Nick Williams is a familiar White Sox problem, and Andrew Vaughn may not yet be a solution

Guaranteed Rate Field (Jim Margalus / Sox Machine)

Andrew Vaughn is not a Rule 5 pick, but if you wanted to know what it’d look like if he were, Tony La Russa’s deployment provides an incredible simulation.

La Russa is actually playing Vaughn in a fashion more akin to a platoon player. He’s started just five of the White Sox’s 11 games, and he faced a lefty starter in four of them, so it’s not particularly opaque. It just feels like something more severe when Nick Williams is the other guy playing left field, because it’s hard to identify anything Williams brings to the table besides standing on the other side of the plate.

Williams is burdened by all of Vaughn’s problems and then some, regardless of the pitcher’s handedness or reputation. He’s 0-for-10 with a walk and four strikeouts, although he’s contributed by taking two pitches for the team. The contact he makes is weaker, with an average exit velocity more than two ticks lower (88 mph to 85.8 mph). And while Vaughn’s the stranger to the outfield, Williams is the guy who looks more terrified of making a mistake out there. He plays deeper than every left fielder in baseball save Jon Jay. Here’s how the distance look limited to the context of the White Sox:

  1. Leury García, 293 feet
  2. Billy Hamilton, 297 feet
  3. Andrew Vaughn, 306 feet
  4. Nick Williams, 311 feet

And yet there’s Williams, batting fifth, and for himself in late-inning situations when he represents the tying run and Zack Collins is available. La Russa’s rationale wasn’t satisfying.

But part of the reason why La Russa’s explanation falters is because he hasn’t indulged the public with any critical evaluations. Vinnie Duber relayed La Russa’s assessment of Vaughn’s defense, and this doesn’t ring particularly true either:

“He’s put in so much time over the last part of spring training and every day,” La Russa said. “He’s out there every day doing work with Daryl (Boston, White Sox outfield coach). In my opinion, if you watch his breaks on balls, I think he’s an above average left fielder. To me, the average left fielder is the one you expect to catch in a certain radius. His defensive work is above that. Advertisement

“For me the left-field play is not an issue.”

La Russa’s next discouraging word about specific White Sox personnel will be his first, so you can only go by actions. Those say that he’d rather play Williams than Vaughn. In terms of talent, he’s wrong to do so. In terms of managing the people, it’s possible that the only available moves for La Russa are wrong.

I say this from my stance as somebody who’s written about this team every day for the last 15-plus years. I don’t like wielding the experience card because 1) it doesn’t make me right, and 2) it dares me to reevaluate some choices in my life. In this case, though, I present that badge because I’ve often felt compelled to pick sides in plenty of playing-time battles that pit a -2 WAR player against a -1.5 WAR player, and that’s what most makes me wonder what I’m even doing here.

To me, the question isn’t about why Williams is getting all these at-bats. He’s just a particularly bold form of a player we’ve seen too often in the corners of the White Sox outfield. No, I see the question as whether everybody is adequately prepared for a situation where Vaughn is overmatched.

Vaughn’s had two good swings to date, and both came on cookies from left-handed pitchers. He’s unlikely to succeed against decent right-handed pitching right now, and if he’s not starting against the Triston McKenzies of baseball, he shouldn’t be airlifted into high-leverage situations against the James Karinchaks. If he’s going to play, he should start, if only to inform La Russa over the first three plate appearances if it’s worth giving him a fourth.

I’d rather watch Vaughn get those three plate appearances most days because I don’t see the upside elsewhere. I’m also not in charge of playing a guy with no high-minors experience against a level of pitching he’s never seen, and at a position he’s barely experienced. La Russa has a reputation of putting players in a position to succeed. Phrase it a different way, and he does all he can to avoid predictable failure. It just so happens that every left field option available to La Russa is likely to fail, but Vaughn is the only one who hasn’t experienced failure at a meaningful level. Unlike other can’t-miss prospects, it’s not because he’s been great the whole time. When you think about it, Vaughn hasn’t really experienced success, either.

