Chicago White Sox: Three times signing old stars went wrong

The Los Angeles Angels surprised the baseball world on Thursday when they decided to cut bait with Albert Pujols. He had been with the organization for a very long time and was great. He is one of the greatest hitters in the history of the sport and will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. There was a narrative out there that he would be a perfect fit for the Chicago White Sox which is just not true.

It is a good thing that Bob Nightengale has reported that the White Sox will for sure not think about bringing him in. It has never worked out for the White Sox when they brought in older former star players. There are some notable times of that happening and it absolutely not working out for the White Sox:

Edwin Encarnacion was an exciting signing by the Chicago White Sox but it didn’t work out.

The Chicago White Sox thought that Edwin Encarnacion was going to be their short-term answer to the designated hitter position. He had a brilliant career up to that point in 2019 when he signed but 2020 was a disaster. He hit 10 home runs in 60 games which is a nice total for an older player but the rest of his numbers were brutal.

It would have been nice to see him play well because his personality was a great fit with the White Sox in 2020. He was the elder statesman on a very young team which was probably a lot of fun but he made them worse. It was much smarter to use one of Yasmani Grandal or James McCann as the DH when the other was catching. It was fun when it was first announced but it certainly didn’t work out.