It makes sense for a rebuilding team to take a flier on Tommy Hanson

The White Sox on Monday signed veteran right-handed pitcher Tommy Hanson to a minor league deal. The 27-year-old is expected to report to Triple-A Charlotte after a stint at extended spring training in Arizona.  

Earlier this spring, Hanson was released by the Texas Rangers after posting a 6.43 ERA over 14 innings in the Cactus League. 

Hanson, who was once a prized prospect in the Atlanta organization, finished third in the National League Rookie of the Year balloting in 2009, when he went 11-4 with a 2.89 ERA in 21 starts for the Braves. Unfortunately for him, that was his finest hour. He has seen a gradual decline in every year since, and has been plagued by shoulder problems since the 2011 season.  

He spent last year with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, finishing 4-3 with a 5.42 ERA in 15 games (13 starts).  

It always amazes me how some people become outraged about minor signings such as this one. You look around the Internet, and you can find Sox fans complaining about this move, making comments such as, "This organization is such a wreck. Why would they sign a bum like this?"  

I'll tell you why: There's no risk, and it costs next to nothing. If Hanson continues to struggle, he will be released. If he gets his act together, perhaps he can give the Sox some decent innings while they go through a transitional season.  

When a team is rebuilding like the Sox are, it's inevitable that there are some gaping holes in the roster. If there weren't gaping holes, well, then a rebuilding process wouldn't be necessary, would it?  

The Sox organization is trying to fill those holes with talented young players as quickly as possible, but high-end talent is hard to acquire and it doesn't happen overnight. In the meantime, you need some veteran guys to fill in the gaps until you can either trade for or develop somebody better.  

General manager Rick Hahn knows there isn't a lot of pitching depth in the Sox' minor leagues, so he has added several low-cost, no-risk arms in free agency or off the waiver wire. Felipe Paulino and Maikel Cleto are two such pickups currently pitching in the big leagues. Hanson will eventually join Mitchell Boggs, Eric Surkamp and Javy Guerra in Charlotte. Don't be surprised if we see one or more of those four in Chicago sometime this summer.  

No, guys like Paulino, Cleto, Hanson, Boggs, Surkamp and Guerra are not going to lead the White Sox to October glory -- not this year or any other year. But as fans, we need to understand that's not what they are here to do. If you sign five or six reclamation projects, chances are two or three will end up giving you some halfway decent innings and keep you somewhat competitive at the big-league level while the team goes through the sometimes painful rebuilding process.  

Eventually, these stopgap veterans will be replaced by younger players with more upside, but until those guys are acquired, somebody has to pitch.  

No one is fool enough to believe a guy like Hanson is a long-term solution for anything. Chances are he'll be a faint memory the next time the Sox field a contending team. But, if he comes up and starts the second end of a doubleheader, or even if he gives the team 30 innings out of the bullpen later in the year, then this signing is worthwhile.

It's all part of a process. It's all a means to an end. 

If you're hurt and can't pitch, well, then don't pitch

The White Sox bullpen had a bad day on Thursday. The South Siders had an 8-5 lead after six innings and couldn't hold it. They took a 9-8 lead into the ninth inning and had the Minnesota Twins down to their final strike, but Matt Lindstrom couldn't close. The Twins rallied for a 10-9 victory at chilly U.S. Cellular Field.

I imagine most Sox fans are angry at Lindstrom. I am not. Stuff happens, and Lindstrom is hardly the only guy around baseball to blow a ninth-inning lead during this opening week.

No, the Sox reliever on my bad side right now is Nate Jones, and it has nothing to do with the outcome of Thursday's game. I'd still be pissed at Jones even if the Sox had won. When it comes to pitchers, there are two things I have little tolerance for: 1) Relief pitchers who refuse to throw strikes and 2) Guys who try to be heroes and pitch through injury. Jones committed both those sins on Thursday.

