First round of prospects purged from MLB camp, nicks and scrapes accumulate
/As far as PROSPECTS go, the White Sox sent shortstop Tim Anderson down to minor league camp Wednesday, along with right-hander Tyler Danish.
White Sox "prospects" got sent down from major league camp in the sense that many of the guys they sent down appear on organizational prospect lists, their status as employees of the White Sox is "prospects," because if it wasn't, management would have to consider why they're employing these guys.
If someone asks to hear about some Sox prospects, you wouldn't tell them about Trayce Thompson, Matt Davidson, or Kevan Smith anymore. Thompson goes to Triple-A after hitting 7-17 in official games, smacking a home run, only striking out once, and perhaps most importantly, looked flashy in the outfield, launched a cruise missile in from centerfield for an outfielder assist at home, and made his realistic future as a spare outfielder look attainable. It's disappointing that it's come to this, but that there's something tangible at the MLB level for him at all is some solace. For Davidson, we'd rather just write-off his lethargic start to Spring alongside with the rest of his Sox career than pretend it means anything.
Smith has done nothing wrong other than a be catcher who mashes significantly younger competition all the time has thankfully become a less important element of the Sox farm system as years have passed.
Also leaving the major leagues are a pair of fringe roster contenders. Infielder Tyler Saladino is basically a developmental version of Emilio Bonifacio or Gordon Beckham, a lower-ceiling but usable utility type, whose roster hopes dimmed as Micah Johnson made a legit surge for winning the role right out of camp. Nieto was a competitor for the backup catcher role on the basis that he held for all of last season, but the artifice of that move has quickly been stripped away.
“He really missed out on a fair amount of development time. I’m sure he would have preferred to spend the year in its entirety in the big leagues, but he understood from a development standpoint that he missed some time, and this is in his long-term interests.”
Yes, shame how he lost that development time last season while the Sox executed a scheme to steal him from the Nationals and sneak a Double-A player into their system by letting him stink it up in the bigs during a lost season. Just a shame.
Raw and powerful six-foot, seven-inch Michael Ynoa was sent down to Double-A along with Raul Fernandez. Also sent down were org soldiers Dan Black, Jared Mitchell, Andy LaRoche, and J.D. Martin.
He's probably a whiff-laden mess who will never make it, but it nice to see Courtney Hawkins is still sticking around.
Injuries
There's a really impressive slate of replies missing Heyman's point and begging for attention for a specific major injury. Heyman is not addressing the blowouts that immediately call for surgery, but how every nagging injury is removed from the urgency brought by daily games that count. Guys missing games are shrugged off since they're not pushing themselves to get in the lineup anyway. Everything is a precaution.
Right now, the Sox are resting Adam LaRoche's back, holding Jesse Crain out of his debut in live action due to "arm soreness," thanking their lucky stars Danish wasn't more badly hurt by a liner that nearly struck his elbow, and still hoping Chris Sale's purple foot recovers in due time. They're all survivable on their own, LaRoche has back problems in his history, any hiccup with Crain could be his undoing at this point, Danish is already an arm injury waiting to happen, and "broken foot with swelling" isn't complication-proof. Enough marginal injury concerns and something is bound to have more complications, even if it seems like they haven't reached that critical mass yet.
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