PHOENIX -- Sports media just doesn't know how to carry out our scrums in thematic order anymore.
Sure, it made sense to open Monday morning, the day of the first full squad workout, by talking to Andrew Benintendi. Will Venable said Benintendi will be an everyday, middle-of-the-order presence this season, but he was also signed after the 2022 season to round out the lineup of a team that expected to return to the playoffs. Now he remains as a vestige of the previous leadership, trying to maintain performance standards with a roster than has radically reshaped around him.
"I signed for five years knowing there would be ups and downs, but I’m here for it, and my job is to perform," said Benintendi, not taking a victory lap for his .830 second half OPS. "Last year I didn’t do that. Not only do I feel like I let the fans and team down, but myself. You have such high expectations going into a season and when you don’t hit them it’s frustrating. You have to keep going."
But we fudged the order when we rushed next to swarm Colson Montgomery, who is still positioned to be a future face of the franchise, but like the White Sox as a whole, is still a long-levered, longer-term development project.
"If you want to be the best you have to envision yourself at the big league level, so of course I want to see myself at the big league level," said Montgomery, who has a quite winnable battle for the starting shortstop job in front of him. "I'm expecting a lot of opportunity and a lot of competition. That's kind of what Chris Getz has been saying and Skip [Will Venable] has also been saying the same thing. We're very fortunate for this opportunity."
Which all led up for Luis Robert Jr. speaking last. And sure, that's where the headliner goes, but Robert's place with the team exists in between Benintendi and Montgomery; a would-be franchise centerpiece who should be entering his prime, but instead is already ill-fitting for the White Sox youth movement at the tender age of 27.
"This is my team right now, I’m just getting ready to fight for this team," Robert said via interpreter. "It has been my team throughout my whole professional career in the US, right? I think it would be beautiful to have experienced playing for just one team, the team that gave me the opportunity to make my dream come true and the team that I’m trying to help past this moment and hopefully play for this team when we are ready to compete. I think that would be a really beautiful story. But like I said before, that’s something I can’t control."
The "beautiful," description sounds more like a wistful one, rather than something either side is going to work to make happen, when their respective trajectories are sending them to opposite side of the free agent market. Robert said his agency -- Boras Corp., you might recall -- has kept him abreast and educated about the trade talks surrounding him throughout the winter, though the offers crested at a level that confirmed his current market value lies below his potential.
As Robert regularly reminds, he launched his stateside career here and has become fabulously wealthy in a White Sox uniform, and wants to stay healthy and produce for as long as he's around. He's open to trying to be more cautious with his effort level in the early-season cold weather to stay healthy, and less open to the idea of DH-ing more, which Robert feels only exacerbates the issue of trying go max effort when his legs aren't fully loose. But as he's already a quieter, lead-by-example type, he's not contorting his clubhouse demeanor to guide a rebuilding roster he's not set to be a part of past July.
"I see myself as another player," Robert said via interpreter when asked about taking up a leadership role. "The way that I can lead is to try to do my best and be the best that I can be. Just another player on this team trying to do their best."
Such a role might be better suited for Montgomery if it weren't currently premature; someone who can sense that he's going to be here for a while and at the center of things. Or for Davis Martin, who has already eyed his rare mix of familiarity with MLB clubhouses and low service time to take some responsibility for a starter group he thinks could be relatively static for a bit. Martín Pérez is here on a one-year deal and has a comparable likelihood to Robert to be dealt at the deadline, and can be regularly found holding court with his countrymen Jairo Iriarte and Wikelman González sitting at rapt attention. But Pérez was brought in to be this specific type of leader, and sharing his insight is clearly how the veteran lefty is wired. Like Benintendi, Robert being quietly productive amid the functioning contender surrounding him seemed like a fine goal once upon a time, but the ground has moved beneath his feet.
Will Venable addressed the clubhouse as a whole for the first time as manager Monday to set team expectations, but so did Chris Getz. And part of the GM's message to the team was trying to take ownership for a series of rebuild trades that greased the track to 121 losses, which in turn will lead to a lot of questions about 121 losses that this group of players will have to deal with, even if they're either new to the team entirely or weren't called up to the majors soon enough to feel responsible for it.
Benintendi and Robert certainly feel responsible for it, and that some of the worst struggles of their career played a central role. But the message to them is the same: The White Sox are turning the page, and moving toward a day where Robert and Benintendi are no longer the most recognizable faces will eventually be part of that.
--Venable said Tuesday should see Drew Thorpe throw off a mound for the first time since receiving a cortisone shot in his throwing elbow right before SoxFest. Any notion of how far behind Thorpe is from the rest of the White Sox starters begins with this step.
--The Sox claimed 25-year-old right-hander Owen White off waivers from the Yankees on Monday, moving Ky Bush's Tommy John rehab to the 60-day injured list to make room on the 40-man roster. White has been having a decidedly un-fun offseason in terms of roster moves, as he was available on the waiver wire because this was his third time being designated for assignment this winter. The former Rangers second-round pick has good command of a wide swath of pitches, but cultivated this all for the purpose of pitching around a vulnerable fastball, which has led to three homers and 13 runs allowed in seven major league innings, all out of the bullpen.
"He can start, in Texas he came out of the bullpen," said Venable, who overlapped with White in Texas. "I haven't had the internal discussions on how we're going to view him, but certainly with his past, we know he's been stretched out and I think we'd probably do the same thing here."
-- Speaking of Tommy John rehab, second-round pick Blake Larson was on the backfields Monday sporting the large black supportive brace that has become a common sight in baseball over the past decade. Newly 19, fresh off a high school workload and already tasked with adding overall strength this year, the White Sox aren't viewing this as a disastrous setback in Larson's build up and development. But while TJ might be somewhat inevitable, it's obviously not ideal.
-- Noah Schultz gave Brian Bannister some praise that might stick as a moniker if the White Sox produce a high-level pitching staff under their current front office leadership.
"It’s funny, everything he says it’s just like magic; like, right away it works," Schultz said. "I threw a changeup and it ran a little arm side, and he was correcting it and told me some things. The next couple I threw were great. Obviously he knows what he’s talking about. It’s definitely something that’s amazing to see, how much he knows."
--Sox Machine user Foulkelore asked on New Year's Day why the White Sox had to trade eighth-round pick Aaron Combs for lefty Tyler Gilbert after the latter got designated for assignment, because logic would indicate they would be first up on the waiver wire. While I was slow to follow up, I never forgot: The White Sox had learned there was enough trade interest in Gilbert from other clubs that he wasn't going to make it to waivers, so they negotiated a winning offer.
