White Sox agree to 1 year deal with INF Josh Rojas

[WestEddy]

1 hour ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

A waste of what? Jerry’s dollars? You’re worried about his money?

I really don't need JR to light money on fire just to prove to me he's "trying to win". 

[Chicago White Sox]

1 hour ago, Look at Ray Ray Run said:

Ahh see, this is where they're getting you. Don't let them trick you with their shenanigans. The White Sox have had periods where they were top 10 in spending when they were winning - this has been the case for much of my lifetime. They've been top 10 in spending 7 times since 2000 and only ONE time post rebuild.

The main difference is this regime committed to a rebuild where they spent NO money.

They had three years of payrolls below 100 million after having surpassed 100 million in 2007. They saved probably 80-100 million plus in those years then they came out and they spent only on internal players and ran one year with a top 10 payroll. They were 26, 29, 25th and 20th in baseball in payroll during the rebuild and coming out of it.

They then ran 15th, 7th and 14th During their window where they were supposed to spend the money they saved. They should have spent way more money than they ever had, relative to the league, but instead they just returned to their standard level of spending (relative to the league) that had already existed for two decades.

And this is where I have to disagree.  I think the Sox have been operating at a loss every year since 2020 or essentially our entire competitive window and into last year.  Do I think they reinvested every single dollar from the previous rebuilding seasons back into the team?  Probably not, but I don’t think it’s as egregious as you’re making it out to be.  I’m guessing there are small dividends made out to the various owners on a semi regular basis, but I truly believe they put the vast majority of their earnings back into the team.

And don’t get me wrong, I think they should have spent more.  If Jerry would have invested more into the team at the front end of the competitive window, maybe we make deeper October runs and we get more playoff revenue that untimely pays for those investments.  Unfortunately he doesn’t operate that way because he wants to avoid the risk of big losses in a given season.  And no doubt, Covid gave Jerry another excuse to tread lightly with spending early on.

Ultimately, I can say with certainty the bigger issue was how we allocated our dollars.  $200M in payroll should be more than enough to be highly competitive in the AL Central on a yearly basis.  But when so much of that money is going towards, role players, over the hill veterans, and Dallas fucking Keuchel instead of actual impact talent you aren’t going to get much bang for your buck.  It was a poor allocation strategy partially driven by Jerry’s complete risk aversion and partly driven by Hahn’s failure to develop a second wave of cheap young talent.

[Chicago White Sox]

52 minutes ago, Tony said:

I also disagree with this. As Ray pointed out, if there was history to tell us “ok the payroll is going to be historically low but when guys start to develop, that saved money is going right back into the payroll” but that’s not how it works. It’s just going into the pockets of ownership.

This team still has no foundation. Is signing Santander going to make a Sox a contender? Absolutely not. Is he going to make the lineup better? Yes, and he’s not going to be blocking anyone, because there is no one to block. 

So you want to give Santander say 5/$100M for his age 30 to 34 seasons?  The general rule of thumb is that dudes start losing about 0.5 fWAR per season upon reaching 30 years of age.  Obviously the fall-off isn’t always linear, but theoretically this would be what you’re getting in terms of fWAR each year:

• 2025: 2.8
• 2026: 2.3
• 2027: 1.8
• 2028: 1.3
• 2029: 0.8

So if all goes right, maybe we are competitive by 2027.  During our competitive window, we’d be getting a 1.3 win OF on average for a total outlay of $100M.  That is simply bad resource allocation and long-term roster building.  These type of moves just don’t make sense when you are at least three years out of competing, especially for free agents already in their 30’s.

And don’t get me wrong, a $60M payroll is a joke.  We should be spending some money on flip candidates that come without long-term commitments.  But now is not the time to pay market prices (and realistically a premium to pick us) for B tier free agents.  We simply need more building blocks in place before making these type of outlays.

