Three hitters White Sox should try to sign

2. Edwin Encarnacion

As detailed by 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine, the White Sox have already shown interest in the right-handed slugger.

While the 36-year-old is mostly a DH at this point in his career, Encarnacion provides a lineup presence that the team would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

During his 2019 season split between the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees, the right-handed hitter had a .244/.344/.531 slash line with 34 homers and 86 RBI to give himself a 129 wRC+ and 2.5 fWAR (FanGraphs).

He wasn’t bad defensively when he played first base either as he had -1 DRS and a -0.9 UZR over 489 innings.

If the team signed him, presumably for no more than one year, Encarnacion and Abreu could split time between first base and DH.

Abreu isn’t exactly a top-notch defender at first base himself so that could allow for a nice platoon that could give both some rest.

However, McCann’s role would be largely reduced to that of a true backup catcher. In this scenario, one of Encarnacion and Abreu would be in the DH spot virtually every day and when they are not, it likely will be Grandal there instead.

That being said, it shouldn’t stop the White Sox from pursuing someone with a bat as good as Encarnacion’s. Our own Vincent Parise wrote a piece on him recently.