Jones entered the game in the top of the seventh inning with the Sox up three runs and promptly walked the only two Minnesota hitters he saw -- Brian Dozier and Joe Mauer. At one point, Jones threw seven consecutive pitches out of the zone. His final pitch of the day almost hit Mauer and went all the way back to the screen. It wasn't even close. Those back-to-back leadoff walks eventually came around to score, and the Twins got back in the game.

Afterward, Jones said the glute strain that affected him during spring training had resurfaced. It bothered him in the bullpen while he was warming up and continued to bother him after he entered the game.

“I felt a little discomfort out there today,” Jones told Dan Hayes of CSN Chicago. “It's kinda just in the back of your head. When you're thinking about something else besides hitting the mitt, then you see what happens. It's not good for the team.”

No, it's not good for the team. That's the one thing Jones got right today. Here's a tip, Nate: If you're hurt and don't think you can pitch effectively, tell the bullpen coach. Tell somebody, anybody. That way, the team can get somebody else warming up.

If a player says, "Hey, I'm hurt and I can't go," I can deal with that. What I don't care for is a pitcher throwing up all over the mound, costing the team, then saying "I'm hurt" after the fact. 

If you can't pitch, then don't pitch. Simple as that.

New York talking heads out of line, as usual

New York Mets infielder Daniel Murphy missed the first two games of the season because his wife had a baby. Murphy went on paternity leave for three days, which is his right under major league rules.

You would think nobody would have a problem with that, but a couple of blabbermouths on sports talk radio in New York City took Murphy to task.

''One day I understand. And in the old days they didn't do that,'' WFAN broadcaster Mike Francesa said. ''But one day, go see the baby be born and come back. You're a Major League Baseball player. You can hire a nurse to take care of the baby if your wife needs help.''

Former NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason also chimed in on WFAN.

''Quite frankly, I would have said C-section before the season starts. I need to be at opening day, I'm sorry,'' he said. ''This is what makes our money. This is how we're going to live our life. This is going to give my child every opportunity to be a success in life. I'll be able to afford any college I want to send my kid to because I'm a baseball player.''

Two points about this: First, if this had happened in July would anyone have noticed? I don't believe so. This whole tempest in a teapot is a prime example of how Opening Day games and games during the first week of the season in general are overanalyzed. The Mets didn't play well in their first series of the year. They got swept by the Washington Nationals, and in the small minds of some, dammit, someone must be blamed. Murphy is a convenient and easy target, but I really doubt his absence during those two games will have any impact on the outcome of the Mets' season. There's 159 games to go, you know?

And, second, as for Mr. Esiason, "quite frankly" he should stick to NFL talk. I firmly believe Murphy will be able to send his newborn child to college, despite missing the first two games of the season. I'm sure Murphy appreciates Esiason's concern. I know every game and every snap in the arrogant, self-important, bloated, overanalyzed NFL is treated as a matter of life and death, but that's not the way it should be.

No matter what your line of work, family should always come first. That shouldn't be a hard concept to grasp, unless you're an NFL meathead.

Bunting with two strikes ... sometimes that works

I was watching a White Sox-Reds spring training game last week when I saw Sox center fielder Adam Eaton bunt for a base hit on an 0-2 pitch. The Cincinnati third baseman was so stunned that he threw the ball away on the play. Even with an accurate throw, Eaton would have been safe.  

I thought to myself, "I haven't seen a Sox player try something like that in quite a few years."  

Fast-forward to Wednesday afternoon: With the score tied 6-6 in the bottom of the 11th inning, Sox infielder Leury Garcia lays down a perfect bunt on an 0-2 pitch. He beats the play out without a throw.  Later in the inning, he scores the game-winning run on a wild pitch as the Sox defeat the Minnesota Twins, 7-6.  

It would be a refreshing change if the Sox can find a way to score some runs this season without the benefit of the long ball. On Wednesday, only one of their seven tallies came on a home run -- a solo shot by Adam Dunn in the eighth inning.  

The Sox scored three runs in the second inning on three singles, a double and two sacrifice hits. They rallied to tie the game with two runs in the ninth on three singles and a fielder's choice. It was encouraging to see some manufactured runs with the game on the line.

