The White Sox avoided arbitration and agreed to a one-year, $1.375 million contract with outfielder Adam Engel on Wednesday.
A Gold Glove finalist as a center fielder in 2018 whose offense has improved steadily in each of his four major-league seasons, Engel, 29, batted .295/.333/.477 with three homers and 12 RBI in 36 games in 2020, a year after he was sent to Class AAA Charlotte to work on his hitting.
Primarily a fourth outfielder behind Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert and Nomar Mazara, Engel started 16 games in right field, four in left and three in center in the abbreviated season. He started all three games of the American League wild-card series won by the Athletics and went 3-for-12, including a homer and a double.
“As a guy who has been with this club four years, and for the first time getting a taste of what it’s like to get into the postseason, pure excitement right now,” Engel said. “We were expecting to advance and make a run, and that hurts that we didn’t. But having a lot of the same people back, I can’t wait to get back out to Arizona and keep working with this group of guys. We’re ready to make a run at this thing.”
The Sox signed right fielder Adam Eaton this month to play right field, with Engel, a .310/.355/.466 hitter against left-handed pitching the last two seasons, likely filling the fourth outfielder’s role and possibly platooning with the left-handed-hitting Eaton.
The Sox drafted Engel out of Louisville in the 19th round in the 2013 draft.