The White Sox's manager job was a zero-sum game, but a job with the White Sox is not, so while Phil Nevin reportedly had to settle for runner-up or finalist status in a position that Will Venable won, the White Sox found a way to hire both regardless.
Per Bob Nightengale, the White So have hired Nevin to be a special assistant in their player development department.
The Chicago White Sox make shrewd move as they hire former Angels manager Phil Nevin as a special assistant in their player development department. He’ll be involved in a number of player development roles, including amateur scouting for the 2025 Draft.
— Bob Nightengale (@bnightengale.bsky.social) 2024-12-23T18:27:04.787Z
It's a shrewd move in the sense that the White Sox were able to find room for two candidates they liked. The Rangers did something similar by hiring Skip Schumaker as a senior advisor to baseball operations, and when you've recently won a World Series or otherwise have a history of behaving like a normal team, the reaction is "neat" or "probably can't hurt" or "good for them."
With Nightengale delivering praise and the details of the assignment about a guy whose track record doesn't necessarily point to massive prior successes in those areas, the initial suspicion is more along the lines of "Did Tony La Russa's shadow government just hire the manager it wanted?"
Eloy Jiménez signs minor league deal
In another tale of settling for less, Hector Gómez reported that Eloy Jiménez has signed with the Tampa Bay Rays, but he'll be playing under a minor league deal.
Nightengale added details: Jiménez will make $2 million if he makes the roster, with another $2 million if he reaches 500 plate appearances.
Jiménez reached 500 plate appearances only once in his six MLB seasons, and that was when he came to the plate 504 times in his rookie year. He was on pace for it in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season that earned him a Silver Slugger award, but he also hurt his foot sliding into home late in the season. The injury limited Jiménez to two plate appearances in the Wild Card series against Oakland, so reaching it wouldn't have been guaranteed.
I'm curious whether Jiménez is being paid $2 million for 500 plate appearances only, and whether his camp argued for steps along the way ($500,000 for reaching 350, 400, 450 and 500 plate appearances, or something like that). The flat structuring seems overly ambitious, but perhaps it reflects how little leverage a right-handed DH with a most frustrating injury history possessed. After all, it only required lefty relief prospect Trey McGough (who is still not on the 40-man) to acquire him in July, and Jiménez didn't do anything in Baltimore to warrant a higher cash cost.
Talk of a video tribute when he returns to Rate Field is probably premature, but reliever Enyel De Los Santos signed a minor league deal with the Braves, which is becoming a reliable landing spot for pitchers who yearn for something better with their lives after a stint on the South Side.
The White Sox offense running a seven-spot on De Los Santos in their freakish 12-2 win over the Yankees on Aug. 12 got the Dominican right-hander designated for assignment, which only set him up to be claimed on waivers and forever made part of a trivia answer for who pitched in Loss No. 121. De Los Santos posted a 3.63 ERA in 17 1/3 innings with the Sox, but if you felt unconvinced (7.15 FIP) it's because he was just working around his mid-90s four-seamer getting tattooed (.622 slugging against) all year.
The Sox non-tendered the soon-to-be 29-year-old rather than be on the hook for $1.7 million, but the nature of their offseason makes it worth keeping an eye on how their valuations compare to teams less motivated to run out a bottom-three payroll in the sport. Gavin Sheets was technically the only other Sox non-tender, but Nicky Lopez, Matt Foster and a rehabbing Jimmy Lambert were non-tenders in spirit, and all remain on the market with seemingly little chance of faring better than De Los Santos.
