Robert Valido arguably earned the title of the most disappointing player in the White Sox system in 2006, when the shortstop followed up a .288/.320/.417, 52-steal season at Winston-Salem with a sub-.600 OPS performance in Birmingham, in which he battled hand and wrist injuries in the second half. Whether or not he owns that crow, we do know is that he disappointed Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen considerably, and
he vowed to right the ship in Tucson:
"I actually started hitting early and
came out here to open some eyes. It's almost like starting over, and
I'm ready to go."
Fast-forward a month and change, and here's what he accomplished: A .159/.200/.195 line, and BB:K totals of 3:23 over 113 at-bats. He started the season at the top of the order, was moved down to the bottom, back up again, and it hasn't made a difference.
Making matters worse, he's already committed seven errors. To provide some contest, Andy Gonzalez has committed five errors at Triple-A, and he's regarded as having poor hands. Valido may make more errors than expected because he gets to more balls, but seven in a month is still too high to be excused.
Valido turns 22 on Wednesday, and while it could still be too early to close the curtains on his major-league prospects, shortstop is a position the Sox have to address when the draft rolls around next month. Unfortunately, the Sox don't have much luck at that position, whether drafting high or low.
The last time the Sox took a shortstop with the first pick was
1997, when they selected
Jason Dellaero. Dellaero had a good glove and a great arm, but the bat never caught up. He got one cup of coffee, had three singles in 33 at-bats and never surfaced again. He then tried his hand at pitching, but Joe Nathan he wasn't.
Tim Hummel was a second-round pick in '99 and played about as well as Gonzalez has played in Charlotte since 2006. He was dealt to Cincinnati for
Scott Sullivan, and I can't find anything that states he's still in baseball.
Michael Morse was a third-round pick, and he was packaged with Jeremy Reed and Miguel Olivo in the Freddy Garcia trade before
getting busted for steroids in 2005.
It's kind of sad that Morse has provided the biggest returns of any Sox shortstop prospect in the last 10 years, and he didn't make it past Birmingham.