Oh wow! Nick Madrigal hit a home run in the Chicago Cubs win over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday. How could the White Sox trade away such a good player?
Well, Nick Madrigal's absence is not the reason the Chicago White Sox are bad. That home run was his fourth in his MLB career which has spanned 208 games. At 26 years old, that is no big deal.
He was drafted fourth overall by the White Sox in 2018 because of his ability to put the ball in play. He has almost no power but he can slap singles all over the field. His batting average is high but his OPS is low.
He also isn't an everyday player for the Cubs right now. They have other players that can play his positions defensively better and he does not excel at hitting enough overall. His offense is usually pretty one-dimensional.
The Chicago White Sox are not losing sleep over the lack of Nick Madrigal.
Although he hit a big home run in the comeback effort for the Cubs against the White Sox, the Sox shouldn't miss him all that much. He really isn't that good of a player.
If the Sox were smart, they'd try to get a second baseman much better than him. It has been a position of weakness for years and Madrigal could have been a stop-gap but he isn't who you'd want there ideally. It didn't take long after his injury in 2021 to realize that fact.
Madrigal and Codi Heuer became Cubs because the White Sox wanted to add Craig Kimbrel. Honestly, that was the right move at the time but it just didn't work out. It is unfortunate because the White Sox bullpen would have been elite if he panned out.
The White Sox have much bigger issues at hand than worrying about what Nick Madrigal is doing on the North Side. That is far from a problem. He isn't anything special as a hitter or a fielder.