The Winter Meetings are underway and already a move is made that matters to the White Sox. Rick Hahn and co. haven’t made any splashes of their own just yet, but the Boston Red Sox have snatched up Mike Napoli at $39M over 3 years.
The White Sox repercussions:
Napoli at 3/$39 is probably about where A.J. Pierzynski will now set his aim. A.J. is a few years older, but is more durable and carries more defensive value. If you’re going to lean on Napoli’s power, good luck trying to convince Pierzynski’s agent that last season was an apparition. Pierzynski’s 118 OPS+ surpasses that of Napoli while A.J. also kicked in many more innings of work than the former Texas backstop.
With Napoli off of the market, that’s one less target for the New York Yankees that lost Russell Martin to the Pirates just last week. The Yankees were already said to be trying to fit as much money as possible into one fist so that they could throw it at A.J. With the catching pool drying up you can expect the Yankees to make some sort of offer sooner rather than later.
The Red Sox signed David Ross quickly as the 2012 season expired. At that point there were already rumors being pushed about regarding where Jarrod Saltalamacchia would play. Now that Napoli is in the mix we can look for even more rumors, and unfortunately the White Sox will be mentioned in these since folks have a hard time seeing a team going into the season with Tyler Flowers carrying everyday duties. The reality of the matter is that Saltalamacchia is not really an upgrade on Flowers at this point so the Pale Hose would do well to steer clear of that.
Alright Winter Meetings, what else ya got?