DETROIT — The auditions continue this weekend for the anticipated Chicago White Sox fire sale that figures to take place before the trade deadline.
Not everyone must go.
But the way the Sox have stumbled through the 2024 season, losing 27 of their last 33 games and falling to 20-57 after a 2-1 loss to the Detroit Tigers in the opener of a three-game series Friday, general manager Chris Getz has little choice but to be a motivated seller.
The old models must make way for new ones, a tradition unlike any other on the South Side.
While much of the media focus has been on budding star Garrett Crochet and slugger Luis Robert Jr., Erick Fedde, who took a 3.09 ERA into Friday’s series opener against the Tigers, will be one of the more heavily scouted pitchers the next few weeks.
Fedde had another strong outing, allowing two runs on five hits over seven innings, retiring the last 14 hitters he faced. But the Sox fell in mind-numbing fashion again, as Paul DeJong was doubled off first on a routine fly to center to end it.
“Just a mental lapse there,” DeJong said. “I’m worried about getting on base and just didn’t keep track of (the outs). That’s totally on me and cost us the game. Feels pretty bad, but try to do better next time. That’s all I can say.”
Manager Pedro Grifol, who spoke after his players, didn’t care to discuss his thoughts on the play. He failed to mention it in his long rundown of the game but was then asked about DeJong being doubled off.
“Did you talk to him? You asked him?” he asked a reporter.
Grifol was told that DeJong admitted it was a mental lapse.
“He already answered the answer,” Grifol said. “That’s what it is. … DeJong plays the game really hard every day. He prepares. If he says he had a mental lapse, he had a mental lapse. That’s part of it. We’re all human. That’s why you asked him the question. That’s why he answered it.”
Are those kind of lapses a byproduct of all the losing?
“I don’t think it has anything to do with losing,” Grifol said. “I just think he had a mental lapse on that particular play.”
DeJong had reached on a hit by a Jason Foley pitch with one out. A long review from Detroit’s challenge of the call might have caused him to lose his focus.
“I don’t want to make any excuses,” DeJong said. “I’ve got to know the situation. Yeah, I was a little motivationally invested in the review because of the hit-by-pitch, and it took a little bit of the rhythm out of the game for me. Just got to do better and check in once the game gets going again.”
DeJong said he didn’t hear anything from first-base coach Jason Bourgeois. He was going on the swing with two strikes on pinch hitter Andrew Benintendi and was at second when the ball was caught.
“Just one of those things,” DeJong said. “It sucks, but just got to move on.”
Fedde sprung to DeJong’s defense afterward.
“Paulie is a great guy, he’s been working his butt off all year for us,” he said. “You play 162 games, sometimes you have brain farts. I think we’ve all been there. It’s just one of those things.
“The guy is putting in work and doing what he needs to do. It’s not something to jump on him for.”
Fedde’s outing should increase his trade value, and his clubhouse leadership was on display after the DeJong lapse.
After translating his success in the Korean Baseball Organization to the major leagues and with an affordable two-year contract, Fedde will be one of the top starters available.
Now that rookies Jonathan Cannon and Drew Thorpe are getting opportunities in the rotation, and with a team going nowhere, Fedde should be dreaming about pitching for a contender by August.
“There’s an argument from a strategy standpoint to continue to bring in pitching to help you acquire position players,” Getz said this week. “There’s going to come a point where we do need to improve offensively. Though in the last couple of weeks we’ve seen kind of a turn on the offensive side, but we know long term we’re going to need some bats that show up every day and have got power, the ability to get on base, steal bases potentially based on each individual.”
The Sox are last in the majors in several offensive categories, including hitting (.219), OBP (.281), runs scored (235) and slugging (.345). That means DeJong, Tommy Pham and Gavin Sheets also could be auditioning for scouts, even if they don’t figure to bring back a haul like Crochet or Robert.
“That would be the wrong approach, from a player’s perspective and the way he needs to approach the game, to focus on whether he’s going to be here or not or whether he’s auditioning,” Grifol said Friday.
Sox players, Grifol added, should be thinking only about the Sox, which is a mindset he believes they all have.
“If you go out there and start auditioning for other clubs, you’re going to find yourself in an individual state of mind,” Grifol said. “That’s not what teams are looking for. They’re looking for ‘How can this guy help us win.’ So they’re looking for winners.”
But human nature being what it is, players’ minds can wander. And combined with the proliferation of smartphones, they’re no doubt refreshing mlbtraderumors.com, like anyone else who is interested in baseball does at this time of year.
“Until that day comes, we all know we’re White Sox, and that comes first,” Fedde said. “I know every day I show up to this ballpark and I’m playing for these guys and want to give us a chance to win ballgames. I don’t want to be embarrassed. I want to have pride in my job. And that’s what matters.”
Thorpe, who was called up from Double-A Birmingham and is scheduled to make his third start Saturday at Comerica Park, already has been part of two blockbuster deals in a four-month span last winter, going from the New York Yankees to San Diego in the Juan Soto trade in December and from the Padres to the White Sox in the Dylan Cease trade in mid-March.
Now Thorpe is considered one of the building blocks of the Sox, much as Michael Kopech and Cease were when they came up. Thorpe said he doesn’t feel that kind of pressure after what he went through.
“Two trades in the offseason, it was kind of a whirlwind,” Thorpe said Friday. “Just trying to clear my head. Obviously you’re traded for two really big players, so that gives you a little bit of confidence going in.
“It was a lot (to process). I didn’t really know what to think when it happened. At the end of the day, it’s the same game. It doesn’t matter what team you’re on or where you’re at.”
Robert was in the DH slot on Friday, which Grifol said was “part of the plan” for the center fielder, who did himself no favors Thursday by botching a routine fly for an error. Getz said Monday that Robert “certainly on the defensive side, he’s a game changer in so many different ways. An inquiring team would have to bring something that is pretty significant for us to move on some of these guys.”
But as valuable as the Sox believe Robert is, scouts watching him play with that kind of indifference surely are marking down notes in their reports and sending it back to their respective GMs. If that’s Robert’s “audition,” he’s doing it all wrong.
Grifol inserted Oscar Colás in center Friday, giving the once highly touted prospect a chance to show what he can do in the position Robert usually mans. Colás has played sparingly with Robert up and Pham mostly playing right, but Grifol said he wants to get him more at-bats against right-handers.
“It’s hard to get him in there,” he said. “We’ve got some days off with some guys coming too. I’ll do my very best to get him in there. I like his bat. I like his tools. We all do.”
Colás could also be auditioning for a new team — a change of scenery might help. It’s not just the veterans looking at the trade rumors.
Meanwhile, Class A Kannapolis reliever Christian Edwards was suspended for 80 games without pay by MLB on Friday after testing positive for PEDs.
“While we were disappointed to learn of the discipline, we are fully supportive of MLB’s policies to deter the use of performance-enhancing drugs,” the Sox said in a statement.
