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White Sox acquire a playoff legend... Minor league contract though...

Tattoos & Stuff

White Sox acquire Mat Latos for 1 year, $3 million and sign Travis Ishikawa to a minor league contract. This is the type of news that means more to me than the New Hampshire Primary. You may remember Ishikawa for his 2014 NLCS Game 5 walk-off dinger for the Giants against Michael Wacha of the Cardinals. Other than that he has been irrelevant, but he could provide a nice backup option if the Sox do get rid of LaRoche by the trade deadline. This was a solid move. The bigger news is the White Sox finally moved on to what I thought to be a greater need and grabbed a 5th starter. As mentioned in previous blog posts, I was not very comfortable with Erik Johnson or Jacob Turner shoring up the back end of the MAJOR league rotation. Yes, the White Sox have amongst the best top 3 starters in the majors in Sale, Quintana, and Rodon, especially if Rodon continues to progress the way he did at the end of the 2015 season. However, I wasn’t the only Sox fan saying they needed something other than an iffy John Danks and a questionable 5th man. Although Johnson pitched well when the Sox called him up from Charlotte late in the season (3-1 with a 3.34 ERA in 35 innings of work), he is not an established Major League vet in which fans and managers can confide. The Latos acquisition could mean Johnson could be trade bait. Jacob Turner, on the other hand, has been a let down for every club he has stepped on the mound for, since being drafted 9th overall in the amateur draft in 2009 by the Tigers. He has room to go and is still young (23). So when the Sox signed him in December, I liked the high reward move. He has a long way to go, but if he can turn into a supplemental long reliever, the Sox won on this. I didn’t talk too much about that acquisition earlier because the blockbuster that included Todd Frazier overshadowed it.

Back to Latos, I am sure every Sox fan can agree that this is a fantastic move. He has a high upside potential, disregarding 2015, and he is still only 28 years old. Pitchers of this caliber were going for twice the price (i.e. Doug Fister for $7 million). At a solid career 3.51 ERA and average WAR of 3.2 over six years, he can prove to be a good pitching option. Latos can also add to the White Sox tattoo game. He will join Brett Lawrie as another acquisition with much visible ink, so Hahn is just increasing their street cred tenfold at this point. If Allen Iverson is looking for a job, maybe he can take over that one lingering issue that is right field for the Southsiders.

The White Sox still need to fill that hole in right field or at least have a platoon with Avi Garcia and/or Melky Cabrera. Fans must also take into consideration the fact that any of their current outfielders could get injured. Having that extra outfield depth, outside of J.B. Shuck, would help them if something horrible like that could occur. Hey, that’s baseball. I do not believe that Andre Ethier is worth the money or the risk to use in that right field platoon role with Avi. He is almost 34, and the Sox would end up getting stuck with a hefty piece of his contract. Let the Yankees sign him. The nice thing is that Dexter Fowler is still out there for that role. In order to sign him, the Sox would need to give up a draft pick, but they could use his on base percentage. Let’s hope for some good news before spring training. I’m getting excited for the most underrated team in Chicago!