Alternate Plan for a $150 Million Payroll

[Lillian]

There have been lots of suggestions about how to acquire Machado or Harper. There is also a thread entitled; "Your Off Season Plan". I specifically asked how the same money that is being suggested for a Harper contract, might better be allocated to acquire several other pieces. The potential acquisition of one of the two big targets would almost necessitate additional free agent signings, in order to fill out the roster required to be competitive, quickly. It has been almost a consensus here that it makes no sense to sign Harper, without acquiring additional pieces to move up the window of contention. All of that would involve increasing the annual payroll to somewhere around $150 Million.

It would be interesting to see some of your suggestions for an alternative use of that money. Given the extraordinarily modest financial commitment, now on the books, how might the Sox assemble a competitive team, without Machado, or Harper, using that same total $150 Million annual commitment, for both one of the top free agents and several other pieces? 

[Dick Allen]

The White Sox have never had a payroll as much as $128 million. At least what they are paying out. To think that suddenly they will be riding $150 million payrolls when fan interest has been at its lowest levels, is not being realistic. 

[LittleHurt05]

Either you can sign multiple mid-tier free agents who are pretty volatile or you trade your young prospects for vets who make big money, which throws away the whole reason you did the rebuild in the first place.  

[Jerksticks]

Yea this is the unique opportunity to get value out of a big FA signing.  Anything other than Harper, and I guess Machado too, is just rolling the dice as usual on near-30 FA.  I don’t think the team is ready for the usual dice-rolling approach.  

I feel like it’s the big guys of bust (filler crap pieces). 

 

I wouldn’t want to spend $150M trying to piece in aging veterans. 

[Balta1701]

59 minutes ago, Lillian said:

There have been lots of suggestions about how to acquire Machado or Harper. There is also a thread entitled; "Your Off Season Plan". I specifically asked how the same money that is being suggested for a Harper contract, might better be allocated to acquire several other pieces. The potential acquisition of one of the two big targets would almost necessitate additional free agent signings, in order to fill out the roster required to be competitive, quickly. It has been almost a consensus here that it makes no sense to sign Harper, without acquiring additional pieces to move up the window of contention. All of that would involve increasing the annual payroll to somewhere around $150 Million.

It would be interesting to see some of your suggestions for an alternative use of that money. Given the extraordinarily modest financial commitment, now on the books, how might the Sox assemble a competitive team, without Machado, or Harper, using that same total $150 Million annual commitment, for both one of the top free agents and several other pieces? 

The White Sox cannot assemble a competitive team for a $150 million payroll in 2019 without trading away their minor leaguers, and that includes if they were to sign Harper or Machado. Therefore, the answer to this is that they need to be aggressive on the trade market, and n some cases I'm going to need to overpay to motivate teams to move players they may not want to move. I don't know that Arenado is available, but he would be a sensible target as the Rockies might be motivated to move him if they have any indication that they could not re-sign him. Since he's only under control for 1 year you might have a shot at him without moving Cease, Kopech,  Eloy, or Robert, but it's going to take someone out of our top 100. Some  version of Dunning or Hansen + Rutherford might get them interested, but I'm not sure, that deal still seems somewhat light. Maybe a deal like that would work for Rendon also? If Harper leaves perhaps they'd be more motivated to move him for depth this year. Either way, if we miss out on Machado and we want to take a 62 win team up to 98 wins, we need a major upgrade at 3b. This adds approximately $15 million to the payroll. 

Meanwhile, we also need a major upgrade at CF and this is not available on the FA market either. The Reds have been talking about trading Billy Hamilton for years, he's not particularly great but he'd be a likely upgrade over Engel.  I bet you would have a strong shot at him if you cashed in Basabe. This adds approximately $8 million to the payroll. 

Next up, we still need a corner OF  upgrade, and that's  not Avi garcia. This means we need to land one of McCutchen, Brantley, or Markakis. Signing one of them seems, as discussed in the Brantley thread, to be about a $15 million a year move, probably with a multi-year deal. This has taken me up to $90 million.