Speaking of that ninth-inning rally, Paul Konerko got off to a good start in his new bench role. He led off the inning with a pinch-hit single off Minnesota closer Glen Perkins, who is left-handed. Konerko, for all his struggles in 2013, hit .313 against left-handed pitchers a year ago. He can still be effective for the Sox if he is spotted in matchups that are favorable for him.

'Don't want to get picked off here in this situation'

Good news for the Cubs: Their new leadoff man, Emilio Bonifacio, is swinging the bat exceptionally well out of the gate. He's 9 for 12 through the first two games of the season.  

Bad news for the Cubs: Bonifacio has been picked off base two of the nine times he's reached, and he would have been picked off a third time if the Pittsburgh first baseman had not dropped the ball.

I don't know if I've ever seen a guy get picked off three times the first two days of the season. Would that be some kind of record? It's hard to come down too hard on Bonifacio, though, because he's one of the few Cub hitters off to a good start. The North Siders are 0-2, having lost a pair of extra-inning contests in Pittsburgh. They've scored only three runs in 26 innings against the Pirates pitching staff.

On Wednesday, the Cubs rallied from a 2-0 deficit with a run in the eighth and another run in the ninth. They even took a short-lived 3-2 lead on Anthony Rizzo's solo home run in the top of the 12th. But new closer Jose Veras failed in his first save situation. He gave up the lead and was fortunate to escape a bases-loaded jam and with only one run allowed in the bottom of the 12th. Veras was taking forever in between pitches and seemed to have no confidence in his stuff. It's only one outing, but that performance cannot be encouraging for the Cubs, who went on to lose 4-3 in 16 innings.  

Buerhle turns back clock in first start of season  

Former White Sox left-hander Mark Buehrle had an up-and down year in his first season in Toronto in 2013, but on Wednesday, he looked like the pitcher he was five or six years ago.

Buehrle allowed only four hits over 8.2 innings and picked up the win as the Blue Jays defeated Tampa Bay, 3-0. The southpaw struck out 11 and walked just one.

It was just the second double-digit strikeout game of Buehrle's career. The other came during the Sox' World Series year. He fanned a career-high 12 in a 2-1 win over Seattle on April 16, 2005.

I still root for Buehrle, as long as he isn't pitching against the Sox.  

Opening Day 2014 at U.S. Cellular Field

White Sox left fielder Alejandro De Aza is on pace for 324 home runs and 486 RBIs this season.

OK, so that isn't going to happen, but credit De Aza for coming up with a big performance on Opening Day -- two home runs and three RBIs in the Sox' 5-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins.

It was De Aza's first multihomer game of his career. He became just the fourth Sox player to hit two home runs in a game on Opening Day. The others are Minnie Minoso, Sammy Sosa and Jim Thome.

As you can see from the picture, the weather cooperated on Monday. It was windy day on the South Side, but the temperatures were in the 60s. In fact, it was the warmest day in the Chicago area since last November. After the winter we've had, I had no complaints.

Here are a few other first impressions from yesterday's game:

1. The Sox played errorless defense. I don't know if that's going to last, but it was nice to see. I'll bet the Sox coughed up 15 to 20 games on poor defense alone in 2013. They were sloppy at times during spring training as well, so defense ranks as my No. 1 concern coming into the season. On Monday, all the routine plays were handled behind ace left-hander Chris Sale. If the Sox could just be adequate defensively, they might add five to 10 games to their win total on that alone.

2. Jose Abreu hits the ball hard. Really hard. He crushed the first pitch he saw in the big leagues for a double to right field. Minnesota outfielder Oswaldo Arcia didn't have time to react before the ball was over his head. Abreu went 2-for-4 with an RBI in his first game, and he hit the ball right on the screws three times. We'll see how Abreu reacts as pitchers adjust to him, but it was a good start for the Cuban slugger.

