Well, That Didn't Take Long

No sooner do I write about Eloy Jimenez turning into the second coming of Pete Reiser than my daughter calls with the news, “Eloy will be out five to six months.” Thanks, messenger. What to do? Well, if I’m White Sox GM Rick Hahn (and perish that thought), right off I try to avoid social media, where the wanna-be Hahns are all talking about how Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf is trying to win on the cheap, and it’s come back to bite him. A few hundred million in free-agent signings, and, waah-la, problem solved. Step right up, George Springer and/or Marcell Ozuna. You guys were the answer to stopping Eloy from being Eloy in the outfield. Of course, signing Springer for six years would’ve meant providing him with a wheelchair to play the outfield for the second half of the contract. And exactly how Ozuna qualifies as a defensive upgrade over Jimenez is a mystery to me. Injuries happen, pure and simple. No one likes it, and, with Eloy, they basically have to be expected. (Ted Williams had the same problem, too, yes?) Now, you move on, or Hahn moves on to show how he can respond on the fly. The wanna-be’s are right that Hahn has whiffed on providing organizational depth in the outfield. The question now is, can he pull a rabbit out of the hat a la Roland Hemond? Two names, if I might—Daniel Palka and Clint Frazier. Either one would make for an interesting five to six months.