Now I've got a lineup that's at least a quality lineup, but my rotation and bullpen are still disaster areas. Right now the White Sox need 2 pitchers just to stay afloat, and even if they sign both Keuchel and Corbin, they are still relying on Rodon to stay healthy and Lopez and Giolito not to be disasters, and so I need some additional depth behind them. I'm already running into resource limits here, so I'm going to say sign 1 of those 2 pitchers for a $25 million a year deal. I'm then going to go for someone like Joe Kelly or Nathan Eovaldi and say that they can move to the bullpen if needed, and I'm going to drop him in at $15 million a year. This brings my payroll to $130 million and I still have the unfortunate worry of Giolito as a major part of my rotation. Now I'm going to be creative and go after Mike Fiers from the A's, he has 1 year left on his contract so Beane will likely try to cash in on him a-la Samardzija. Someone like Walker might be a good target here - get value out of him early.

Finally, I still have an extremely young bullpen. I am totally unsatisfied with my bullpen without an established closer. Wade Davis signed for 3/$52 and I think that's probably what Kimbrel is looking at after the way he finished this year, so I'm going to go 3/$52 for Kimbrel and hope that's enough.

This brings me in at just under $160 million. I have to hope for the best from a number of positions, the bullpen most of all,  but whoever loses out of the rotation competition can move over there and that should be another useful arm also. I think I've done pretty well with the offense, Cleveland's rotation is still substantially better so they have a legit shot at still beating us, but both teams have major bullpen worries so the division probably comes down to whose bullpen holds together better next year.

[Vote4Pedro]

I would only want this payroll if we did sign a Harper or Machado. If we whiff on both of these guys there should be no rush whatsoever to speed up the rebuild process, go with what you have and move forward as planned.

[Lillian]

1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

The White Sox have never had a payroll as much as $128 million. At least what they are paying out. To think that suddenly they will be riding $150 million payrolls when fan interest has been at its lowest levels, is not being realistic. 

The total amount is not the critical issue here. If you think that management would not be willing to spend $150 million, per year, then simply insert a number, which you consider realistic. My interest was to see how that total payroll could be employed, if neither Harper, nor Machado were acquired. I'd like to see how you would spend the money this year and next.

Edited November 14, 2018 by Lillian

[Lillian]

Another possible use of the money could involve acquiring existing contracts, in trades. One of the strategies, which I have not seen explored, is the acquisition of a player, whom the winner of the Machado/Harper "sweepstakes" might want to move, in order to free up roster space and payroll.

[Lillian]

32 minutes ago, beckham15 said:

I would only want this payroll if we did sign a Harper or Machado. If we whiff on both of these guys there should be no rush whatsoever to speed up the rebuild process, go with what you have and move forward as planned.

That would be my personal preference, as well. However, it's still an interesting question. That kind of dramatic increase in payroll presents lots of possibilities and I'm curious to know if it could be a feasible strategy. Seeing specific suggestions helps to know whether, or not, it could make sense.

[ChiSox59]

1 hour ago, Dick Allen said:

The White Sox have never had a payroll as much as $128 million. At least what they are paying out. To think that suddenly they will be riding $150 million payrolls when fan interest has been at its lowest levels, is not being realistic. 

If the White Sox aren't willing to increase their payroll to $150M and beyond in the next couple seasons, the whole rebuild was worthless.

[Balta1701]

57 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

If the White Sox aren't willing to increase their payroll to $150M and beyond in the next couple seasons, the whole rebuild was worthless.

The Astros won the world series when their opening day payroll was $117 mil (The Yankees were paying $8 mil for McCann). They added payroll during the year with Verlander and then gave Altuve a big extension afterwards...but they had a huge new revenue boost due to "Winning the World Series". Both of these things should happen with the White Sox. 

[Balta1701]

1 hour ago, Lillian said:

That would be my personal preference, as well. However, it's still an interesting question. That kind of dramatic increase in payroll presents lots of possibilities and I'm curious to know if it could be a feasible strategy. Seeing specific suggestions helps to know whether, or not, it could make sense.

Nobody bothered to comment on the one person who tried? Phooey.

[Lillian]

8 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Nobody bothered to comment on the one person who tried? Phooey.

Yes, I read your thoughtful post, with interest. That was precisely the kind of thing, which I am hoping to see, from our board.

[Chicago White Sox]

Go big or go home.  I just don’t see the value of spreading money around to fill a lot of holes.  At some point, you’ll just be blocking your young guys.  Now, I’m all for adding “bridge” guys in the near term, but those contracts would ideally be one or two years in length.