3. I think Adam Eaton is going to become a fan favorite on the South Side. He went 2-for-4 with a run scored in his first game, but perhaps his most impressive at-bat was one in which he made an out. He saw 11 pitches from Minnesota reliever Anthony Swarzak in the seventh inning. He fouled off several good pitches before grounding out to first base. Eaton looks like he's going to be a tough out, and just in general, he seems like he's going to be a pain to opposing teams. Sox fans like guys like that.

4. There are two types of pitchers who start on Opening Day. There are aces, and then there are guys who pitch on Opening Day because somebody has to. Sale is an ace. Minnesota's Ricky Nolasco started because, well, somebody had to start for the Twins. The difference in quality between those two guys is pretty obvious to anyone who watched this game. No surprise that Sale got the win and Nolasco the loss.

5. Sox manager Robin Ventura has selected veteran Matt Lindstrom to be his closer. Lindstrom picked up the save Monday, retiring three of the four batters he faced with one strikeout. I'm probably in the minority on this one, but I like Lindstrom over Nate Jones in the ninth inning. Will Lindstrom be a dominant closer? Hell no. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Daniel Webb takes his job before the year is over. But for me, Jones walks too many batters to be a closer. His command was spotty at best during the spring. Lindstrom will get beat at times, but I think he's less likely to give games away with walks than Jones. I'm fine with giving Lindstrom a shot.

161 games to go, but for one day, the Sox and their fans can feel good about this performance. The Sox have won each of their last seven home openers, and Monday's effort was a solid one from top to bottom.

The Tigers are crazy for giving Miguel Cabrera $292 million

The Detroit Tigers on Thursday gave first baseman Miguel Cabrera a 10-year, $292 million contract. I'll be honest: The length of this deal and the amount of dollars included shocks me. I'm floored.

Don't get me wrong, Cabrera is a great hitter. He won the American League Triple Crown in 2012 and has earned league MVP honors in each of the past two seasons. No one would be surprised if he won the MVP again in 2014.

But why did the Tigers need to do this deal now? They had Cabrera locked up through the end of the 2015 season. Cabrera was set to make $44 million over these next two years. That's a lot, sure, but in the current marketplace that's not an unreasonable price to pay for the guy who is right now the best hitter in baseball. It might even be considered a bargain.

However, Cabrera is just three weeks shy of his 31st birthday. His body started to show signs of breaking down last season. In fact, the Tigers traded Prince Fielder and moved Cabrera from third base to first base, in part, to lessen the wear and tear on his body. Like everyone else, Cabrera has a shelf life, and I question whether he will still be considered the best hitter in baseball three or four years down the road.

So why did the Tigers add eight years and $248 million to the contract of a player on the wrong side of 30? You got me. You can't even justify it on the grounds that the Tigers are in win-now mode and needed to lock up Cabrera, because they already had him signed for this year and next.

You would think the absurd contract given to Albert Pujols prior to the start of the 2012 season would be a cautionary tale for clubs. At the time he signed, Pujols was 32 years old. He had just led the St. Louis Cardinals to the 2011 World Series championship. He was considered by many to be the best hitter in baseball, and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim awarded him with a 10-year, $240 million deal.

Unfortunately for the Angels, that move has not worked out thus far. They have not made the playoffs in the first two years of Pujols' deal. The 34-year-old played just 99 games in 2013 and slumped to a career-low 17 home runs and 64 RBIs. He was even being booed by some of the hometown fans in Anaheim.

And there are *only* eight years and $212 million left on that contract. Good luck with that, Angels.

It's not too hard to envision a similar scenario unfolding with this Cabrera contract. There are decades worth of evidence that suggest sluggers decline in their mid-30s, and the Tigers will be paying absurd dollar figures for a fading superstar.

At least with Pujols, he was a free agent, and you can make the case the Angels had to go big to get the player to sign. The Tigers, in contrast, already had the player under control and were bidding against themselves. That makes it all the more crazy.

This if further evidence that oftentimes baseball players get paid based upon what they have done in the past, not on what they will do in the future. 

