Welcome Nomar Mazara…

THE MOVE YOU’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR…….

Much tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram semi-nudes, blog posts, podcasts, and drunken bar words have been focused on the White Sox RF hole and it’s potential solutions and now we have some concrete evidence as to the direction our team is going. The White Sox, with a trade went out and got a left handed hitting 24 year old (will be 25 next season) to man RF, for now.

There has been some early discussion about Mazara being a “platoon” player, basically a guy who will log ~450 PA against RHP (mostly) because he can hit RHP and can’t hit LHP. I’ll be the first to push back on that notion, as you can see below, over the last 3 years he has been merely average vs RHP and doesn’t stack up great vs his potential competition in sitting on the throne which is RF in Sox Park.

Nope, yours truly, the BeefLoaf believes this is entirely an upside play. It looks like the mid 2000’s White Sox swimming around and going against the current to try and grab a young player with potential that hasn’t realized it. I tried to run a comparison of similar players as Mazara, corner OF/1b/DH types with > 2,000 PA and less than 5 bWAR by through age 25. This list is well, interesting……

That’s right, 3 mufuckas. As you can see you have to be a pretty talented bat first prospect to be allowed to even play that much with so little production. Delmon Young puttered out after this, not really logging any meaningful seasons. Paul Konerko on the other hand, went on to a great career. The sample is small, but the White Sox have waded into this pool before.

This trade is just so White Soxy I can’t help but think of another White Sox player that fits the age and timing of this sort of trade better.

Anyone else remember this trade? Quentin was 100% NOT the big off-season acquisition going into 2008, that was Nick Swisher *fart noise* however, Quentin who it wasn’t really sure how he fit into the 2008 team ended up being an MVP candidate. I’m in no way predicting such results from Mazara, but I think the White Sox at least feel comfortable again poking around the trade markets and taking some risk in the process. I hope this isn’t the last move, I’d like to see one more of these. Another move like this for such a cheap acquisition cost is a nice way to acquire “potential” right now talent and let the chips fall where they may.

-BeefLoaf