
