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:
128. . DH. Chicago White Sox. Edwin Encarnacion. 23. player
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.
player. 128. . LF/1B. Chicago White Sox. Adam Dunn. 44
Adam Dunn crushed home runs for the Chicago White Sox but that’s about it.
Adam Dunn was pretty terrible for the White Sox. He had a really nice career where he made the All-Star Game a few times but it was never good for the White Sox. He was brought in when the team believed that they had a chance but we all know that they never did. He came when he was already past 30 and he didn’t age too well.
His 106 home runs that he hit for the White Sox in parts of four years were nice but his slash line of .201/.321/.410 with an OPS of .732. Dunn also had 720 strikeouts in those four years so that wasn’t good at all. It is one thing when you have lots of power but nothing else but it is even worse when a large portion of your at-bats lead to strikeouts.
Of all the teams he spent more than a year with, the White Sox were the ones that had the worst of his career. They did trade him to the Oakland Athletics at the 2014 deadline for Nolan Sanburn and cash. Whenever the White Sox try to bring in some of these guys that are past their prime, they think that they are just going to hit the fountain of youth. Sometimes it does but it surely didn’t for Dunn.
Manny Ramirez. 99. player. 128. . OF. Chicago White Sox
Seeing Manny Ramirez play for the Chicago White Sox sure was interesting.
Of all the players on this list, Manny Ramirez had the shortest stay on the White Sox. He only played in 24 games for them after the White Sox signed him off waivers from the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2010. He was 38 years old so there was no way that he was going to be the old Manny who was one of the best right-handed hitters in the history of the sport.
Ramirez was a part of that Red Sox team that ended the Curse of the Bambino. He had an incredible career that is borderline Hall of Fame-caliber. He has two World Series titles, a World Series MVP, nine Silver Sluggers, a batting title, and 12 All-Star selections. Absolutely none of that helped the White Sox when they decided to bring him in for whatever reason.
He had one home run and two RBIs so the power wasn’t there at all. His slash line of .261/.420/.319 for an OPS of .739 wasn’t bad by any means but it was all a small sample size. It was really cool to see the White Sox have a legend like that on their team for a cup of coffee but you can’t say that it worked out.
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The White Sox clearly doesn’t need to be doing any of this for a long time. Even with some of their injuries, they should be playing all of their young guys because there is way more to get out of that instead of signing someone like Albert Pujols. Stay the course and don’t sign washed-up old guys.