Williams is likely ephemeral, and if he weren’t around we might be having the same conversation about Hamilton. There’s going to be an underwhelming somebody vying for the playing time, so I find it more useful to consider the situation through the constant in Vaughn. Of course, looking through that prism, the more insane it is that the White Sox didn’t sign an extra bat for a year and force him to barge his way into the picture. Now there’s a sizable disconnect between La Russa’s words and actions, and an even bigger one between Rick Hahn’s actions and La Russa’s actions. I can imagine Hahn wanting to barge into La Russa’s office, kick over a chair and demand to know why Williams is playing over Vaughn. I can also picture La Russa tapping a placard that says “POOR PLANNING ON YOUR PART DOESN’T CONSTITUTE AN EMERGENCY ON MINE” and continuing to chew his sandwich, because he was raised in an era where you didn’t speak with your mouth full.

If La Russa sees every left field option as a zugzwang, then maybe he sees his role as picking the one that shifts the fallout to him. It’s the opposite of fun, but it’s more about crossing off the days on the calendar until Adam Engel returns and represents the clear best chance for immediate adequacy. Vaughn doesn’t appear to gain anything from this arrangement, but he also doesn’t gain anything from hanging out in Schaumburg either. His lack of regular action will only become an issue when Birmingham or Charlotte resume being viable options for a player in his position, so maybe there’s value in letting him go along for the ride and picking his spots carefully, even if it results in Williams, Hamilton, García or anybody else starting way more than they should.

Of course, there’s the real possibility that Vaughn will get a few starts over the remainder of the week and show why the White Sox planned around him. La Russa will get nailed for wasting games on Williams, La Russa will probably smile inwardly and believe the slow rollout had something to do with it, both sides are right to some extent and this post ages terribly. Vaughn has the talent to make that happen. I just think it’s useful to prepare for a situation where everybody and everything is wrong, which then shifts the conversation to minimizing the impact. A below-average left fielder may be unavoidable. Batting that below-average left fielder fifth and letting him hit for himself in high-leverage situations when clearly better options are available? That’s too close to Robin Ventura’s inability to separate deserving players from seat-fillers, and it’d be cool if that stopped immediately.

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texag10

Literally everybody that was sitting on the bench last night didn’t struggle at the plate. Pick one.

roke1960

There are currently NO good options for left field at this point. For this to happen by April 13th is inexcusable. The front office is 100 percent to blame. And it’s sad when we’re looking forward to Adam Engel returning to get quality left field play. He is fine against lefties, but would have had almost no chance against Bieber yesterday.

Last edited 2 years ago by roke1960
As Cirensica

Josh Reddick signed for 750K. He is not great anymore, but he is way better than Williams and Hamilton.

750K!!!!

BenwithVen

on a minor league deal, which was one of the conditions the FO laid out for any signings during ST.

Joliet Orange Sox

I’m not happy the Sox are in this situation. I’m not sure a 34-year old Josh Redick with –0.4 bwar last year really solves the problem.

dickallens42ozbat

I think you hit the nail on the head with the last paragraph. I can live with bringing Vaughn along slowly given his lack of professional experience. What I can’t understand is batting your AAAA player 5th in a game where you are going to be desperate to patch together some offense.

Patrick Nolan

Vaughn’s first three games were bad and his second three games were good. We know Williams is a bad solution. Vaughn might be okay! But we don’t know until he gets a chance.

Unbelievable that Jim has to write this two weeks into the season. And to think there was a point 2 years ago when some of us actually thought there was a shot that the Sox would sign Bryce Harper or Manny Machado. This team won’t even shell out money for Eddie Rosario. I apologize to all of the commenters who called me an idiot that offseason – you were right.

Greg Nix

It’s just enraging how foreseeable this was, because if it wasn’t Eloy it would have been someone else.

Eloy gets hurt pretty much every year.

Eaton gets hurt pretty much every year.

Robert gets hurt pretty much every year.

So how on Earth can you feel confident rolling with four guys who can’t hit (sorry Engel) as your OF depth???

Put another way, they lucked into Mercedes’s ungodly start and STILL the depth has been exposed.

Greg Nix

It honestly makes a guy long for Melky Cabrera.

