Thursday, August 05, 2004
Reuniting the 2003 Chicago White Sox
Once again, the White Sox have acquired Roberto Alomar, this time for cash and a player to be named later. This means the Sox have now acquired both of the players they traded for during July of 2003. Bizarre, but the Sox seem to really like who they like.
I find this to be a curious move, but mostly I find that the Sox are simply re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Impact? Slightly above zero. Alomar has a one-year contract, so he's not a long-term solution for the White Sox.
Assuming as you must that he will play second base and play every day, he looks to take over for the Juan Uribe/Willie Harris platoon. While getting Juan "Regression to the Mean" Uribe out of the lineup seems like a good idea, Willie Harris, God love him (and forgive his lack of power), does get on base at about a .360 clip. So I guess this means that Willie Harris plays more centerfield, moving Aaron Rowand over to right field. Not necessarily a terrible thing if Alomar continues with his .390 OBP in Chicago, but not a major improvement. Joe Borchard and Ross Gload take a seat on the bench. I guess the lineup looks something like this:
Harris CF
Alomar 2B
C Lee LF
Everett DH
Konerko 1B
Rowand RF
Valentin SS
Crede 3B
3-Headed Monster C
OK, I can see how that is a minor improvement in two ways: (1) it gets Borchard/Gload/Uribe out of the lineup on a consistent basis; (2) I assume the Harris/Rowand CF/RF combo is better defensively than the Rowand/Gload/Perez/Burke CF/RF combo. Great, but the improvement might be 1 more game won over the course of the season . . . not enough to make a difference.
Welcome back, Mr. Alomar!
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