At the Winter Meetings in San Diego, White Sox GM Rick Hahn took a veiled shot at impatient White Sox fans when he told them that the team was in no rush to get moves done this week. Then, Hahn went and tracked down a young right fielder from the Texas Rangers that could help the club in 2020 and beyond. Tricky Rick.
Texas Trades Nomar Mazara
Chicago (AL) Trades Steele Walker
Nomar Mazara (MLB, RF)
The Good: Nomar Mazara gives the White Sox a much needed left-handed bat. The Mazara trade (along with the Yasmani Grandal signing) gives Sox manager Rick Renteria plenty of options to balance the lineup from 1-9 this season.
Mazara debuted as a 21 year old back in 2016, and while he’s been a steady performer, he’s never lived up to the future middle-of-the-order monster hype that accompanied his debut. Still, he’s just now entering his age 25 season, and there’s no reason his bat couldn’t take another step forward this year. 2020 will be Mazara’s second arbitration year (projected salary $5.7 million according to Spotrac), so he should be a relatively inexpensive piece for the team until he hits free agency in 2022.
Mazara flashed some above-average raw pop last year, posting a .200 ISO (the highest mark of his career). FanGraphs Steamer projections actually have him improving on that mark, projecting a .207 ISO for 2020. Mazara hit one of the longest home runs in the history of Globe Life off now-teammate Reynaldo Lopez last summer:
(This particular home run was aided by the Globe Life jet stream, which was enhanced when a storm the prior day knocked down some upper level wind screens. It’s still fun to watch!)
According to Mazara’s Statcast metrics, he posted a 67th percentile xBA and a 71st percentile xSLG, which should theoretically make him an above-average offensive player. His 2019 xwOBACON (I pronounce this ‘whoa bacon’), a great measure of his quality of contact, improved to a career best .414, which puts him well above the league average of .371.
The Bad: Mazara has yet to post a full season wRC+ or DRC+ above 100, or an OPS above .800 in his career. He’s never solved breaking balls. Last season facing breakers, his whiff rate was 40.9%, his strikeout rate was 37.2%, and his xWOBA was .289. It is his troubles with spin that hold back his overall profile. And it looks like he’s now fishing around in an attempt to figure it out. In 2019 his zone contact % dropped to 79.7%, his chase % jumped to 35.5%, his swing % jumped to 50.7%, and his overall whiff rate rose to 27.2%.
Defensively, I do worry about Mazara slowing down some and becoming a below average corner defender. While his 2019 Statcast Outs Above Average was neutral at 0, his FanGraphs DRS number was -4 in 2019. His range seemed to be down by every measure in 2019, with a UZR of -3.7 and a a Statcast Outfield Jump in the 23rd percentile. Also, his throwing arm in right field eroded last season, resulting in a -2.4 arm rating from FanGraphs (4 OF assists in 878 innings in RF).
Also, does he even help the White Sox compared to their current right field situation? Here’s Dan Szymborski’s White Sox team ZiPS projection prior to the trade:
If a Luis Robert/Leury Garcia time share in RF can produce 2.3 WAR, why slide in Mazara’s career high 0.9 WAR into right field full time?
Fantasy Impact - Positive
Guaranteed Rate Field posted a league best 125 HR factor for left handed batters last year according to Baseball Prospectus’s Park Factors. The run factor was 103. And the Rangers move into the new Globe Life Field this March, a stadium that boasts a retractable roof. While it’s too early for me to project the park factor impact of the new stadium, I feel confident that it will be a more neutral run scoring environment that the current Globe Life Stadium in Arlington. Also, Mazara’s left-handed bat gives him a nice path to regular playing time for the White Sox this season. He should get a little boost for fantasy (maybe that 30 HR season that everyone always projects for him?)
Steele Walker (A+, OF)
Write-Up Courtesy of Tom Mussa
The Good: First off, we are FULL GO on Steele Walker, Texas Ranger gifs.
A successful year for Steele earned him the #8 spot on our White Sox 2020 Top 30 List after his time opening for A-Full Kannapolis and then finishing out the year at A+ Winston-Salem from the very end of April. Walker has a good approach at the plate that is contact focused but still has plenty of juice to hit a decent amount of home runs a year. Although he hasn’t been able to exactly replicate the dominance he showed his junior year at Oklahoma, Walker doesn’t have any major downsides in his game.
Walker has shown that he can hit for power while getting on base a good amount of the time and not striking out very frequently. Because of this, Walker has a low risk with one of the higher floors in the system and definitely the highest floor of the outfield prospects.
The Bad: Although Steele played 81 games in centerfield last year, most scouts view his future home in an OF corner with left field more likely than RF. Also, even though he’s likely to start the year in Double-A ball for the Rangers, Walker is actually only a year and three months younger than Mazara, who is already entering his fifth full MLB season.