Here's a look at the second of my two fantasy teams

Let me start out by saying nobody should derive any fantasy baseball advice from looking at this roster. I'll be shocked if I contend in this particular league.

It's a 10-team league -- five new owners (including me) and five returning owners. The five returning owners got to keep up to five players from last year, with the stipulation they couldn't keep their first-round draft pick from last season. That means there were still some elite players on the draft board, like Miguel Cabrera, Robinson Cano and Clayton Kershaw. All those guys were first-round picks in this league last year, and therefore could not be "kept" by any of the returning owners.

Nevertheless, some elite guys who were *not* first-round draft picks last year were kept and were not available in this draft. That list of players included Mike Trout, Bryce Harper, Paul Goldschmidt and Andrew McCutchen -- all of whom certainly would have been drafted in the first round had they been available.

I had the 10th pick out of 10, so pretty much all of the real top-flight guys were gone by the time I made my first pick. They were either kept by returning owners, or selected in the nine picks made before mine. I knew I was behind the eight-ball no matter what I did, but I ultimately decided to take Troy Tulowitzki with the 10th overall pick and Jason Kipnis with the 11th. If nothing else, I had my middle infield set, and those positions are traditionally harder to fill than first base or any of the outfield spots.

Without further discussion, here's the team I drafted:

C: Brian McCann
1B: Eric Hosmer
2B: Kipnis
SS: Tulowitzki
3B: Manny Machado
LF: Mark Trumbo
CF: Michael Bourn
RF: Jay Bruce
Util: Mike Napoli
Util: Coco Crisp
BN: Jhonny Peralta
BN: David Freese
BN: Kelly Johnson

SP: Cole Hamels
SP: James Shields
SP: Julio Teheran
SP: Matt Moore
SP: Sonny Gray
SP: Justin Masterson
SP: Chris Tillman
RP: Trevor Rosenthal
RP: Grant Balfour
RP: Tommy Hunter

It should be noted I've already made two roster moves since the draft. Bourn is going to start the season on the DL, so I added another speedy outfielder in Ben Revere, who surprisingly was left undrafted in this league. I think he's a decent sleeper this year. In addition, another owner dropped Chase Headley, so I quickly snapped him up and released Freese, who is coming off a rough year and has had a poor spring.

Much like my other team, I'm taking a chance on Machado getting healthy and returning to form at third base. He's not going to be ready for the start of the season, so I needed a decent backup. Headley was the guy I wanted for that role all along, but somebody drafted him before I could get to him. I settled for Freese, but I was delighted earlier this week to see that Headley became available for nothing. I see him as a reasonable stopgap in the short run.

Have I mentioned yet there's one guy in this league who had Trout, Goldschmidt, McCutchen and Dustin Pedroia as his keepers? And, oh yeah, he drafted Kershaw, Jose Fernandez and Justin Verlander with his first three draft picks. That team is completely stacked, and it's hard not to feel like the rest of us are playing for second.

Me? I'll be lucky to finish in the top half of the league. Maybe next year.

Adrian Nieto not much of a risk for White Sox

Catcher Adrian Nieto's agent broke the news on Twitter the other day that his client would leave spring training as the backup catcher for the White Sox to start the season.

Nieto's victory in the backup catcher derby might not be so surprising considering the other options the Sox had behind anointed starter Tyler Flowers. It's also not surprising considering the roster constraints on each option, namely that as a Rule V pick, Nieto would have to be offered back to the team he was drafted from last winter, while Josh Phegley has options and Hector Gimenez is terrible.

Now all that remains to be seen is if the 24-year-old who has never played above Class A can make the leap to the big leagues.

Nieto's hit .254/.346/.385 in the minors over just more than 1,400 plate appearances, including his .282/.371/.446 line last year that tantalized the Sox enough to grab him from the Nationals' system.

If Nieto just started to put things together as a hitter last year, the Sox are risking his progress by giving him a job where he won't get many reps, and will be getting tossed in the deep end of the talent pool and asked to swim when he does.

