The signing that White Sox faithful has been waiting for finally happened!!! Well… not exactly.
News surfaced last evening from our friend Bob Nightengale that the White Sox signed Jon Jay to a modest one-year deal worth $4M. In the beginning of the off-season, I thought this would be a good, cheap move for the Sox to conisider as it helps minimize Adam Engel at-bats. While his numbers fell off a bit after joining the D’Backs, he had a hot start to 2018 within the AL Central hitting .307 and getting on base at a .363 clip through 59 games with the Royals. By my standards that ain’t too bad.
However, I’ll be the first person to admit that I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA that he had such a close relationship with Manny Machado. Everyone talked about the fact that Manny and recently acquired 1B/DH Yonder Alonso are brother-in-laws enough that I’ll remember that fun fact until the day that I die, regardless of how the Machado Sweepstakes turn out. However, no one seemed to mention that there was a third wheel in this relationship, and I don’t think many people knew that it was Jon Jay.
Regardless, this move makes me increasingly optimistic that Manny Machado will be a member of the White Sox sooner rather than later (either that or he might not like these people as much as everyone is saying). For fun, lets daydream a bit and think about what this White Sox lineup would look like in its current state, plus Machado. The crazy thing is, some pieces are still out there for the Sox taking that would improve their starting nine, such as Mike Moustakas. This will do for now though:
3B Yoan Moncada
2B Tim Anderson
SS Manny Machado
1B Jose Abreu
DH Yonder Alonso
LF Eloy Jimenez
RF Daniel Palka
C Welington Castillo
CF Jon Jay
This is obviously assuming that Moncada and Anderson will switch their positions (and that Timmy starts drawing more walks). If Machado signs, I don’t see it being too hard for our White Sox to figure out though…
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