When the White Sox' idea to lure Manny Machado with friends instead of money backfired, the resulting roster somehow both lacked talent yet potentially blocked one of the only entertaining parts of the 2018 team. The White Sox picked up the professional left-handed bats of Yonder Alonso and Jon Jay to cover DH and the corner outfield, which seemingly pushed the left-handed bat of Daniel Palka out of the only two spots he could play.
Any concerns were apparently overstated, and for a couple reasons. A spring injury to Jay gave Palka unlimited playing time, and even then, it only took three weeks for the situation to resolve itself in the most dispiriting way.
- Palka: Optioned to the minors after starting the season 1-for-35.
- Jay: Stopped suiting up after March 13, save for one attempt at playing on March 24.
- Alonso: Hanging in there!
Alonso is only hitting .200/.333/.383 over his first 72 plate appearances, but the helplessness of Palka in right field, as well as the uncharacteristic struggles of Jose Abreu in front of him, have made the professionalism of his plate appearances a welcome respite from the amateurism elsewhere. He's drawn 12 walks to 11 strikeouts.
I'm still skeptical about his season-long projections for reasons that have already manifested themselves. Teams can throw LOOGYs at him in the late innings, and he's running a 14 percent popup rate just like he did last season, when pitchers seemed to counter the One Neat Trick that allowed him to crack double-digits in homers. Although Alonso is running a sub-.200 BABIP that should rise, Todd Frazier showed us how much infield flies have to do with low BABIPs being earned, rather than unlucky.
Also, in terms of sprint speed, he's Albert Pujols-slow:
So does the bottom. pic.twitter.com/CkcKlaF1vG
— Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) April 16, 2019
(He has since crept ahead of Pujols.)
It'll be a lost opportunity if the White Sox entered a third rebuilding season with vacancies/audition openings at DH and a corner spot, and a decent season from an athletically limited 32-year-old first baseman is the most they have to show for it.
Credit Ryan Cordell for trying to make Plan D more intriguing than expected.
I'd more or less cordoned off Cordell after he went 4-for-37 with zero walks and 15 strikeouts in his cup of coffee, following a year where he needed a hot August to salvage a .239/.281/.364 line in Charlotte. He generated the reason the Sox acquired him -- an .855 OPS in Triple-A in 2017 -- as a 25-year-old in Colorado Springs, which is like hitting on the moon. In between then and now, he broke his T1 vertebra and a collarbone. That's just a lot to overcome.
But he came through with a pinch-hit homer in his first appearance of the season, and he homered in his most recent one on Thursday, a rope out to one of the deeper parts of Comerica Park:
Cordell is 5-for-10 with those two homers and a double, which is five times the damage Palka did over a quarter of the plate appearances. Cordell has also struck out three times with zero walks, which is going to be the pitfall in his long-levered profile. Rick Renteria says Cordell is going to get every opportunity see how his strengths and weaknesses balance out.
'I’m going to run him out there everyday,' Renteria said. 'I’m going to give him the chance to play against righties, lefties, everybody. He might play some center field as well. I think it was last year there was an opportunity for us to get him up and I think he had broke his collar bone running into a wall. That was one the injuries he had. He’s been swinging the bat pretty good down there. I think it’s just an opportunity has presented itself.'
This could result in Cordell getting chewed up and spit out as part of an uneven White Sox offense's fits and starts, or keeping his head above water and being the most deserving candidate of a less-than-scintillating field.
I suppose he could also exceed every expectation, but as the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles can't begin with the cart before the horse. Palka and Nicky Delmonico are hanging out in Charlotte as cautionary tales, leaving the White Sox ever in search of late bloomers who don't wilt on the old schedule.
