The Chicago White Sox are being forced to shake up the roster with a couple of veterans coming off the Injured List.
They already sent Brooks Baldwin down to Triple-A Charlotte after his struggles made him a candidate for a demotion when Austin Slater returned.
Joshua Palacios seemed like a clear DFA candidate to make room for Mike Tauchman's return, but in a shocking twist, the White Sox demoted both Andrew Vaughn and Tim Elko on Friday to make room for their returning veterans.
Tauchman and Andrew Benintendi are back with the team. Korey Lee will not be far behind.
You can hear the rationalization now. Elko was hitting .161 with a .188 on-base percentage and a wRC+ of 72. However, he was providing desperately needed power with three home runs and a .452 slugging percentage in 10 games.
Vaughn is finally going down too. For a brief moment, it felt like Elko's presence had an impact on Vaughn. The signal he could be replaced seemed to briefly motivate Vaughn. Once it became clear Vaughn was still going to get regular at-bats at DH, the fear of benching was no longer enough to get Vaughn out of his funk.
The Rangers had had enough of Jake Burger's struggles in April, and they sent the former White Sox first-round pick to Triple-A for a reset. It worked as Burger has a .958 OPS and three home runs since returning from Round Rock.
Sometimes, tough love is better than giving unconditional love. Maybe that will be the case for Vaughn. The demotion card should be played with the hope of getting through to Vaughn, and hopefully him coming back to reclaim his career so that he can be dealt in the offseason for something better than a low-level prospect.
But even with Vaughn being sent down, the White Sox front office still has more moves that they need to make.