Pregame notes: Rikuu Nishida is here

The big placard of White Sox offensive principles hung on the wall of their spring training complex hammers on "DECISIONS, CONTACT and DAMAGE" as their holy trinity.

Newly selected infielder/outfielder Rikuu Nishida was running a sub-20 percent chase rate with Triple-A Charlotte and the 17.4 percent strikeout rate he was running while slashing .347/.454/.395 overall is the highest of the 25-year-old's professional career. Especially when it comes to baseball, two out of three ain't bad. To keep expectations in a very reasonable place about how much value Nishida will wring out of those skills, he's wearing No. 51; an homage to Ichiro Suzuki.

"I'm really really happy, nervous, but excited at the same time," Nishida said via interpreter. "[No. 51] is a very heavy number. Just the number itself speaks a lot. It's a really big number for me, to be honest. I'm still a little unsure about whether I can wear it or not."

Conversely, Jarred Kelenic launched a 446-foot home run during his 19 games with the White Sox, but struck out 33.9 percent of the time and was designated for assignment as the corresponding move. From the sounds of Will Venable's pre-game briefing, Nishida will be absorbing Kelenic's regular starts against right-handed pitching upon arrival.

"Really excited about Rikuu, a guy that plays above-average defense at multiple positions," Venable said. "He'll play a lot. He's going to be out there against righties. We'll take it day by day to see what the matchups look like and what our best group is for that day. But he'll certainly be in the mix, especially against righties."

Nishida was only halfway through scoring 114 runs total in the 2024 season, and still doing it at Low-A Kannapolis when the White Sox would select Sam Antonacci in the fifth round of that July's draft, before trading for Miguel Vargas later that month, and acquiring Chase Meidroth as one of the four pieces in the Garrett Crochet trade.

As much as this represents the team embracing the value of swing decisions and contact ability--and baserunning skill--that define Nishida's game, Antonacci's ascent to the majors was supercharged by his embrace of the team's bat speed program, Vargas looks All-Star bound for similar reasons, and even Meidroth is swapping contact for damage to a degree.

"Sacrificing maybe some contact because he's hitting some balls harder and looking to split a gap, it's a fair trade-off," said hitting coach Derek Shomon. "It's also freeing for him. He's not going up there thinking 'just touch it.' All too often we overlook how detrimental that can be for guys."

On the other side of the equation, Nishida ran a 15.7 percent hard-hit rate against Triple-A pitching this year. The only players with 100 major league plate appearances this year running in that territory are Steven Kwan having his worst year ever (8.6), Mariners utilityman Leo Rivas (13.6), firmly glove-first Rays shortstop Taylor Walls (14.4) and the fastest man in baseball, Chandler Simpson (15.8), who is probably the ideal vision of what archetype Nishida can fulfill.

But at the risk of looking at minor league players Instagram stories for wisdom, Jacob Gonzalez reacted to Nishida's promotion with "That's why you keep grinding."

Nishida has simply never failed, never run into a level where his brand of baseball was not successful. And from junior college through Triple-A, there has always been skepticism about how much a tiny man who just puts the bat on the ball and runs like hell would be able to succeed at a higher level. Eventually there is no option but just to try it out.

"I still don't feel like I'm a major leaguer," Nishida said via interpreter. "I'm still in a humble state at the moment. There's still a lot left for me down the road that I need to keep improving. I just want to keep improving and working so that I can keep playing at this level for as long as possible."

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Will Venable said Austin Hays (left calf strain) is progressing well, but still has at least two more scheduled games with Triple-A Charlotte, and will be re-assessed after playing Wednesday with the Knights. Even as married to handedness as the Sox have been, especially with their outfield matchups, it's fair to wonder how his eventual arrival will affect Nishida's playing time to some degree.

Everson Pereira (right pectoral strain) threw on Monday, but is at the very outset of rebuilding his arm strength, as he's approaching a month on the injured list.

First pitch: White Sox vs. Twins

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