A Look at the Alex Rios Acquisition

(Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)

Most players in baseball are placed on waivers come August. And, when a certain player is claimed, more than often that player is revoked and stays on his original team.

A few players who are claimed are traded every year. Rarely do you see a team just let a player—and his entire contract—go to the team that claims him on waivers.

But that's what happened Monday afternoon when the Toronto Blue Jays waived outfielder Alex Rios to the White Sox.

So, the White Sox acquired Rios for nothing—on the surface. Rios is under contract until at least 2014, and he won't come cheap. He's owed $59.7 million through the end of his guaranteed contract, and he has a $13.5 million club option for 2015 with a $1 million buyout.

Rios' contract will certainly create a problem for the White Sox come the offseason, when they have to decide what to do with Jim Thome and Jermaine Dye. Thome's contract is up after the year and Dye has a $12 million mutual option for 2010.

So the Sox will have a couple of tough decisions on their hands. Rios will slide into a starting outfield spot for the long-term future, so if the White Sox do decide to bring back Dye, it'll be as a designated hitter—which is what they should have done anyway even if Rios wasn't dumped on their hands.

What's working against Dye is that he bats right-handed—like Rios. If the Sox retain Dye and let Thome go, the Sox would no longer have a left-handed bat to break up the right-handed power in the middle of the lineup.

So, even though Dye sounds like he wants to return, the Sox may end up letting him go and re-signing Thome or bringing in a left-handed free agent like Bobby Abreu.

Or, the White Sox could let Scott Podsednik go, pick up Dye's option, and sign a cheap outfielder who could lead off.

In the end, though, the most likely option is going to be the cheapest one. And that would probably mean the White Sox would bring back Podsednik and sign a cheaper left-handed DH or first baseman. The Sox better hope the free agent market is down again, because if it's not, they could be stuck with a major lack of left-handed power.

And this is all looking into the future. With Rios in the fold, the White Sox will have an outfield logjam to deal with for the last two months of the year. Rios, Podsednik, Dye, and Carlos Quentin will all have to fight for playing time in August and September.

It also probably means Dewayne Wise is finished with the White Sox. The White Sox don't have to make a roster move until Tuesday, but the Sox probably will choose to dump Wise over Mark Kotsay to make room for Rios.

It's not like Rios is hitting the cover off the ball, either. He'll join the White Sox with a .744 OPS, and unless he experiences some great offensive rebirth in the season's last two months, his OPS will decline for the second straight year.

Furthermore, his defense hasn't been as stellar as it has in the past. In 2008, Rios' outfielder UZR was 23.9—making up for the dip in offensive performance he had that year. This year, his defense hasn't been able to cover for his offensive decline as his OF UZR is just 0.8.

What's interesting is that Rios' BABIP is about league average this year, sitting at .294. In the last three years, Rios never had a BABIP lower than .324. So unless Rios' BABIP returns to those high levels, the White Sox may have to deal with paying a player $12 million a year for a .750 OPS for the next five seasons.

It's too early to make a finite judgment on this move, but Rios is going to have to make some improvements offensively and defensively to make it worthwhile.

We don't know if Williams made the claim to block Rios from going to a rival team like Detroit. But Detroit's not exactly in a good situation financially, so it's unlikely they would have had the cajones to put a claim on Rios and the nearly $60 million he's owed under his contract.

Nobody's questioning that Rios makes the White Sox' roster better on paper for 2009. But the impact he may have on the White Sox' roster in the next five or so years could be pretty big.

I'm not trying to make this sound like this move is the end of the world. Apparently Reinsdorf signed off on the money and Williams says it won't affect the team's decisions on Dye and Thome in the offseason.

Even if Rios' defense doesn't rebound back to its previous UZR levels, he's still a huge improvement over Dye or Quentin. He's not a terrible hitter by any stretch of the imagination, and he hasn't been bad all year (May OPS of .868) so maybe he can find that stroke in these last two months + five years.

We won't know the true impact of this move until the offseason, though, when Williams will have to make decisions on Dye, Thome, and Podsednik.

For now, the Sox are a better team on paper. However, they've been the best team on paper in the AL Central for most of the year and it hasn't put them in first yet, so we'll see how getting better on paper translates to wins in the division.

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