Pregame Notes: Chris Getz offers updates on Rule 6.01(a), White Sox

When the team’s general manager addresses the media, it’s often an opportunity to speak broadly about the state of the team and organization. And sometimes it takes place a day after a wacky umpire call, and that’s all anyone can think about.

Chris Getz confirmed a report from ESPN’s Jesse Rogers that the league had reached out to the White Sox and informed them that ol Rule 6.01(a) has more room for discretion on whether an act of incidental interference actually affected play than Junior Valentine indicated on Thursday night.

“It’s disappointing, just how the final inning unfolded considering the momentum it created,” Getz said. “It’s a judgment call, there’s discretion by the umpire to make that call or not. He made the call and we’ve got to live with it.”

After saying postgame Thursday night that “I’m good with the way they called the play. I’m just not good with the rule,” Grifol starkly reversed course on Friday afternoon.

"I don't like the way the play was called. I think it was called inaccurate in my opinion, just my opinion,” said Grifol, before launching into a breakdown of how Valentine’s strict interpretation of the rule would inspire teams, including his own, to potentially seek out contact with baserunners in future similar situations unless something is done.

Though in fairness to Grifol, it sounds like his concerns about the call were given more weight in his conversations with the league office on Friday, than they were while he was pleading his case on the field Thursday night.

“Yesterday I was pretty upset about it because…I know the rule and I was told I didn't,” Grifol said. “Today I'm not anymore. I've flushed it already, but I am going to be upset if we don't fix it. If we do, I'm good with it."

Now that we might finally move on with our lives, we can move on to the topic of moving players. Tommy Pham is a 36-year-old outfielder with a 149 wRC+ playing for a last place team on a one-year deal. But since everyone wishes they played with the veteran outfielder’s burning intensity and focus, Getz was asked if there’s thought given to holding onto him through the deadline for clubhouse influence reasons.

It would be uncouth of Getz to scream “No!” in these sessions, so he went another route.

“Is he a guy that’s going to be with our club in the future? Right now, we want to take advantage of having Tommy Pham on this roster,” Getz said. “We’re going to take advantage of Tommy while he’s here and hope there’s an osmosis effect to the rest of the clubhouse based on the performance that he brought to the team.”

In a similar way, I knew it would be uncouth of Getz to grab a microphone and challenge rival GMs to make their best offer for Garrett Crochet like he was promoting a wrestling match, but still asked him how the 24-year-old left-hander fits into the team’s plans. Crochet simultaneously is younger than Dominic Fletcher, Korey Lee and Jordan Leasure, but only has two years of team control after this one and the Sox can’t exactly guarantee he’ll shoulder playoff starts in that span.

“He’s a front of a rotation type arm,” Getz said, before ending with what I took as a fun little nod to my concerns about why a contending team would want a player likely to hit a wall physically by October. “Any team in baseball would want Garrett Crochet on their club. How they would use him, would be up to them. But right now, we’re just happy to have Garrett in a White Sox uniform.”

Asked again if there are still no untouchables on the roster, Getz agreed, though he sounds like he’s expecting the trade market to pick up more in six weeks or so. The Luis Arraez and Robbie Grossman deals look like blips, rather than the start of a flood.

“There’s some players on the team that I think make a little more sense than others,” Getz said. “But we’re open on players on our club just because we know we’ve got to make strides to get back into a competitive team here at the AL Central. We’ll continue to work through it. We’ve got our pro scouts are monitoring other clubs’ prospects closely at other major league clubs.”

Getz said the Sox have consulted with outside groups on injury prevention, but also noted that injuries are up across the league, while stating that Eloy Jiménez’s lengthy history currently headlined by a 4-6 week absence for a hamstring strain remains a mystery.

“We’ve certainly done a deep dive,” Getz said. “We’ve done everything we can in terms of preparing him and his body for a major league season. Obviously he continues to get hit with these injuries. Some guys just tend to have some bad luck. Some guys don’t go about their business the way that they should. In this case, you have Eloy Jimenez, who has been preparing well and staying ready, even though the DH day is to get out there and take on what the game presents him.”

Dominic Leone is looking at a minimum 15-day stay on the injured list for his right elbow inflammation, as Grifol said his scans were “clean and clear.” Justin Anderson was recalled from Triple-A Friday to take his place, but Leone’s absence would explain why Jared Shuster was called upon to pitch through flu-like symptoms for two innings on Thursday. Shuster began the season in the Triple-A rotation, but Grifol likes him as a left-handed multi-inning relief option in Chicago for now.

Jimmy Lambert (shoulder) is not yet throwing off a mound in Arizona, but Getz sounded optimistic that he’ll be “in the mix” at some point this season.

During his Thursday night appearance on the television broadcast, Getz said Bryan Ramos will return from his rehab assignment at some point this weekend, and all signs point to him staying in the majors for the foreseeable future.

Noah Schultz will be pitching in the front end of a piggybacking pair in his first outing for Double-A Birmingham, and probably will continue working in such an arrangement for the rest of the season. Speaking of that team, Jacob Gonzalez will play some second base on nights he yields shortstop to Brooks Baldwin. If everyone based their evaluation of the progress of the Sox rebuild just on the Barons, I don’t think Getz would mind.

“That Birmingham club is an exciting team to watch and I think our White Sox fans can, if they ever want to watch a minor league game I think they would enjoy watching the club because I think it’s a strong indication of what’s to come in Chicago.”

The Orioles being a model for the Sox to follow has been thrown around a bit this weekend, and it’s generally true, but their wealth of position player depth feels hard for them to duplicate.

The draft lottery has made it harder to load up on consecutive top-five picks, and the Sox found it especially hard to get value on the position player side in Dylan Cease trade talks. They ultimately got players in Drew Thorpe and Jairo Iriarte that they valued comparably high to some of their positional targets, but they were only available due to the assumed extra risk that comes with any pitching prospects.

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