Pool play in the World Baseball Classic has concluded, and only Eloy Jiménez will be the only participant returning to the White Sox.
Tim Anderson, Lance Lynn and Kendall Graveman are advancing with Team USA, which will face José Ruiz's undefeated Venezuela. The winner of that game will then take on Team Cuba with Luis Robert Jr. and Yoán Moncada, and Miami could render the idea of home-field advantage moot.
Some solace for Jiménez? After watching Freddie Freeman depart the tournament with a strained hamstring and Edwin Diaz suffering a season-ending knee injury in a celebration, there are far worse ways to head back to a team.
Jiménez only has to deal with the disappointment of a surprisingly early exit sealed by the Dominican Republic's 5-2 loss to Puerto Rico, although neither team left the field happy thanks to the Diaz development.
But Jiménez doesn't have anything to hang his head about. Like Anderson, Jiménez played his way into a lineup that could have shut him out, what with Juan Soto, Julio Rodríguez and Teoscar Hernández covering the outfield, and Rafael Devers potentially DHing.
PERTINENT: In WBC, Tim Anderson gets first experience at second base for best reasons
Jiménez started the DR's final three games, going 5-for-11 with a double and a pair of strikeouts. If you're looking for updates into the right field experiment, he couldn't come up a catch in the right-center gap that he made worse with a weird, unhelpful slide ...
... but if I had to choose between Jiménez sliding like that and Jiménez laying out for the ball, I'd take him opting for the kind of action he's thrown himself into time and time again. Besides, he didn't even commit the worst gaffe by a DR outfielder on Wednesday, as Rodríguez instead claimed the honor.
Now that Eloy Jiménez is back...
With Jiménez flying back to Arizona today to restart the right field conversation at the local level, there are two questions to keep in mind:
- How often will Oscar Colás be starting out there?
- Will Jiménez's bat make the defensive hit worthwhile?
As for the first question, Colás is hitting .364/.382/.576 with just one strikeout over 34 plate appearances, so while he has his own defensive wrinkles to iron out, he's putting himself in position to share the burden.
Regarding the second, because Jiménez played his recent games in an MLB stadium, we have the Statcast data on his hits. I'm pleased to report that none of them were cheap.
- 105.4 mph line-drive single
- 94.4 mph single through the middle
- 109.8 mph line-drive single
- 104.6 mph single through the left side
- 107.2 mph double off the wall in left center.
Jiménez was 8-for-16 with the White Sox before he departed for the WBC, and he looked just as good -- if not better -- against real competition, including get-him-out sequencing, an environment conducive to good breaking balls and all shifts allowed. Everything remains in place for the breakout season Jiménez's potential has always promised.
The question, as always, is whether his body will hold up. He did what he could to convey seriousness about defense with his offseason training, and the White Sox didn't do enough over the winter to box him out of the outfield, so he's still put himself in position to be assigned a position.
As I've said before, the best way to deal with the idea of Jiménez playing either corner is to not really think about it. For one, our vigilance will accomplish nothing. But even if we could somehow cordon him off to DH ourselves, he's still hurt himself running the bases. He's also hurt himself sliding. He's also hurt himself celebrating. He doesn't need to be holding a glove to pose a hazard to himself. Obviously, less time exerting himself suggests a lower risk in getting hurt, but I got out of the "Guess How Eloy Jiménez's Body is Going to Respond to These Circumstances" business a long time ago.
