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White Sox Mon May 17 2010
One Way To Not Fix The White Sox
The big news with the White Sox today is that the Texas Rangers are interested in A.J. Pierzynski. Halleleujah! People want our crappy players! Cregen McMinn thinks this would allow the White Sox to play Tyler Flowers:
It's clear A.J. is expendable, and with Tyler Flowers waiting in AAA, now is the time to move A.J. while he still has some value to another club.
Moreover, what better time to bring up Flowers to take over at catcher than now, when the pressure isn't on him to produce since the lineup as a whole already isn't producing? Another benefit would be that he'd be able to learn and develop a rapport with veteran starters like Mark Buehrle and Jake Peavy that would carry over into next season.
Trading Pierzynski and bringing up Flowers makes too much sense for it not to happen sooner or later. With A.J. gaining five and 10 rights on June 14, it looks like it might be happening soon.
Flowers has an almost respectable average, batting .257 with eight home runs for the Charlotte Knights (the Triple A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox), so I can see where McMinn is coming from. But I'm still skeptical. There's a big difference between triple A and the major leagues and remember, the last time Flowers played for the White Sox he didn't have an average over .200. So there's a good possibility that the only thing that would change by replacing Pierzynski with Flowers is the name and number on the catcher's uniform.
I think though that McMinn is focusing in the wrong place. Besides some slight promise as of late, Pierzynski is hardly the Sox's biggest problem. The biggest defensive weaknesses for the Sox are in the infield and outfield. The Sox need to get a solid third and second baseman who can hit. Replacing Pierzynski, the catcher, really wouldn't fix the Sox's defensive problems. A good baseman who can hit would.
If you need further convincing that the Sox's biggest weakness is in their infield and outfield, watch tonight's game against the Detroit Tigers. I'll be there tweeting the game. You can follow me here.
