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White Sox Rumors: Sox to sign Dioner Navarro

This is probably the answer to the puzzle wrapped in an enigma that was the Tyler Flowers non-tendering.

By Steve_p
Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Last night, Colleen Kane of the Chicago Tribune reported that the White Sox move to non-tender Tyler Flowers was "part of a plan." As seen last season when the Sox suddenly had five catchers after the addition of Rob Brantley, Rick Hahn signaled pretty clearly that a move was coming which eventually sent Josh Phegley to the A's in the Jeff Samardzija deal. It seems that Rick Hahn was a little quicker on making the next move this season.

At 31, Navarro has already played in 12 major league seasons and is a free agent after two seasons in Toronto.  He's also hit .255/.313/.375 over his career.  His value, however, comes as a lefty-masher.  Although he's a switch hitter, he's a .270/.336/.439 hitter against lefties for his career.  Since he's never caught more than 117 games in a season, and being on the right hand side of the platoon is probably best for him overall.

Also, while his catching defense isn't as good as Tyler Flowers, other than a terrible 2014, his framing and blocking skills have been roughly average over his career.  He also caught 112 games for Toronto in 2014 so Navarro may be best used in moderation.

This move, of course, isn't official and is still pending a physical which presumably will be happening today or tomorrow.   No money has been reported yet either so we'll update as more information is available.

Update:

Rick Hahn mentioned yesterday that the Sox were trying to work out a deal with Jacob Turner.  That appears to have happened.

The amount is a bit above what was guessed by MLB Trade Rumors, but since he made $1 million last season, this seems like an appropriate raise in arbitration.  In the comments, there's been some speculation that this amount is the major league salary of a minor league contract with a spring training invite. If that's the case, the amount is the same as what Matt Albers received last season.

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