You could say that's not the Sox's problem. They only need a capable backstop for the days Flowers isn't in the lineup. And Nieto doesn't seemed all that concerned about this roadblocking his career, either.

Can he handle the job? Maybe we'd have to ask how bad he'd really have to be to not be able to handle it.

Here's a look at what the White Sox have gotten out of their backup catchers over the last two decades, at least the guys who have gotten at least 50 plate appearances:

2013
Phegley: .206/.223/.299
Gimenez: .191/.275/.338

2012
Flowers: .213/.296/.412

2011
Flowers: .209/.310/.409
Ramon Castro: .235/.307/.456

2010
Castro: .278/.328/.506

2009
Castro: .184/.262/.382

2008
Toby Hall: .260/.304/.333

2007
Hall: .207/.225/.241

2006
Sandy Alomar: .217/.255/.348
Chris Widger: .181/.265/.263

2005
Widger: .241/.296/.383

2004
Alomar: .240/.298/.305
Jamie Burke: .333/.386/.402

2003
Alomar: .268/.281/.407

2002
Alomar: .287/.309/.485*
Josh Paul: .240/.302/.279

2001
Mark Johnson: .249/.338/.382
Paul: .266/.327/.410

2000
Brook Fordyce: .272/.313/.464
Paul: .282/.338/.423

1999
Johnson: .227/.344/.338

1998
Charlie O'Brien: .262/.303/.390
Robert Machado: .207/.254/.342

1997
Ron Karkovice: 181/.248/.333*
Tony Pena: .164/.250/.179

1996
Chad Kreuter: .219/.308/.368
Pat Borders: .277/313/.383

1995
Mike LaValliere: .245/.303/.337

1994
LaValliere: .281/.368/.331

* -- Alomar started more games than Johnson through mid-May, but was slowly phased to the bench before being traded to Colorado. Johnson had a solid April, but hit .204/.284/.280 the rest of the year.
** -- Karkovice started 1997 as the starter but was benched after the Sox traded for Jorge Fabregas
who hit .280/.302/.382 in the finest season of his career.

If you think that's a generally depressing list, I'd implore you to get over the idea that your life is miserable if every second isn't packed with happiness. COME ON! THESE ARE BACKUP CATCHERS!

There doesn't even seem to be much correlation between having a good backup catcher and competitive seasons.

Castro is the gold standard for backup catchers of the post-strike Sox, and his talents were wasted on teams from 2009-11 that had stabbed themselves in the heart with daggers like "Josh Fields and Chris Getz, Starting Infielders," not to mention unpredictable events like "Adam Dunn and Alex Rios, Historically Bad Seasons."

Alomar kept turning up, probably because of familiarity with the front office. The Sox tried to work in some prospects, like Flowers, Machado, Paul and Johnson, with none of them panning out unless Flowers gets it together. Then it's whatever journeyman or veteran they could dig up.

The Sox won a World Series with Widger as their backup catcher. They won divisions or were at least competitive competitive with guys on their last legs like Alomar, LaValliere and Hall back there. Not a single season was tanked because a youngster couldn't get his big league legs beneath him.

Of a more pressing concern is what the Sox get from the starting catcher this year. If Flowers falters again, we'll likely see Phegley again before Nieto is pressed into expanded duty. Or if someone like Kevan Smith tears up the minors for a few months, maybe he'll get a turn to be cannon fodder. The pipeline of catching talent is pretty dry, though, thus necessitating the drafting of Nieto and hoping he could stick.

If everyone fails, the future of the position doesn't look all that different than it did before last offseason began. That would be a bummer because that's another year of flailing at catcher, presumably while the Sox are another year closer to (hopefully) being a contender again. Though to be fair to Sox GM Rick Hahn, if there were a better option out there, I don't know what it is, so I can't really fault him for not finding it. They'll just have to try again next offseason.

In the meantime, there's not really much harm in the Sox seeing what they have now in Nieto, even if the only way to do it is to give him a job he might not be ready for.