Greg Nix

If you really want to ruin your day, imagine what’ll happen if Eaton or Robert pull a hammy tonight.

ParisSox

Boom. Day ruined

35Shields

Put another way, they lucked into Mercedes’s ungodly start and STILL the depth has been exposed.

That’s the thing that’s most frustrating with this. They’re entire plan for the DH position was just Hopes&Prayers. But the thing is that Hopes&Prayers has actually worked! And despite this luck they’re still insanely thin.

karkovice squad

Sure would’ve been nice to have literally 1 minor league OFer capable of filling in by now. Or, failing that, recognition that they needed to add another OF/DH bat along with Eaton.

Who could have possibly predicted?

Amazing that not even one of the Birmingham logjam proved playable by this point. The most exciting outfield prospect from that team is probably Gavin freaking Sheets! Or Basabe, who they gave away.

Last edited 2 years ago by Right Size Wrong Shape

Having Basabe right now probably would have been pretty nice. Can’t hit, but at least he can play defense at all three outfield positions.

Trooper Galactus

So he’d fit right in!

35Shields

This is honestly one of the most crazy things to me. I can’t believe that they didn’t get a single decent fourth outfielder out of any of them.

MrStealYoBase

If this continues for another week and Williams doesn’t suddenly turn into a competent hitter, then the fact that they are not giving one of their THREE other outfielders already on the 40-man roster a shot becomes unacceptable.

From what we’ve gotten so far, there’s no where to go but up for Adolfo, Gonzalez, or Rutherford.

Trooper Galactus

I’d take Gonzalez or Rutherford if only to get some competent defense.

metasox

FWIW, Williams put up some decent Spring numbers. Gonzalez, not so much. Maybe the Sox are seeing something. They have some reasons for what they do. It isn’t just to annoy us.

ThisReallySox

Incompetence is a reason too

Sophist

So what happened to the Gavin Sheets outfield experiment (and members of . . . ) and why not give Rutherford a shot? If I’m going to be puking through Sox games, at least give me some tiny hope it’s all for the sake of the future.

Trooper Galactus

Sheets didn’t even play at the alternate site last year and he was horrible in ST. They’d probably go to Rutherford before him just to at least get some defense out of the position.

Sophist

Sheets giving the outfield a try was a spring training story for a couple of days; I guess we now know how that must have gone.

Trooper Galactus

If Sheets hit the shit out of the ball in ST they might not have cared.

MrStealYoBase

20 plate appearances and 6 chances in the field for Vaughn. Based on that sample size, I have zero opinion on his viability at the plate (at least at the present) or in the field.

I do have an opinion about distributing playing time, though. Protecting Vaughn from facing Bieber and other tough righties does nothing for him and nothing for the team. If he went out there and struck out 4 times last night looking totally overmatched, it would be fine. He would at least have more experience facing Bieber and knowing what he looked like for the future, assuming the team actually envisions him as a part of the long-term everyday lineup.

It’s 2021, the Sox shouldn’t have “development” high on the list of priorities for the major league roster. But then they shouldn’t have rolled out the red carpet for Vaughn via their roster construction this offseason to begin with (which is what many of us said for months). Now they are stuck with bad options, but to me the most palatable is letting the prospect get experience.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask what Luis Gonzalez, Micker Adolfo, and Blake Rutherford are doing on the 40-man roster if they aren’t going to even get a second thought in a situation like this. Right now, the message the organization is sending is that they would rather give a known unimpressive quantity like Nick Williams opportunities than they guys they’ve been developing for 4+ years. Are any of those guys going to be average major league left fielders? Probably not at this point. But that’s one of those known unknowns that you can never trust with a team that has a history of poor self-scouting.

Trooper Galactus

This is the part I don’t get. If Vaughn’s gonna fail, he’s gonna fail. The whole point of having him on the roster is to get him the experience and hope he adjusts to the level sooner rather than later.

MrStealYoBase

Exactly. Sitting does nothing for him or for the team. Say he is an everyday fixture in the lineup by September and now they have to play a game against the Indians and Shane Bieber that could affect the wildcard race. Would really have been nice for him to have as much experience as possible facing Bieber, rather than going into a key game totally blind.

