Chicago White Sox

Apparently they didn’t like Escobar’s “medicals” and decided to slow down their pursuits.

The Sox will talk to other GMs though and have a chance to understand his market. The reality is if they pick up Kimbrel’s option they will be looking to unload him fast. Part of the reason why they had Nightengale leak their plans was to make it very clear to opposing GMs that they don’t plan to keep him long.

I think the biggest question to me is what the long-term plan is for 2B. Do the Sox view Jose Rodriguez as the heir apparent and target a short-term stopgap? If not, seems like he’s a guy you move right now to help the major league team. As much as I’d love to add someone like Semien, just seems like he’ll be too much money. Therefore, you’re either looking at B/C tier free agents like Escobar or trading for a controllable guy. The only option would be trading Keuchel and taking on an overpaid 2B. Not sure who is out there that fits the billing, but 2B seems like the biggest wild card spot heading into the offseason.

Kimbrel was 7th amongst all relievers with 2.2 fWAR last year. I don’t think fWAR should necessarily be the end-all be-all for relievers, but it does show just how good he was for the Cubs last year. His “past two seasons” were 35 total innings and he was only bad for the first 20 of them, which can be attributed to a lack of pre-season / COVID disruptions. I would wager some money that someone would take on his contract. Just not sure how much we’d get back, but probably not a whole lot.

Agree.

I mean, he just put up a 125 wRC+ in his rookie season. He has already been a productive major league hitter, the only question is can he sustain that production. And his infield pop up rate didn’t seem that crazy to me.

My point is this may come down to an either/or type situation, especially if we want to add an expensive RF like Conforto. For example, add Conforto at $15M per and bring back Tepera at $6M and we may only have $5M for a 2B, another reliever or two, a backup catcher infield depth, and rotation depth. Just struggling to see how we round out this roster without moving one of major league bats. Hopefully I’m wrong here, but I think we’re quickly going to run out of cash this offseason and will need to fill some with cheaper players acquired via trade.

What about 2B, reserve IF, backup C, and the bullpen? That’s not even to mention a rotation with two question marks and zero depth. How do you plan address those areas and keep all these corner guys around? Either you need to spend substantially more than what I’m anticipating or tap into the well and deal from an area of strength.

For Burger I’d look for a controllable reliever. The Orioles have a few guys that meet the billing. Cole Susler is coming off a great year, is controllable for the next four seasons, and will make near the league minimum next year. The Orioles don’t really have a 3B at the moment and could be super interested in someone like Burger, especially for a 31 year old reliever that doesn’t have a huge track record.

I don’t think 35 year old Abreu on a 1/$18M deal brings back a great return. And let’s be honest, there is zero chance the organization moves him. Reinsdorf loves the dude and he’s simply too important to the clubhouse.

Again, I’d love to have depth in the corners, but how do you address the rest of the roster if we have very little money and a bottom 5 system to work with? Jake Burger is a luxury we can’t afford to have when we have the holes we currently have.

Dude, where the fuck have you been??? You missed the entire playoffs!!!

Depth is an asset, but it’s hard to maintain depth at one spot if you have holes elsewhere and minimal means to address them. Hahn is going to have some really hard choices to make this offseason and keeping all these corner guys is likely not an option.

Did you just use the word “spectacular” to describe the OF defense that Eloy, Vaughn, and Sheets provide?

He was recovering from an injury that I believe was likely to sap into his power. At least until he can rebuild it in the offseason. Zero reason to doubt Eloy isn’t the guy we always though he was.

