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There has been a lot of discussion on Soxtalk and elsewhere within the broader White Sox community about the effectiveness of our offseason. Many fans are upset with the moves made so far, while others point to a strong core and limited places to supplement. As such, I wanted to put pen to paper and take an objective look at what Rick Hahn has accomplished this offseason and see if there was potentially a better path in terms of resource allocation. To start, let’s level where the team stands today. Fangraphs’ Depth Charts has the Sox projected for 47.1 fWAR this year, which ranks 5th overall in baseball. Here is the break-out by area along with our corresponding payroll allocation: Lineup: 25.2 | $80.0M | $3.2M/win Bench: 1.8 | $8.9M | $4.9M/win Rotation: 14.9 | $46.2M | $3.1M/win Bullpen: 5.3 | $53.1M | $10.M/win Total: 47.1 | $188.2M | $4.0M/win Now, what’s fascinating is that Hahn has committed $34M of this year’s payroll to relievers this offseason in Kimbrel, Graveman, Kelly, & Velasquez. Those four guys are projected for 1.5 wins total over 233 innings. That’s an effective cost of $22.7M per win. For reference, Fangraphs typically values 1 fWAR at being worth ~$8M. While I don’t believe that fWAR is the end-all-be-all when it comes to evaluating relievers, I think it’s very clear that paying anywhere near $22.3M per incremental win is an atrocious use of limited resources. So you may be asking where else should we have invested? The easy answer is 2B and the obvious solution there would have been Eduardo Escobar. Right now, our group of 2B are projected for 1.6 fWAR this year. For an additional $6M in payroll for 2022 vs. what we’re paying Harrison, we could have improved our 2B projections by 1.1 wins. That’s at an effective cost of $5.5M per win. And yes, a two year commitment would be required, but even if you got 0 fWAR out of EE in 2023 you’d be paying $13.2M, which is substantially better than return on our bullpen investment. Signing Eduardo Escobar should have been an absolute no brainer for us even with the 2023 requirement. The other obvious spot is RF. Right now Fangraphs projects us to get 1.6 fWAR out of the position, tied for lowest on the team with 2B. Now, this one comes down to what kind of production you think Michael Conforto will provide next year. If you go with Fangraphs’ projections of him being a 2.2 win player across 530 PAs, his addition would be worth a single win over our Frankenstein RF group is expected to provide. At an expected salary of ~$20M, that’s not a great way to allocate funds in isolation. But if you believe he’s closer to the 2017 to 2020 guy, then we’re talking 2+ incremental wins out of RF at a cost of $10M per win or less. And while harder to value, you also improve your depth significantly by allowing Sheets to move to an insurance role offering protection at multiple spots. Ultimately, if you take the optimistic view on Conforto, signing both him and Escobar at a combined $25M (net of Harrison - one rookie contract) provides roughly three incremental wins on the positional side of things. To fund this, you don’t pick up Kimbrel’s option and you don’t sign Kelly, which saves ~$21M (after buy-out + one rookie contract) but results in a loss of 0.9 fWAR. Yes, you are a little short, but to cover that gap you don’t extend Leury and instead hand the utility role to Romy Gonzalez, who is projected to provide very similar production next year. Overall, you end up with a team projected to win 2 more games and with less major question marks, but at the expend of less bullpen depth. That’s a trade-off worth making IMO and also makes it easier to trade Sheets / Cespedes / Popeye to address pitching needs at the deadline. Look, my hypothetical “sign Conforto & Escobar” plan is just one way to skin a cat. We could have made a harder effort for Ray or Gausman or even brought back Rodon and gone cheaper at 2B or RF. But the key point here is paying top dollar for relievers who will be pitching medium and low leverage innings is a horrible use of resources. Don’t get me wrong, we definitely needed legit bullpen help and I’m ok spending for premium talent, but there has to be a limit and 28% of total team payroll is way too much when other obvious needs exist. Rick still has a chance to undo some of the damage by trading Kimbrel and using those resources toward Conforto or a SP, but he’s quickly running out of time. When opening day hits, it will be very interesting to see if that win projection remains at 47.1 or if Hahn has pulled off some minute moves that better utilize our limited resources.