It took more than a week, but Dallas Keuchel is officially a White Sox. The club sent out a press release announcing the deal. Keuchel, his agent Scott Boras, and Rick Hahn spoke to reporters on a conference call. MLB.com has updated his portrait on his player page, wearing a beard that looks unusually unkempt between ye olde English lettering above and black-and-white pinstripes below:
We'll see if Jerry Reinsdorf makes him shave it, or at least mow it down. If so, hopefully he got a couple extra million dollars out of it as a point of negotiation.
I'd say the Yasmani Grandal signing officially ended the rebuild period since it makes no sense to acquire a 31-year-old catcher on a franchise-record contract and little else. Keuchel, who might've already liked what the Sox had with college teammate James McCann in the mix, seemed to read it the same way:
“What really brought me in was when Yaz signs, and the backstop is just rock solid. As a pitcher I’m going to be drawn to the backstop situation first because, well, you win and lose with the catchers. And I think that’s really going to be a strength for us this year, and hopefully for years to come. Scott (Boras) will tell you the same thing, he knows how much I value catchers and that was a big selling point.”
But while Keuchel may merely reinforce the direction the White Sox are going after more measured improvements in Nomar Mazara and Gio Gonzalez, he's officially changing the rhetoric. Nobody employed by the White Sox has framed the present as directly as he has:
"Willingness to win," Keuchel said, asked what lured him to the South Side. "They are really pushing towards kind of opening that winning window, and I think in the AL Central, there is about a three- to five-year gap right now to really push it. I know Rick didn’t use the word 'push.' I like to use the word 'push' just because 162 is long but it goes quick. The years go by quick, too."
Nobody needed to say it, what with actions speaking louder than words and Hahn's front office providing several of them before and on Christmas. It'd actually be weird if the White Sox addressed four roster gaps with credible-to-excellent veterans and a wild card in Mazara with no outward ambitions of putting a scare into the division. Still, it's nice to see it said aloud, and even nicer to read that Hahn has the intent to add past the Sox Machine Offseason Plan Project ceiling.
“When we have a payroll target in mind for the season, you do try to keep a little bit of powder dry for July,” Hahn said. “That said, if opportunities arise that make us better right now and sort of pre-buy that mid-July piece, we're willing to move forward on that sooner rather than later.”