The more I think about it, the more I dislike the idea of rocking both Eloy & Vaughn in the OF corners. As such, the Sox need to prioritize adding a left-handed, power hitting RF who can at least be averagely defensively. And the more and more I think about it, Michael Conforto is 100% the guy we should be targeting. One way or the other, the front office needs to find a way to get this done, because I don’t see a trade option that fits all three criteria (not optimistic that Austin Meadows can meet the defensive criteria). For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume we sign Conforto to a multi-year deal that locks down RF for the near future. This would leave the following corner guys under control: Player | 2022 Age | Handedness | Control Left | AAV | 2021 wRC+ Jose Abreu (1B/DH) | 35 | RH | 1 | $18.0M | 126 Eloy Jimenez (LF/DH) | 25 | RH | 5 | $12.8M | 101 Andrew Vaughn (1B/OF/DH) | 24 | RH | 5 | NA | 94 Gavin Sheets (1B/OF/DH) | 26 | LH | 6 | NA | 125 Jake Burger (3B/1B/DH) | 26 | RH | 6 | NA | 120 That’s a ton of talent for a handful of spots and it’s clear at least one or two guys would need to be moved (primarily to fill other needs). Just to get this off the table, but zero chance they trade Abreu, so let’s consider him a lock for 1B next year. That leaves the remaining four guys to cover LF and DH and possibly provide some depth at 1B & RF. To me, I have zero interest in moving Eloy. He has by far the highest offensive ceiling on the entire team and put up a 139 wRC+ season as recently as 2020. He’s also the second youngest of the group and is under control for the next five years at a very reasonable rate. I get the defensive / health concerns, but for a team looking to improve against RHP he is simply not a guy we can afford to move IMO. When it comes to the remaining three, I think Burger is all but a certainty to be moved this offseason. His ability to play an ok 3B makes him the unicorn of the group and expands the pool of teams that might have interest. I’m 100% convinced he gets traded and likely for a controllable reliever. I truly believe in Burger’s offensive talent, but there are just too many guys ahead him in the pecking order and we have too many holes on the roster to keep him around as as depth piece. That leaves Vaughn & Sheets, neither guy I would like to move. And in a perfect world we’d keep both of them around and simply try to rotate them in at DH, 1B, LF, & RF. As we’ve in recent years, depth is incredibly important and this would be a possible to accomplish that. The challenge I see is twofold. First, it just seems like Andrew would get the short end of the stick and end up a platoon bat. Second, as alluded to many times, we have too many holes and not enough financial flexibility to fill them all in free agency. If a trade needs to be made to fill an important hole, it’s very clear IMO that Vaughn is the guy who will be able to bring back such a piece. I don’t want to see him go, but I’d rather move for him at full value then trade Sheets for 50 cents on the dollar, as the more I watched Gavin the more I became I believer of his ability to hit RHP incredibly well. Hopefully Uncle Jerry will push the payroll beyond the $170M figure I’ve got cemented in my head, but if not, I’d be willing to dangle Andrew out there if that’s what it took to strength the team.

I think 3/$48M or 4/$60M probably gets it done given he’s coming off a down year with a QO attached to him.

I don’t want to be a Debbie downer this offseason, but it’s going to be very interesting to see where the payroll shakes out. I think the magic number will end up being $170M and that’s going to leave us with very little wiggle room to work with. I know many here hated the Kimbrel trade from the get-go, but I admittedly supported it as I felt it was sign that Jerry was going to get super aggressive with the financials. Don’t get me wrong, $170M would shatter our franchise record so it would be hard to rag on Jerry too much, but that would only leave us with about $25M to work even if we dumped Kimbrel. It’s going to be a shame if Hahn traded two cheap major league assets in Madrigal & Heuer if he knew the payroll would be capped out at such levels. It’s going to be fascinating to see how Hahn approaches this offseason. We obviously have an excellent core in place, but at the same time have quite a few holes and limited means to address them. While the offense has a couple holes and may need a shakeup or two to add some much needed balance, it’s the pitching staff that concerns me the most. I love our top four starters, but there definitely should be concerns about what Kopech will give us next year given a lack of innings this year. And while Keuchel may rebound some, we need to manage his innings enough to prevent his option from kicking in and that could prove challenging with zero SP depth. And then you have the bullpen, which is an even bigger concern. Kimbrel & Kopech will be exiting and Tepera is a free agent. The problem there is we have few arms that appear worthy of a spot. Ruiz was solid this year, but I’m not a believer in him long-term. Foster & Marshall flopped hard this season and should not be counted on. Guys like Burr, Lambert, Cordero, Fry, & Stiever could factor in, but I don’t have a ton of confidence any in them. We got to find a way to add two or three legit pen arms this offseason. In a perfect world, we bring back Tepera for a 7th inning role and find a way to add a legit setup guy to pair with Bummer. Hahn really will have his work cut out for him. I expect a ton of trades this offseason and definitely could see him empty the prospect cupboard further with guys like Rodriguez, Ramos, Burger, etc moved to fill a couple of holes. Unfortunately, if we only have $25M to work with then it will go super fast. Rick will have to be creative and be willing to sacrifice some of the future to optimize the next team next season. Should be interesting to watch it all unfold.

This is nothing to lose sleep over as it was inevitable he was coming back. Just need Hahn to amass enough talent to overcome La Russa’s poor decision-making. Hopefully he does better this offseason than at the trade deadline.

Man what indeed

He has a .127 BABIP in the post-season, which is less than half his career average, and is almost certainly the victim of bad luck. If you’re going to hate, at least stick with his defense.

Defensively he wouldn’t add much and it seems like he’s a platoon guy. But the dude hits RHP pretty damn well. Just struggling to find RF trade targets that make any sense.

That would be amazing, but no way the Rays do that without throwing some other things there way plus eating some money.

How is his defense / game-calling?

McCann had a monster season! Definitely the missing link!