By Roger Wallenstein
“While we can look at a stat line or you can look at a box score and say, ‘This guy looks like he’s doing well, looks like he’s ready,’ our checklist that we want these guys to answer is a little more lengthy than that. And not until they’ve answered all those questions we have for them at the minor league level will we promote them. They know what’s on the list. I’m not going to sit here and tell you things our players can’t do.”
So spoke White Sox general manager Rick Hahn a couple weeks ago when the media applied gentle pressure about the likelihood of top prospects Eloy Jimenez and Michael Kopech arriving soon on the South Side for their major league debuts.
You could excuse Sox fans a week ago for heightened pulses and eager anticipation when Leury Garcia pulled a hamstring and went on the DL. The Yankees were coming to town for a Monday-Wednesday three-game set, which they wound up sweeping. ESPN was televising Monday’s game even though the New Yorkers were on a five-game losing streak including four to the front-running Red Sox to extinguish any hope the Yanks had of overtaking the Boston group. Aaron Judge, the Yankees’ behemoth slugger, wasn’t even going to play because of a chip fracture in his right wrist.
What merited Monday’s game to be nationally televised? Was this to be Eloy Jimenez’s introduction not only to Sox fans but to fans across the country? Did ESPN possess some secret knowledge about Hahn’s master plan?
Read More
Posted on August 13, 2018
