The White Sox have made a couple of notable free-agent moves this offseason. Andrew Benintendi was brought in on a five-year, $75M pact to solidify the corner outfield and ensure Andrew Vaughn heads to his natural first base position. Mike Clevinger inked a bounce-back deal to add some depth to the back of the starting staff.
One position the White Sox haven’t addressed thus far is second base. The keystone was a question mark last year, with five players logging at least five appearances there. Josh Harrison and Danny Mendick are gone, with Chicago declining a club option on the former and non-tendering the latter. That leaves a trio of last year’s options who stand as the top in-house candidates for reps.
The Sox have a few other infield options on the 40-man roster, but none seems likely to step into the second base void. Chicago has toyed with the idea of playing Jake Burger at the keystone. He’s a better fit for the corner infield and saw only five innings of MLB action at second base last season. Jose Rodriguez and Bryan Ramos were each added to the 40-man after the 2022 season to keep them out of the Rule 5 draft; neither has any MLB experience to date. Yoán Moncada has played second base in the past, but the White Sox have deployed him exclusively at third base for the past four seasons. It doesn’t seem they’re considering moving him back to the middle infield.
Given the lack of an obvious internal solution, it’s unsurprising the club is open to bringing in help from outside the organization. General manager Rick Hahn told reporters Tuesday the club could add at second base, but he indicated they were confident enough in González and Sosa they don’t consider that a necessity, via Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times. Their early-offseason activity has seemed to align with that expressed confidence, since they’ve watched the free-agent middle infield market mostly dry up.
The remaining options on the open market are headlined by Elvis Andrus, who closed out the 2022 campaign with the White Sox after being released by the A’s. The veteran has only played shortstop in his MLB career, as he filled in there with Tim Anderson injured late last season. Perhaps Andrus is uninterested in moving to second base, but it stands to reason he’d be able to handle the position if willing to kick to the other side of the bag. Harrison is probably the next-best unsigned middle infielder. The Sox presumably don’t view him as a notable upgrade over their in-house options considering they declined to retain him on what amounted to a $4M decision at the start of the offseason.
If not Andrus, that’d probably leave Hahn and his staff looking to the trade market. Any specific trade targets for the Chicago front office aren’t publicly known, but a few players stand out as speculative possibilities. The Blue Jays have a number of second base options and might be amenable to parting with Cavan Biggio or Santiago Espinal. The Marlins have relegated Joey Wendle and Jon Berti to utility duty after signing Jean Segura. If the Mets indeed finalize their deal with Carlos Correa, maybe they’d deal old friend Eduardo Escobar somewhere with a clearer path to playing time.
The A’s would presumably consider offers on Tony Kemp. That’s likely also the case for the Cubs and former White Sox Nick Madrigal, who lost his starting job after they signed Dansby Swanson to push Nico Hoerner to the keystone. Longer-shot trade candidates include Ha-Seong Kim and Gleyber Torres, but the White Sox might have to dip further than they feel comfortable into a shallow farm system to land either of those players. The same is true of Nolan Gorman, who debuted for the Cardinals last season but could be available in a deal that lands St. Louis immediate MLB help in another area. That’s not an exhaustive list but highlights a few players the Chicago front office could check in on.
Figuring out second base is presumably the top priority for Hahn and his group. Even if the front office genuinely is confident in González and/or Sosa to step up, adding a veteran complement as insurance for that unproven duo makes sense. The organization might not have much more spending capacity after the Benintendi signing. None of the remaining free-agent options should break the bank, though, while a player like Espinal or Berti projected for a fairly modest arbitration salary shouldn’t be difficult to fit onto the books.
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