White Sox Rumors: Team should avoid Nomar Mazara trade

The Chicago White Sox are reportedly in hot pursuit of Texas Rangers outfielder Nomar Mazara. Here’s why the team should pass on the slugger.

The Chicago White Sox are finally on the threshold of contention.

After a difficult but optimistic season in which the South Siders finished 72-89, the team is finally in a position to put the veteran glue around the young pieces in the franchise and contend for a playoff spot.

The club has already been linked to veteran studs, including Zack Wheeler, Madison Bumgarner and others.

The team locked up arguable face of the franchise Jose Abreu to a three-year contract extension and signed free agent catcher Yasmani Grandal to a four-year deal.

While the Sox need to acquire some more talent to surround the prospects, it’s obviously crucial that the team adds the right talent and doesn’t just throw their money and talent at players who wouldn’t help their playoff chances.

In previous years, it’s pretty safe to say that they’ve made some pretty bad signings when it comes to offensive talent.

In December of 2010, the Sox signed 1B/DH Adam Dunn to a four-year, $56 million deal. The signing proved to be awful, as he posted just a .201/.321/.410 slash line with 106 home runs.

Not even three months after the team then traded Dunn to the Oakland Athletics, they followed it up with another ill-advised signing that involved Adam LaRoche taking over for Adam Dunn.

Although LaRoche’s deal was only for two-years, $25 million, it again failed to pay off. LaRoche left the team after a terrible season of .207/.293/.340 with 12 HR and 44 RBI. He struck out 133 times.

LaRoche never saw a second year with the White Sox, instead walking away from the game in an odd sequence of events involving Kenny Williams asking LaRoche to limit his son’s time in the clubhouse.

You’d think that the team would learn from their mistakes. But alas, here we are in the year 2019 and the White Sox are again in heavy pursuit of a power hitting left-hander with an unimpressive on-base percentage and a high strikeout rate.

According to numerous reports, the Sox are in “heavy pursuit” of Texas Rangers outfielder Nomar Mazara.

I mean, COME ON.

In four years at the big league level, Mazara has hit .261/.320/.435 with 79 HRs. He’s struck out 463 times.

Though Mazara is different from the aforementioned moves like Dunn and LaRoche in that he’s a young power-hitter with another two years of team control, is it really worth it for the Sox?

Mazara earned $3.3 million last season and should go up a bit from there. He received a $2.7 million pay bump last year from his third year in the league.

The Sox don’t need another power-hitting, low on-base bat in the lineup. They already have a solid amount of power between Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez and eventually prospects like Luis Robert.

Instead of trading assets for a guy like Mazara, the team is much better off putting them towards pitching or a more versatile and reliable bat.

Whether they do that remains to be seen, although we may have an answer in the near future if talks are indeed moving rapidly as reports suggest.