The 108 solves our roster issues

August 5, 2018

There has been a pressing matter throughout White Sox nation for the past weeks/months. That matter is Eloy Jimenez not being on the major league roster. Now, this is even more of a quandary for those of us that drink our nights away in the 108. And the reason is that the outfield is already pretty crowded, so there is a chance that the Eloy promotion would have a corresponding move that sends 108 favorite Daniel Palka down to Charlotte. This, at least to us, is an unacceptable result.

So we have been putting our heads together on what to do to keep him in the majors while also bringing up Eloy. And much like Ned Flanders’s parents, we came up emtpy.

Then it happened. The scout that discovered the mighty Daniel Palka slid into our DMs. Now I assume you’re sitting there saying ‘I know Palka can smash the ball a million miles, so what new info could this scout provide?’ Well, we’re happy to clue you in. In his message which was mainly about what a great person Palka is, he dropped this at the end: “He still believes he can pitch in the big leagues too.” Palka didn’t come up through our system, so our knowledge of him is a bit limited. We absolutely had to follow up on this. Turns out Palka was a reliever in college and we’ll let you decide on his level of goodness in that role:

So here is what we do, we send down a reliever, actually, let’s send down 2. We bring up Kopech and Eloy. Send one of the starters to the pen and then fill the last spot with a combo of Matt Davidson and Palka. We would have a left/right platoon at both reliever and DH. And why not? If the Sox are down 10 runs in the 8th, do you want to see Juan Minaya or do you want to see Palka and Davidson get through the final 6 of the game?

I know this sounds crazy, but is it really? Beefloaf and I have talked about how every team needs a guy like this ever since we laid eyes on Micah Owings. The guy had a career 4.86 ERA, but he also had a .813 OPS. Why not have a guy on the roster that could be serviceable on the mound for the not so important innings of the year but also crank dingers from the DH or PH spot? This probably has more value in the NL, but who knows, maybe Palka is a legit relief option. I’d much rather try this than send him down to AAA.

Last, I’ll say that we are not terribly concerned with the extra year of control that we could get by holding Eloy and Kopech down in AAA until mid April 2019. I mean, by the time that season rolls around Oprah and Michael Jordan will own the team and will spare no expense to keep them on the roster until they’re in their late 40s.