Podcast: Eloy Jimenez’s “Checklist”
The Rundown:
- We guess at what could be left on Eloy Jimenez’s “Checklist” before he’s called up to Chicago, and wonder what the real reasons why Rick Hahn is hesitant calling up his #1 prospect.
- Trade deadline ends in two days. Who else can Hahn deal before Tuesday?
- Jim Thome is now a Hall-of-Famer. Jim shares his experience of getting to meet with Thome and his lasting impression.
- The ninth inning is going to be an adventure after Joakim Soria was dealt. How will Rick Renteria handle closing duties moving forward?
- Plus your questions in P.O. Sox
Is Narvaez building up any future trade value? #POSox
— Russell The K9 (@RusselltheK9) July 30, 2018
Mr. Palka is the most 108 player on the roster, and now proudly dons our t-shirts, what player on the roster is more SoxMachine than the others aka, which player would you most like to wear a SoxMachine t-shirt to represent your blog? #POSox
— BeefLoaf (@MrDelicious13) July 30, 2018
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Author
I feel like the date no one is talking about (not April 20, 2019) is August 17th. If the Sox call up Jimenez then, he will only accrue 44 days of ML service time in 2018. If they can keep him below 130 ABs through September, (wouldn’t be hard given the rotating cast of characters that comes with call-ups) he will retain rookie/prospect status going into next year.
This has a number of added benefits to the Sox:
1. This assumes that Jimenez has put together a full month of consecutive healthy AAA games. Proving that he is back from his injury.
2. For an organization worried about optics (as Jim suggests) this lets them keep Jimenez on all their preseason prospect lists. Giving the farm a boost and letting fans say that we still have a top three system.
3. (Also an optics issue) gives the White Sox a real chance at a ROY candidate. This would be important for drumming up fan support of the rebuild considering how the young ML talent has played this year.
I’m as antsy as anyone to see what Eloy can do, and I’d be pissed if they waited til next year (and the players union would too). But if they are waiting two more weeks for these reasons, I think it’s a more acceptable blend of baseball and business concerns than simply wanting to milk an extra arb year out of a player.
*Same applies to Kopech too.
***Correction:
I didn’t realize that time after September 1st doesn’t count toward rookie eligibility. The ABs arguments still stands and it would be hard to limit him to less than 130 if he came up now.
Interesting. I hope optics is not part of the decision making process.
If optics were an issue, then Eloy should be up already, because this team is tough to watch.
Optics??? FFS
I do hope so too. Decisions should be based on baseball reasons, not on such abstract concepts such as “optics”
I think it is about setting a precedent for 100 PA/level so in future years when they are keeping guys down for purely service time reasons, they can point at Eloy and Kopech and say “No this has been our policy for a while”
Well, he has already passed that mark, so now we’ll just have to wait and see I guess.
The biggest optics issue in play here is that the White Sox are keeping an overly qualified player in the minor leagues and have no good reason to do so.
Oh dear, what was Hawk talking about this weekend? I missed the games.
… And after the Chip Caray/Joe Simpson fiasco, I was just thinking about how glad I am that Hawk never figured out how to use twitter.
How he’d like baseball to go back to one-year contracts because players then would stay out of the trainers room, there are too many bad contracts, etc.
Later, he praised Bud Selig for making all 30 teams in the league very profitable, and of course he didn’t connect those thoughts at all.
They brought Wimpy in to tamp him down, I think, but he just made him worse.
I am waiting until after the trade deadline to get really annoyed about the Jimenez/Kopech situation. Hahn may be having discussions that will open up those positions, and he wants to wait until trades are final.
After August 1, however, I will get crabbier every day. Fair warning.
I am pretty crabby already. If he’s not up right after the deadline, all bets are off.
I want to thank Rick Hahn for giving us the new meme we desperately needed. I didn’t really want to talk about what I saw after watching Eloy for 15 minutes in a batting cage.
Did he check off any boxes for you in those 15 minutes?
He did check off “DINGERS!!!1!” but he didn’t bunt in the cage so that’s one he’ll have to work on.
Hey, the White Sox finally have no negative bwar position players on their 25-man roster!! Who needs this Jimenez guy???
Regarding the swapping of Davidson and Fry, I can’t support repeating the ideas of Tom Trebelhorn.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/TOR/TOR198906060.shtml
Alex Call and his journal covering all his at bats seems very Sox Machine.