Andrew Vaughn is not a Rule 5 pick, but if you wanted to know what it’d look like if he were, Tony La Russa’s deployment provides an incredible simulation.
La Russa is actually playing Vaughn in a fashion more akin to a platoon player. He’s started just five of the White Sox’s 11 games, and he faced a lefty starter in four of them, so it’s not particularly opaque. It just feels like something more severe when Nick Williams is the other guy playing left field, because it’s hard to identify anything Williams brings to the table besides standing on the other side of the plate.
Williams is burdened by all of Vaughn’s problems and then some, regardless of the pitcher’s handedness or reputation. He’s 0-for-10 with a walk and four strikeouts, although he’s contributed by taking two pitches for the team. The contact he makes is weaker, with an average exit velocity more than two ticks lower (88 mph to 85.8 mph). And while Vaughn’s the stranger to the outfield, Williams is the guy who looks more terrified of making a mistake out there. He plays deeper than every left fielder in baseball save Jon Jay. Here’s how the distance look limited to the context of the White Sox:
- Leury García, 293 feet
- Billy Hamilton, 297 feet
- Andrew Vaughn, 306 feet
- Nick Williams, 311 feet
And yet there’s Williams, batting fifth, and for himself in late-inning situations when he represents the tying run and Zack Collins is available. La Russa’s rationale wasn’t satisfying.
But part of the reason why La Russa’s explanation falters is because he hasn’t indulged the public with any critical evaluations. Vinnie Duber relayed La Russa’s assessment of Vaughn’s defense, and this doesn’t ring particularly true either:
“He’s put in so much time over the last part of spring training and every day,” La Russa said. “He’s out there every day doing work with Daryl (Boston, White Sox outfield coach). In my opinion, if you watch his breaks on balls, I think he’s an above average left fielder. To me, the average left fielder is the one you expect to catch in a certain radius. His defensive work is above that. Advertisement
“For me the left-field play is not an issue.”
La Russa’s next discouraging word about specific White Sox personnel will be his first, so you can only go by actions. Those say that he’d rather play Williams than Vaughn. In terms of talent, he’s wrong to do so. In terms of managing the people, it’s possible that the only available moves for La Russa are wrong.
I say this from my stance as somebody who’s written about this team every day for the last 15-plus years. I don’t like wielding the experience card because 1) it doesn’t make me right, and 2) it dares me to reevaluate some choices in my life. In this case, though, I present that badge because I’ve often felt compelled to pick sides in plenty of playing-time battles that pit a -2 WAR player against a -1.5 WAR player, and that’s what most makes me wonder what I’m even doing here.
To me, the question isn’t about why Williams is getting all these at-bats. He’s just a particularly bold form of a player we’ve seen too often in the corners of the White Sox outfield. No, I see the question as whether everybody is adequately prepared for a situation where Vaughn is overmatched.
Vaughn’s had two good swings to date, and both came on cookies from left-handed pitchers. He’s unlikely to succeed against decent right-handed pitching right now, and if he’s not starting against the Triston McKenzies of baseball, he shouldn’t be airlifted into high-leverage situations against the James Karinchaks. If he’s going to play, he should start, if only to inform La Russa over the first three plate appearances if it’s worth giving him a fourth.
I’d rather watch Vaughn get those three plate appearances most days because I don’t see the upside elsewhere. I’m also not in charge of playing a guy with no high-minors experience against a level of pitching he’s never seen, and at a position he’s barely experienced. La Russa has a reputation of putting players in a position to succeed. Phrase it a different way, and he does all he can to avoid predictable failure. It just so happens that every left field option available to La Russa is likely to fail, but Vaughn is the only one who hasn’t experienced failure at a meaningful level. Unlike other can’t-miss prospects, it’s not because he’s been great the whole time. When you think about it, Vaughn hasn’t really experienced success, either.
Williams is likely ephemeral, and if he weren’t around we might be having the same conversation about Hamilton. There’s going to be an underwhelming somebody vying for the playing time, so I find it more useful to consider the situation through the constant in Vaughn. Of course, looking through that prism, the more insane it is that the White Sox didn’t sign an extra bat for a year and force him to barge his way into the picture. Now there’s a sizable disconnect between La Russa’s words and actions, and an even bigger one between Rick Hahn’s actions and La Russa’s actions. I can imagine Hahn wanting to barge into La Russa’s office, kick over a chair and demand to know why Williams is playing over Vaughn. I can also picture La Russa tapping a placard that says “POOR PLANNING ON YOUR PART DOESN’T CONSTITUTE AN EMERGENCY ON MINE” and continuing to chew his sandwich, because he was raised in an era where you didn’t speak with your mouth full.
If La Russa sees every left field option as a zugzwang, then maybe he sees his role as picking the one that shifts the fallout to him. It’s the opposite of fun, but it’s more about crossing off the days on the calendar until Adam Engel returns and represents the clear best chance for immediate adequacy. Vaughn doesn’t appear to gain anything from this arrangement, but he also doesn’t gain anything from hanging out in Schaumburg either. His lack of regular action will only become an issue when Birmingham or Charlotte resume being viable options for a player in his position, so maybe there’s value in letting him go along for the ride and picking his spots carefully, even if it results in Williams, Hamilton, García or anybody else starting way more than they should.
Of course, there’s the real possibility that Vaughn will get a few starts over the remainder of the week and show why the White Sox planned around him. La Russa will get nailed for wasting games on Williams, La Russa will probably smile inwardly and believe the slow rollout had something to do with it, both sides are right to some extent and this post ages terribly. Vaughn has the talent to make that happen. I just think it’s useful to prepare for a situation where everybody and everything is wrong, which then shifts the conversation to minimizing the impact. A below-average left fielder may be unavoidable. Batting that below-average left fielder fifth and letting him hit for himself in high-leverage situations when clearly better options are available? That’s too close to Robin Ventura’s inability to separate deserving players from seat-fillers, and it’d be cool if that stopped immediately.
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Nick Williams is a familiar White Sox problem, and Andrew Vaughn may not yet be a solution - Sox Machine
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