35Shields

The Sox are asking an unreasonable amount of things from him. He’s never played about high A before, he’s never played LF before and he hasn’t even played in real, competitive games in over a year.

I don’t see anything particularly wrong with saying “Let’s maybe spare him from getting wrecked by the reigning CYA winner because he’s already got enough impending failure on his plate as it is”.

Like Jim said, the failure isn’t really with any particular use of Vaughn at this point. The failure is on the fact that the need him at all at this point.

lifelongjd

The Sox have been extraordinarily unlucky with injuries, especially in the OF. Eloy, Hamilton, and Engel all go down. I get the need to have depth, but that’s an insane turn of events. Pivoting to Vaughn as option D wasn’t the worst idea or scenario in the world, especially considering who has played for us and would have been next guy up a couple years ago. They probably would have given Roger Bossard a glove and tell him to shag some fly balls to get ready to man RF.

Vaughn is still a better option than Williams in almost any scenario. Williams can’t hit and has no future with the team. If you play Vaughn and he doesn’t hit, he’s gaining experience and learning. Plus the guy can work counts and take walks.

Pick a lane and stick to it. Let the kid take a few lumps. He was looking better the last couple games and then the plug was pulled. It’s maddening following this team.

MarketMaker

that sox fans confuse hahn’s roster-building incompetence as the sox being “extraordinarily unlucky” is ridiculous. players get hurt all the time. good GMs know that and plan accordingly. eloy getting hurt in the field might have been the highest probability event this whole season.

texag10

No one ever has an adequate plan for their superstar getting hurt. You just don’t have those plug-n-play guys because they’d be starting elsewhere. What teams do have are guys who don’t crap the bed in case of injury. For us that guy is Adam Engel. He’s hurt which is not good. Billy Hamilton was supposed to be the “break glass in case of emergency” guy and now he’s hurt. So now we are scraping the minor leagues and waiver wire for people like Nick Williams because that’s all that’s available. If you want to complain that the White Sox should have gotten 3 major league caliber outfielders this offseason because this was a highly likely scenario, I don’t know what to tell you. Even the Padres aren’t crazy enough to carry that many credible outfielders on their roster and they were acquiring everyone they could this offseason.

Trooper Galactus

Is Eloy a superstar? And heck, the one thing most of us figured they could absorb was the loss of a bat because we assumed guys like Robert, Abreu, Moncada, Anderson, etc. were going to hit pretty well to compensate for any losses.

lifelongjd

If you’re going to be upset about anything, then I’d point towards player development. I’ve said it a couple times and so have others that the lack of organizational depth in the outfield is appalling. Planning on 3 injuries to your OF within weeks of each other is not usually part of any roster building, but not having anyone that could come up for a couple weeks after 5 years of rebuilding is insane.

As Cirensica

Why does this have only one +1?

NancyFaustsOrgan

I think if there was minor league baseball happening, Vaughn already would have been sent down. Maybe TLR is afraid of creating another Rick Ankiel.

Trooper Galactus

I might be more in agreement with you if sitting Vaughn against Bieber were an isolated thing.

MrTopaz

The point of the rebuild was to put together a team that didn’t have so many bad players there was a real chance the game would “find” several of them at the most inopportune times.

That’s all I got. Preaching to the choir, I know. I might start a running tally of bitter, slightly disbelieving statements that start with “The point of the rebuild was…” I’m afraid the count might get higher than I’d like. Hopefully things start falling into place and it doesn’t.

As Cirensica

I just think it’s useful to prepare for a situation where everybody and everything is wrong, which then shifts the conversation to minimizing the impact. A below-average left fielder may be unavoidable. 

Below average? I am thinking below replacement level is more likely until Engel returns.

Also, let’s not lose sight of Leury Garcia. He has a triple slash of .107/.107/.143 for a WRC+ of -36 and -0.4 fWAR. He is playing almost everyday. It might be possible that Leury usefullness has hit a wall without us realizing it. He looks very lost ta the plate.And when he makes contact, it is weaker (under 80 EV) than Hamilton’s

Mercy!

Super utility = super futility!