Personally, I think adding a Harper or Machado is critical to the rebuild.  We need a star that can anchor this thing without costing us a big chunk of our prospect capital.  Failure to land one of these guys puts us in a tough spot, as we’ll be forced to settle for expensive secondary free agents that are unlikely to move the needle as much as a Bryce or Manny and puts a ton of pressure on Moncada, Eloy, & Robert all needing to develop into legit stars.

[Vote4Pedro]

It will be interesting to see how they move forward if they don’t land either of those two guys. I only mention standing still at the moment for the sake of not losing sight of the big picture. If I’m Sox management my thoughts would be I’ve been down the path of instant gratification one too many times for my liking and would like to see the younger core develop just a little bit more before dipping the toes in the free agency pool and possibly having to trade away assets for guys so we don’t deplete the farm system to where it was just a few years ago. 

Edited November 14, 2018 by beckham15

[Dam8610]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

The White Sox cannot assemble a competitive team for a $150 million payroll in 2019 without trading away their minor leaguers, and that includes if they were to sign Harper or Machado. Therefore, the answer to this is that they need to be aggressive on the trade market, and n some cases I'm going to need to overpay to motivate teams to move players they may not want to move. I don't know that Arenado is available, but he would be a sensible target as the Rockies might be motivated to move him if they have any indication that they could not re-sign him. Since he's only under control for 1 year you might have a shot at him without moving Cease, Kopech,  Eloy, or Robert, but it's going to take someone out of our top 100. Some  version of Dunning or Hansen + Rutherford might get them interested, but I'm not sure, that deal still seems somewhat light. Maybe a deal like that would work for Rendon also? If Harper leaves perhaps they'd be more motivated to move him for depth this year. Either way, if we miss out on Machado and we want to take a 62 win team up to 98 wins, we need a major upgrade at 3b. This adds approximately $15 million to the payroll. 

Meanwhile, we also need a major upgrade at CF and this is not available on the FA market either. The Reds have been talking about trading Billy Hamilton for years, he's not particularly great but he'd be a likely upgrade over Engel.  I bet you would have a strong shot at him if you cashed in Basabe. This adds approximately $8 million to the payroll. 

Next up, we still need a corner OF  upgrade, and that's  not Avi garcia. This means we need to land one of McCutchen, Brantley, or Markakis. Signing one of them seems, as discussed in the Brantley thread, to be about a $15 million a year move, probably with a multi-year deal. This has taken me up to $90 million.

Now I've got a lineup that's at least a quality lineup, but my rotation and bullpen are still disaster areas. Right now the White Sox need 2 pitchers just to stay afloat, and even if they sign both Keuchel and Corbin, they are still relying on Rodon to stay healthy and Lopez and Giolito not to be disasters, and so I need some additional depth behind them. I'm already running into resource limits here, so I'm going to say sign 1 of those 2 pitchers for a $25 million a year deal. I'm then going to go for someone like Joe Kelly or Nathan Eovaldi and say that they can move to the bullpen if needed, and I'm going to drop him in at $15 million a year. This brings my payroll to $130 million and I still have the unfortunate worry of Giolito as a major part of my rotation. Now I'm going to be creative and go after Mike Fiers from the A's, he has 1 year left on his contract so Beane will likely try to cash in on him a-la Samardzija. Someone like Walker might be a good target here - get value out of him early.

Finally, I still have an extremely young bullpen. I am totally unsatisfied with my bullpen without an established closer. Wade Davis signed for 3/$52 and I think that's probably what Kimbrel is looking at after the way he finished this year, so I'm going to go 3/$52 for Kimbrel and hope that's enough.

This brings me in at just under $160 million. I have to hope for the best from a number of positions, the bullpen most of all,  but whoever loses out of the rotation competition can move over there and that should be another useful arm also. I think I've done pretty well with the offense, Cleveland's rotation is still substantially better so they have a legit shot at still beating us, but both teams have major bullpen worries so the division probably comes down to whose bullpen holds together better next year.

This says loud and clear that if they don't get Machado or Harper, potential sign and flips are the way to go. This gives up too much prospect capital just to possibly compete in 2019. Instead, wait for Arenado, Rendon, and all of the pitching to come available next year.

[Lillian]

8 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Go big or go home.  I just don’t see the value of spreading money around to fill a lot of holes.  At some point, you’ll just be blocking your young guys.  Now, I’m all for adding “bridge” guys in the near term, but those contracts would ideally be one or two years in length.

