Chris Getz has been very active this morning, as the White Sox have made a flurry of roster moves, including a very interesting trade. However, they also announced one of their biggest off-season acquisitions will be making his return to Chicago.
According to the White Sox, they have recalled outfielder Dominic Fletcher to Chicago. In a corresponding roster move, they have designated outfielder Rafael Ortega for assignment. Ortega never really got a fair shot of playing time, so it’s likely he will return to AAA.
This move is long overdue and it never should have been made in the first place. When the White Sox traded for Fletcher, it was made known that he would get the first crack at starting in right field. While he did start, they gave him an extremely short leash and sent him down in favor of Rafael Ortega, who hardly played.
This was a confusing move at the time, and it is still very confusing. While he was not doing great, Fletcher had one of the better averages on the team before he was sent down, as the whole team couldn’t hit. But, Fletcher was the one that was sent down.
Before his demotion, he hit .206 with six RBIS, most of them coming in clutch situations. He was only given 59 at-bats before he was sent down. That is not a lot of time for someone to get acclimated, and he, like everyone else in the lineup got off to a slow start.
Now he is back in Chicago and he needs to play. The White Sox invested a lot in Fletcher this offseason when they sent a top-10 prospect to Arizona for him. He needs to be given a fair chance to get into a groove and show what he could do. Hopefully now that the White Sox are scoring more runs he can feed off of that and perform better than his first stint earlier this year.
I’m not too sure why they picked now to call him back up, as he wasn’t fantastic in AAA. He hit .238 with one homerun and four RBIs. Perhaps he improved on what they wanted him to while he was down there, but this seems like an interesting time to call him back up.
He did have a nice game yesterday, so maybe they think he can catch fire in Chicago. Maybe they are tired of Gavin Sheets in right field, as he is a defensive liability out there. But, despite him dropping an easy fly ball, he is back in right field for the game today.
This is the right move as the White Sox need to try their best to develop Fletcher, as he showed last year he could be an above average major leaguer. But, the timing is a bit weird, all things considered. I’m not sure how much playing time is out there for him, but he should not come up to sit. He needs to play most days, as he is not going to develop by just watching.
The handling of some of the top prospects by Getz has been extremely questionable to this point, so let’s hope he has a real plan for Fletcher to succeed in Chicago. I understand the value of having veterans play to maximize their returns in a potential trade, but this is a huge year for the development of younger players at the major league level. Let’s hope Chris Getz takes that into consideration with this move.
