Eloy Jimenez Out 5-6 Months With Torn Pec And I Want To Crawl Into A Hole And Die
I said this two weeks back when Eloy was fucking around and not getting the fuck out of the way of Robert when Robert called a ball in a stupid spring training game:
No, that wasn't Eloy's ball to catch. It was Robert's ball, because Robert called it. If the CF calls a ball, he has priority 100% of the time. As soon as Eloy hears Robert say "I got it" in Spanish, he has one job, and that's to get the fuck out of the way. I don't care if the ball was on the LF foul line, if Robert calls it, it's his ball. I'm only mildly surprised at this point that Eloy didn't get hurt on the play I linked above. Instead it was 2 weeks later with Eloy trying to hang on the LF fence like Vince fucking Carter in a dunk contest, and it's cost him what will most likely be his entire season.
Great. Great great great great great. If Eloy ever plays a single play in the OF again, whoever made the decision to put him out there should be banned from baseball for life. I'm not kidding one iota when I say that. It could be the matter of life or death for Eloy or someone else.
So what now? Internally, the options are slim, but it looks like Andrew Vaughn will be thrown to the wolves:
And right now, I'm completely fine with that. If Vaughn has never attempted to catch a fly ball from LF in his entire life, he still can't possibly worse at playing the position as Eloy is at it. In fact, I don't think he'll be a complete doofus out there and will know not to run into walls, get caught in netting, run into other players, or hang on the fence trying to rob dingers when the ball is 10 feet beyond the fence. With that said, Eloy had a bonafide shot at winning the HR title in the AL this year should he have stayed healthy and played 140+ games. There is no sugarcoating this injury; it fucking blows in every single way. Nothing good comes of this, nothing good at all, and now we will have Vaughn trying to learn a brand new position while learning how to hit big league pitching simultaneously. Thank god anyone not named Eloy Jimenez should be able to learn how to play LF someone quickly.
Adam Engel should also be back from his hammy injury in a few weeks, and though he's turned into a great 4th OF, that's where he's best suited - being a 4th OF that mashes LH pitching. He should be playing 130 games and getting about 300 plate appearances at most to maximize who he is as a player. Eloy's injury also basically guarantees Zack Collins will be the opening day DH, and he's in put up or shut up mode as well.
Externally, perhaps Hahn moves for a real, actual OF. I do know that they really, really wanted Austin Meadows this winter. Perhaps they revisit that and make a trade. But Meadows has 4 years of team control left and would cut DEEP both into the White Sox farm depth and perhaps their big league depth too. Meadows is coming off a dog shit 60 game season, but in 2019 he was really fucking good. I can't imagine the Rays would accept any trade proposal that didn't start with one of Crochet, Madrigal, or Kopech and even if the Sox did make a move like this, they'd be filling one hole by opening another.
Beyond that there are a few names being floated around, all of which are purely hypotheticals like Meadows; names like Mike Tauchman, who's completely whatever, and Avi Garcia, who also fucking stinks. Then they could maybe go the FA route and sign Yoenis Cespedes off his cattle farm in whatever bumfuck state he lives now or even Yasiel Puig. All in all, none of the options are ideal. They all suck, and even if they do trade for a stud that will still hurt them in other ways like I said.
I'm fucking irate. This was bound to happen with Eloy in the OF. Now their depth issues are ALREADY rearing their ugly heads and the regular season hasn't even started yet. You blowhards in the comment section were shit talking me because I said it's do or die mode for this organization, and this is exactly what I meant. Championship windows for clubs like the White Sox open and close like THAT. Just look at what happened to the Cubs. Everyone thought that was going to be a dynasty and NOPE! Not even CLOSE to one, and this organization doesn't have 1/2 the resources the Cubs do to build a consistent winner.
It's going to be an uphill climb for Rick Hahn to see what he can do to put this team back over the hump. Him, Kenny and Jerry can make this better, we'll see how they do it.