Austin Hays signed a one-year, $6MM deal with Chicago over the winter looking like a low-risk buy-low outfielder. Instead, a calf strain wiped out most of his year, and now the White Sox are cutting bait entirely by placing him on release waivers just as he was set to come off the injured list.
White Sox are planning to place outfielder. Austin Hays on release waivers. Missed most of season due to injury, but was scheduled to be activated from rehab. Could be an interesting righthanded bat for a team that missed out before deadline
Jon Heyman broke the news, framing it exactly right: Hays missed most of the season but was scheduled to be activated from rehab, and now he's a righthanded bat hitting the open market for any contender that whiffed on outfield help before the trade deadline. That's the real story here — this isn't a guy getting cut for being bad, it's a guy getting cut because Chicago never had a bench spot to give him.
The numbers back that up. Hays got into only 12 games for the White Sox, hitting.233/.250/.326 with a single homer, a double, a walk and 13 strikeouts in 44 plate appearances — hardly a sample worth judging a career on. More telling was his 11-game rehab stint at Triple-A Charlotte, where he posted an.894 OPS and looked completely healthy again.
MLB Trade Rumors confirmed the move as a designation for assignment, noting Chicago has since added Randal Grichuk and Brenton Doyle as right-handed outfield options, leaving no room on the roster for Hays to stick around. It's a numbers game more than anything else.
At 31 and now healthy, Hays becomes a legitimately interesting pickup for any team that struck out on a righty bat before the deadline. He's not a star, but a proven corner outfielder who just raked at Triple-A on a rehab assignment is the kind of depth piece contenders love to grab for pennies in August. Expect calls to Chicago's front office within days once he clears waivers.