Personally, I think adding a Harper or Machado is critical to the rebuild.  We need a star that can anchor this thing without costing us a big chunk of our prospect capital.  Failure to land one of these guys puts us in a tough spot, as we’ll be forced to settle for expensive secondary free agents that are unlikely to move the needle as much as a Bryce or Manny and puts a ton of pressure on Moncada, Eloy, & Robert all needing to develop into legit stars.

Shorter term "bridge" guys was what I had in mind. I agree that other free agent contracts, which extend beyond when guys like Robert, Madrigal, Kopech, Cease, Dunning etc, arrive, doesn't make sense.

[Chicago White Sox]

1 minute ago, Lillian said:

Shorter term "bridge" guys was what I had in mind. I agree that other free agent contracts, which extend beyond when guys like Robert, Madrigal, Kopech, Cease, Dunning etc, arrive, doesn't make sense.

Who do you have in mind?

[Lillian]

3 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Who do you have in mind?

Again, I don't know and that is why I'm asking. It's just one more potential strategy, which would be interesting to explore. My point was that the front office seems to be willing to greatly increase the amount of its financial commitment, and if they can't land either of the big "fish," what else could they do with that money?

Edited November 14, 2018 by Lillian

[Chicago White Sox]

15 minutes ago, Lillian said:

Again, I don't know and that is why I'm asking. It's just one more potential strategy, which would be interesting to explore. My point was that the front office seems to be willing to greatly increase the amount of its financial commitment, and if they can't land either of the big "fish," what else could they do with that money?

I guess I don’t see why the strategies are mutually exclusive.  Adding bridge guys shouldn’t prevent us from adding a whale and there are only so many spots we can give to veterans anyway.

For example, if I can add Harper, I’d like to see the following:

• Donaldson, 3B - 2/$40M
• Cruz, DH - 1/$13M
• Lynn - 2/$25M
• Pomeranz - 1/$8M
• Allen - 1/$10M

We’d have to non-tender Avi and trade Yolmer to get the payroll around $140M, but that team would have a playoff caliber offense with a high variance pitching staff that could be interesting if enough things went right.  If not, all those guys would be tradable and/or potentially part of the 2020 team.  

What I don’t want to do is sign guys like Corbin, Keuchel, & Pollack to big, multi-year contracts that could easily blow up in our face.  Keep things short term, especially on the pitching side, and I’m all for spending to improve the 2019 product and give us a non-zero chance at a playoff spot.

 

[Lillian]

1 minute ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I guess I don’t see why the strategies are mutually exclusive.  Adding bridge guys shouldn’t prevent us from adding a whale and there are only so many spots we can give to veterans anyway.

For example, if I can add Harper, I’d like to see the following:

• Donaldson, 3B - 2/$40M
• Cruz, DH - 1/$13M
• Lynn - 2/$25M
• Pomeranz - 1/$8M
• Allen - 1/$10M

We’d have to non-tender Avi and trade Yolmer to get the payroll around $140M, but that team would have a playoff caliber offense with a high variance pitching staff that could be interesting if enough things went right.  If not, all those guys would be tradable and/or potentially part of the 2020 team.  

What I don’t want to do is sign guys like Corbin, Keuchel, & Pollack to big, multi-year contracts that could easily blow up in our face.  Keep things short term, especially on the pitching side, and I’m all for spending to improve the 2019 product and give us a non-zero chance at a playoff spot.

 

You're correct. I agree that the strategies are not mutually exclusive. However, what if we miss on Harper, or Machado?

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

49 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Nobody bothered to comment on the one person who tried? Phooey.

I think you did a good job. I'd subtract the salaries or Avi and Abreu .Maybe a combo of Palka /Davidson at 1st and see what kind of CF'er we can get for ABreu who costs less. Assuming we have Harper . He could play 1st since he really doesn't bring all that much to the table in the OF Just like when they moved him to catcher for his bat playing him at 1st is doing the same thing, I want to maximize the bat and try to get him back to hitting for 1.000 OPS and we have a good park for that Harper could hit 50 HR's here. Maybe trade for Jake Lamb or go with Moose , Marwin Gonzales or Donaldson  depending on what the payroll constraints start looking like.

