If you took the returns of Tim Anderson and Hanser Alberto as a given, then Billy Hamilton was the first of the other 11 roster moves we learned about on Tuesday. Daryl Van Schouwen broke that particular news in advance of the rest, which allowed us a little time to wonder who he might be replacing.
It ended up being Oscar Colás, and if that came as a surprise, it's only because Luis Robert Jr. commanded the attention with questions about his hamstring. Eliminate all that noise, and the demotion of Colás makes sense.
Colás started his MLB career by hitting .211/.265/.276 over his first 25 games, but that included two weeks of slipping. He'd gone 5-for-40 with one extra-base hit and 12 strikeouts over his last 44 plate appearances, and without the kind of quality contact that suggested he merely needed better luck.
In a different lineup, Colás would probably have more leeway to find his sea legs. In this White Sox lineup, Colás' chief flaws exacerbate roster-wide issues. He has the highest ground-ball rate (59.6 percent) of any regular for a White Sox team with baseball's second-highest ground-ball rate (48.3). He has the highest chase rate (43.0) of any regular for the team with the highest chase rate (36.6). Removing Colás doesn't solve the White Sox's issues, but maybe it reduces the multiplying effect.
Defense is more of an open question. The metrics are a mixed bag, as you might expect for a month of data:
- OAA: -1
- UZR: -2.6
- DRS: -4
That last number sinks his bWAR to -0.9, which ties him for last with Romy González.
I'm not sure he's that bad, but the eye test suggested that Colás was tentative at best. He seemed to play deeper than any other White Sox outfielder, and that bore out according to Statcast:
That's not necessarily bad in and of itself, but Statcast also graded his jump in the 8th percentile. Anticipation wasn't his strong suit, but it was better reflected in how he read the skips of balls coming his way.
Demoting Colás at this juncture is unfortunate but acceptable, and given that he'd previously played one professional season of stateside ball that topped out with seven games at Triple-A, there's no individual alarm in sending him down.
It just reflects poorly on the White Sox, because this is the sixth year of right field being an open sore. Since 2018, the Sox have had the worst right field situation by far, producing -1.2 WAR (the Pirates are 29th, but even they're 1.2 WAR in the black). Colás stood a decent chance of being a real solution by the end of the 2023 season, so he represented the Sox's most promising option to start the season in right, but that's saying very little when everybody else is a hard swipe left.
(Ted's Sporcle from February covers everybody the White Sox have tried out there, in case you're having too good a day.)
If there's any good news, the White Sox are going to their next best option on that cursed WAR leaderboard. Gavin Sheets is only one of five players to finish with a positive fWAR, even among candidates with the smallest of samples ...
- Avisaíl García, 0.8
- Gavin Sheets, 0.6
- Adam Haseley, 0.2
- Luis Gonzalez, 0.2
- Nomar Mazara, 0.1
... and he's routinely producing tough at-bats, hitting .280/.351/.400 over his first 57 plate appearances this season.
Moreover, Sheets helps in the categories where Colás hurt. He has one of the team's best chase rates and ground-ball rates, and he's also left-handed. He has the range and athleticism of a moai, but with Colás not commanding all of his athleticism, the immediate difference might be muted.
It just makes Pedro Grifol's job tougher, because Sheets requires various caddies -- pinch-runner, pinch-hitting against lefties, and a defensive replacement. Hamilton can serve as Sheets' legs, a sentence which brings an AT-ST to mind, but that only works when 1) the White Sox have leads, and 2) the White Sox have a bullpen that preserves those leads. That combination has proven elusive all year, including Tuesday night. Grifol tried to sub in Adam Haseley and Hanser Alberto under typical lead-protecting circumstances, and both ended up hitting for themselves at the end of the game because Alexander Colomé immediately surrendered a game-tying homer in the eighth.
Grifol is responsible for plopping a possibly washed reliever into high leverage sight unseen, but he won't be held responsible for whatever comes of right field until or unless Colás figures it out. That's been problem foisted upon the last three White Sox managers, because the White Sox general manager who's overseen it all can't square the circle. He only knows how to cut corners.