At this point, I rather we keep Mendick when reinforcements come back from the IL

Last edited 2 years ago by As Cirensica
Trooper Galactus

Yet another wonderful function of them starting Vaughn’s service clock but playing him sparingly (and watching him struggle) is that if they want to trade him to fill in a need elsewhere, his value has probably gone down slightly.

dongutteridge

Your 2021 Chicago No Depth Sox
” 2020 ” ” ” ”
” 2019 ” ” ” ”
” 2018 ” ” ” ”
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MarketMaker

free andrew vaughn.

BenwithVen

Nick Williams continues this organization’s tradition of fixating on flame out prospects from other teams.

As Cirensica

That reminds me the super prospect Lastings Milledge who came to the White Sox to revive his career. Turned out to be his last season which is something that Jim has pointed out several times: the recurring and curious theme in this organization to get players right by the end of their careers. He was 26.

Last edited 2 years ago by As Cirensica
BenwithVen

Lance Berkman and Jeff Bagwell’s heir, AJ Reed, also was last seen in a White Sox jersey during his age 26 season. Truly great stuff.

texag10

Don’t forget Texas/Chicago Cubs next great 3B Mike Olt.

NancyFaustsOrgan

Agree — and yet I hear some complaining that we don’t have Reddick or Cespedes…who are long past their primes.

Trooper Galactus

Either would be a better option than Nick Wililams.

35Shields

The thing that’s nuts is that they haven’t really gotten unlucky with any of these replacements.

Leury, Williams, Lamb, Vaughn, Hamilton, Mendick, Collins and Mercedes have combined for 0.9 WAR over 160 PAs.

Fangraphs would have projected that group for 0.1 WAR over those PAs. So these guys are playing better than the White Sox should have expected and they’re still bad.

Soxfan2

Come on. Mercedes has 0.8 WAR all by himself in 37 PA’s. Leury and Williams are combined -0.5 WAR.

ForsterFTOG

Ruth and Madrigal have combined for 714 homeruns.

As Cirensica

LMAO!

GrinnellSteve

When I was growing up, the answer to the question, “What pair of brothers combined for the most wins?” was the Mathewson brothers. Christy had 373 and Henry had 0 in 3 appearances.

Just like the combined homers by brothers question – Hank and Tommy.

35Shields

Yermin Mercedes – very comparable to Babe Ruth

35Shields
  1. If you remove Mercedes, then that group has produced 0.1 WAR over 123 PAs as opposed to an expected 0.03 WAR. It’s still better than expected.
  2. Removing Mercedes because he’s worked out is dumb. At the beginning of the season, all of those players were complete crapshoots/backups. “Well if you don’t count the one that did much better than expected, then they didn’t do better than expected” isn’t an interesting observation.
Last edited 2 years ago by 35Shields
Soxfan2

1) Are you really going to argue about 0.07 WAR?

2) This article was about LF issues anyways not Mercedes. My point is you can’t say that our back ups have played well as a whole when one player has provided 90% of our back ups value.

35Shields

1) Perhaps my grasp of the English language is slipping a bit, but I’m fairly sure that “producing 0.07 WAR better than expected” fits extremely neatly into the definition of “they haven’t really gotten unlucky with any of these replacements”.

2) This may be a bit of shocker. But we’re not actually obligated to limit our comments to direct responses to the article. I made it pretty clear that I was discussing the cast of position players that weren’t considered bonafide starters not limited to just LF.

My point was that the Sox have basically gotten exactly the production that they should have expected (or perhaps even better). Your point was to nitpick without ever actually contradicting that.

Trooper Galactus

It’s hard to feel positive about the replacement scrubs being better than expected when they were expected to suck ass and have barely cleared that bar as a whole.

ndsoxfan

Sooooo 4 guys that weren’t supposed to make the roster, the back up catcher, the guy that plays 7 positions on defense, and the rookie who hasn’t played above A ball have been better than replacement level over 2 weeks. You’re mad?

Trooper Galactus

I think the anger is not in their performances but that some of them would never have seen the light of day in an organization that had actual depth from a full tear down/rebuild.

