White Sox: Three New York Yankees players to pursue
The New York Yankees are one of the elite teams in the MLB and the White Sox might be smart to snag a few guys for themselves.
The New York Yankees were one of the elite teams in Major League Baseball in 2019. They don’t appear to be going anywhere in the standings and look like a team that could be in the mix for the next few years at the very least. They, however, might lose a couple of guys over the winter and the Chicago White Sox could be a team to take advantage of that fact.
The White Sox are a young team that is loaded with talent. In many ways, they are similar to the Yankees. They build their teams by drafting some nice players and using assets to collect prospects in years they weren’t going to do anything. It is probably the most successful homegrown team the Yankees have had in a long time. Both teams each even managed to snag top prospects from the Chicago Cubs in Eloy Jimenez and Gleybar Torres respectfully.
So if the White Sox are going to take the next step in 2020, they are going to need to add some new players in their identified weak spots There is a good mix of veterans and middle of their prime level players that the Yankees have available this year. There are also a few different options as far as what positions the White Sox are looking to add when studying what the Yankees have to offer. There are three really good players that stick out as the guys the White Sox should be looking to add to their team this winter:
Didi Gregorius
Didi Gregorius plays a position that the White Sox has covered but that doesn’t mean they should completely ignore his free-agent presence. He is a shortstop and the White Sox current guy, Tim Anderson, is coming off a season in which he won the Major League Baseball batting title. That doesn’t mean either he or Gregorius would be terrible designated hitters.
When good hitters hit the open market you have to at least consider them. Anderson and Gregorius are both two of the best hitting shortstops in the world. Gregorius had three great seasons in a row from 2016-2018 but an injury-plagued 2019 season made him come back down to earth. He only had a .238 batting average and a total of 16 home runs and 61 RBIs. The power numbers aren’t terrible when you consider that he only played in 82 games but everyone including Didi knows that he is capable of more.
As much of a long shot as it might be, a player of his caliber in the prime of his career needs to be evaluated by every team when he hits the open market. He also has some playoff experience which the White Sox seriously lacks. If they plan on being in the 2020 postseason, they might want to think about bringing in some of that type of experience and Didi surely has it.
Brett Gardner
It is hard to remember many players that had career years in their age 36 seasons but you can argue that Brett Gardner just did. He had an outstanding year for the Yankees in 2019 and was a big help in them staying afloat while they were dealing with lots of injuries. He might be just the veteran outfielder that the White Sox are looking for in 2020. It surely wouldn’t be a long term addition but he would be great in the short term.
This team lacks veteran leadership and experience and Gardner definitely has that. He also has a gold glove and a World Series Championship to his name. He has spent his entire career with the New York Yankees and he might choose to retire before he left town but if he was willing it would be a great move for the White Sox.
It looks like the White Sox outfield is going to consist of Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert in 2020. They are both superstars in the making but they are both very young. They might also benefit from having a veteran like Gardner being there in the room as the fourth outfielder. He would definitely be able to show them the way and contribute to the team’s success with his glove and bat on the field.
Dellin Betances
The Chicago White Sox need a bit of help in the middle of their bullpen. They could look to a New York Yankees free agent for help in that department. Dellin Betances might also come at a cheap price because of his miserable 2019 season. It wasn’t miserable because of the fact that he was bad. It was miserable because he didn’t play. He only got in 0.2 innings for the whole season thanks to injury.
Before that, he was one of the best relievers in the game. He made up a deadly trio back in the day with the Yankees as Betances, Andrew Miller, and Aroldis Chapman were the three-headed monster that the Yankees would throw at you. The Yankees might still try to bring Betances back but he could probably be convinced to come to play for the White Sox if Rick Hahn truly wanted him to come to Chicago.
Betances isn’t old by any stretch of the imagination. He is 31 years old which is a perfectly reasonable age to believe that he is going to come back as strong as ever on the field. He has spent his entire career with the Yankees so switching to black pinstripes would definitely be a change of scenery for him but he would be very well-liked in Chicago.
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With Evan Marshall, Aaron Bummer, and Alex Colome, that could form a pretty good group at the back of the Chicago White Sox bullpen. They were pretty good in 2019 and could only get better by adding Betances if he could somewhat get back to his old self. As long as he stayed healthy, it would be a smart move to bring in a guy like that. He wouldn’t really have to be the “go-to” guy, he would just need to be “one of” the guys.