If we have Machado, You could still trade Abreu and do the same things you mentioned in the OF. It takes too much time to try to figure salaries for every possible free agent and made up trades

I'd also point out that the TV contract expires after the 2019 season and with Harper a new TV contract should be larger maybe even substantially larger. perhaps allowing for a higher payroll .I too have been speculating on payroll and I read this link in the Harper/Machado thread  https://670thescore.radio.com/mlb-notes-white-sox-serious-harper-machado-chase 

"The Walt Disney Company owns more than 70 percent of MLB streaming rights going forward through its stake in BAMTech, a source said. BAMTech is a subsidiary of MLB Advanced Media that oversees the streaming technology and distribution. MLB will retain a small percentage of this joint venture.

For the right to that content, Disney paid each MLB club $68 million over the past two offseasons.

So over the last 2 seasons the Sox along with every other team got $68M which just so happens to coincide with the 1st 2 years of our rebuild, Now other teams got the same thing and many more than likely used that money in some fashion for payroll or whatever. Maybe the Sox used there's to pay for Robert . I don't know."

Those are also my comments from the other thread.

 Balta was kind enough to provide the link to the Soxtalk thread that covered this initially. The thread isn't very big but it did include some speculation started by Hot Fire  about signing Machado/Harper. I'm wondering if we can expect more payouts from this ?

 

http://www.soxtalk.com/forums/index.php?/topic/103687-every-mlb-team-will-get-an-extra-50-million-from-disney-purchase/&tab=comments#comment-3553318

 

 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

46 minutes ago, Dam8610 said:

This says loud and clear that if they don't get Machado or Harper, potential sign and flips are the way to go. This gives up too much prospect capital just to possibly compete in 2019. Instead, wait for Arenado, Rendon, and all of the pitching to come available next year.

I'd agree with this but just to eat innings we still need pitching this year and Hahn said it will come from outside the organization WHo we get depends on how good of a shot at Harper/Machado do the Sox FO really thinks we have, If our first signing is Corbin or maybe Happ then you know we have a legit shot at the whales.

[Balta1701]

4 minutes ago, CaliSoxFanViaSWside said:

I think you did a good job. I'd subtract the salaries or Avi and Abreu .Maybe a combo of Palka /Davidson at 1st and see what kind of CF'er we can get for ABreu who costs less. Assuming we have Harper . He could play 1st since he really doesn't bring all that much to the table in the OF Just like when they moved him to catcher for his bat playing him at 1st is doing the same thing, I want to maximize the bat and try to get him back to hitting for 1.000 OPS and we have a good park for that Harper could hit 50 HR's here. Maybe trade for Jake Lamb or go with Moose , Marwin Gonzales or Donaldson  depending on what the payroll constraints start looking like.

If I'm looking at a competitive roster in 2019, I cleared out Avi and used his money, but like it or not I'm unlikely to find production anywhere close to Abreu at 1b by going on the FA market even with $18 million to spend. If I move Palka or  Davidson to 1b, that's an offensive downgrade from Abreu, and if I move Palka to 1b now I need to find DH production. Palka and Davidson on the bench and filling the DH spot is totally ok with me, a bench of Sanchez, Davidson, backup OF (Leury), and Casteroid is a decent enough bench on paper that it's not a weakness and we can play around with platoon roles and fill in if/when Abreu gets hurt. If I dumped Abreu and tried to replace his production with someone like Brantley going to DH, it's almost the same money and out of the 2 I'll take Abreu.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

20 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

If I'm looking at a competitive roster in 2019, I cleared out Avi and used his money, but like it or not I'm unlikely to find production anywhere close to Abreu at 1b by going on the FA market even with $18 million to spend. If I move Palka or  Davidson to 1b, that's an offensive downgrade from Abreu, and if I move Palka to 1b now I need to find DH production. Palka and Davidson on the bench and filling the DH spot is totally ok with me, a bench of Sanchez, Davidson, backup OF (Leury), and Casteroid is a decent enough bench on paper that it's not a weakness and we can play around with platoon roles and fill in if/when Abreu gets hurt. If I dumped Abreu and tried to replace his production with someone like Brantley going to DH, it's almost the same money and out of the 2 I'll take Abreu.

I thought you weren't very high on ABreu any more. You made quite a few posts on his slippage this past year, An improved Palka strictly against righties could provide plenty of pop. Palka had an .824 OPs against righties. Davidson .882 OPS against lefties. Abreu .798 OPS. Doesn't appear to be a downgrade.

Edited November 14, 2018 by CaliSoxFanViaSWside