HallofFrank

I’m as annoyed at the Nick Williams situation as everyone else, but—responding to fan sentiment and not Jim’s excellent article—let’s also not make Williams, or even TLR/FO handling of LF, a scapegoat for the problems with this team. The fact is, Nick Williams could start in LF and hit leadoff and this team should be able to win more than they are. Abreu, Moncada, Robert, Grandal, and Madrigal are all running sub-.690 OPSs and the bullpen has been blown multiple leads already. Yes, let’s put Vaughn in LF… but if these other problems don’t resolve it won’t matter who they run out there.

Last edited 2 years ago by HallofFrank
roke1960

Very good point Frank. It’s time for Moncada, Abreu and Grandal to start hitting better than .190. And maybe come up with a clutch hit every now and then. That’s what the stars are supposed to do. On Monday, their three runs were produced by Williams and Mendick (walks) and an Eaton HR. On Sunday it was another 2-run HR by Eaton. If the stars aren’t stars, it won’t matter what the other guys do.

As Cirensica

Very good point Frank. It’s time for Moncada, Abreu and Grandal to start hitting better than .190. And maybe come up with a clutch hit every now and then. 

Abreu has 2 grand slams in 11 games.

texag10

Jose Abreu is 6-35 in games where he doesn’t hit a grand slam.

As Cirensica

On the other hand he is on pace to hit 28 grand slams this year

texag10

So it took 2 games to get the first one and then the second one came 4 games after that. By my math, he’ll hit another grand slam Friday against Boston.

roke1960

Not counting the grand slams (one of which was late in a game the Sox were ahead by 3), Abreu has 1 RBI.

Red_Hair_White_Sox

The season is less than 2 weeks old.

Root Cause

The brain trust may be high fiving each other because we lost, Eloy and Timmy yet we are hovering .500 wins!

They might be wondering if they spent too much last winter shooting for 2nd place.

Trooper Galactus

Especially when you consider they finished in third place.

GrabSomeBench

Great but unfortunate article. Williams is just one of many subpar players we’ve seen roaming the field for the Sox over the years. I didn’t think Vaughn was ready and TLR must agree since he won’t give him a chance. It was my understanding that Mercedes did some work in the outfield in the minors. Why not put him in LF?
Truly, the sox were backed into a corner when they lost ELOY. They could have added someone before the injury. They chose to stand pat. But after Eloy went up and then down on that fence, Hahn should have made a move instead of relying on someone that only played in A ball and Hamilton (who should be in AAA). Instead of signing someone like Reddick, Puig or Yoenis Cespedes they did nothing. Now we get to watch this s… show.

jorgefabregas

Player vaccine watch, although technically he probably wouldn’t have had time to build immunity if he did get vaccinated on Thursday like most of the Twins did https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31257046/twins-ss-andrelton-simmons-declined-vaccine-positive-covid-19-test

Last edited 2 years ago by jorgefabregas
jorgefabregas

And the Astros just placed 5 players on the health and safety protocols, at least one got vaccinated two weeks ago. And I bet more were vaccinated as well. It wasn’t reported if it was a one shot or two shot vaccine. Maybe for some it’s for contact tracing. Hopefully the vaccine will mean they’ll only have mild symptoms, if any.

Last edited 2 years ago by jorgefabregas
soxfan

Maybe it goes without saying, but we did face Bieber last night.

Hard to get too worked up about much of anything when that guy would’ve mowed through the ’27 Yankees with his stuff last night. Some nights you just tip your cap and get ’em tomorrow.

Trooper Galactus

I’d prefer to see Mendick get more playing time given Leury’s struggles and Mendick being on one of his patented early hot streaks, but that’s just me.

Last edited 2 years ago by Trooper Galactus
Papa Giorgio

I say this from my stance as somebody who’s written about this team every day for the last 15-plus years. I don’t like wielding the experience card because 1) it doesn’t make me right, and 2) it dares me to reevaluate some choices in my life. In this case, though, I present that badge because I’ve often felt compelled to pick sides in plenty of playing-time battles that pit a -2 WAR player against a -1.5 WAR player, and that’s what most makes me wonder what I’m even doing here.

This paragraph is one of my favorites of everything you’ve ever written