[Fielder Jones]

This is a Josh Rojas MEGA-thread

[Tony]

20 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

So you want to give Santander say 5/$100M for his age 30 to 34 seasons?  The general rule of thumb is that dudes start losing about 0.5 fWAR per season upon reaching 30 years of age.  Obviously the fall-off isn’t always linear, but theoretically this would be what you’re getting in terms of fWAR each year:

• 2025: 2.8
• 2026: 2.3
• 2027: 1.8
• 2028: 1.3
• 2029: 0.8

So if all goes right, maybe we are competitive by 2027.  During our competitive window, we’d be getting a 1.3 win OF on average for a total outlay of $100M.  That is simply bad resource allocation and long-term roster building.  These type of moves just don’t make sense when you are at least three years out of competing, especially for free agents already in their 30’s.

And don’t get me wrong, a $60M payroll is a joke.  We should be spending some money on flip candidates that come without long-term commitments.  But now is not the time to pay market prices (and realistically a premium to pick us) for B tier free agents.  We simply need more building blocks in place before making these type of outlays.

I didn’t say I wanted to give Santander 5 years at 100 million, you did. 
 

I’ll make it simpler for some folks:

- I want more quality players on the Sox 

- I don’t want to see the team I root for win 50 games a season consistently. 

- I don’t have an issue spending money while the team is “rebuilding” 

- I don’t really care if the contract doesn’t work out as intended, and I have an expectation as a fan that a team won’t let that contract get in the way from achieving the ultimate goal of winning, especially when their isn’t a salary cap in baseball. 
 

I don’t expect the White Sox to do any of the above. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be what the standard is. 

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

24 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

So you want to give Santander say 5/$100M for his age 30 to 34 seasons?  The general rule of thumb is that dudes start losing about 0.5 fWAR per season upon reaching 30 years of age.  Obviously the fall-off isn’t always linear, but theoretically this would be what you’re getting in terms of fWAR each year:

• 2025: 2.8
• 2026: 2.3
• 2027: 1.8
• 2028: 1.3
• 2029: 0.8

So if all goes right, maybe we are competitive by 2027.  During our competitive window, we’d be getting a 1.3 win OF on average for a total outlay of $100M.  That is simply bad resource allocation and long-term roster building.  These type of moves just don’t make sense when you are at least three years out of competing, especially for free agents already in their 30’s.

And don’t get me wrong, a $60M payroll is a joke.  We should be spending some money on flip candidates that come without long-term commitments.  But now is not the time to pay market prices (and realistically a premium to pick us) for B tier free agents.  We simply need more building blocks in place before making these type of outlays.

MLBTR projects Santander at 4/$80M. And yes, I would do that deal as well as Alonso and Kim. Everyday lineup would be the best in the ALC with those additions and any type of moderate bounce back from Robert. Still payroll would be no more than $125M over the next couple years. By next year they could even let guys like Vaughn, Rojas, Slater, Tauchmann walk backfill with league min guys and use the proceeds to fill another hole all while keeping the team payroll at a well below league average number.

[Balta1701]

14 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

I’m saying we’ve been royally fucked from both poor process and bad luck.  Not all fanbases have to deal with both like us.

See I don’t buy that they had bad luck at all. They had a top 3 pick in a draft that so far has produced 7 all stars, that’s excellent luck. The 2019 draft looks to suck fine that’s the one bit of bad luck, but in 2020 despite all the weirdness they had a college pitcher who threw 103 fall to them and he turned into an all star. Seems pretty good luck to me.

[Chicago White Sox]

8 minutes ago, Tony said:

I didn’t say I wanted to give Santander 5 years at 100 million, you did. 
 

I’ll make it simpler for some folks:

- I want more quality players on the Sox 

- I don’t want to see the team I root for win 50 games a season consistently. 

- I don’t have an issue spending money while the team is “rebuilding” 

- I don’t really care if the contract doesn’t work out as intended, and I have an expectation as a fan that a team won’t let that contract get in the way from achieving the ultimate goal of winning, especially when their isn’t a salary cap in baseball. 
 

I don’t expect the White Sox to do any of the above. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be what the standard is. 

For most teams there is a salary cap…it’s called their Operating Profit before player expenses.  Sounds like your expectation is that owners should make bad financial decisions to keep fans mildly entertained during a rebuild because they can theoretically course correct down the road by taking on losses when they’re finally good and eat into their own personal wealth.  Unfortunately, baseball is a business and most owners are going to let a franchise operate on its own financial merits.  I too wish we had Steve Cohen as our owner, but that’s the exception and not the rule.

[southsider2k5]

2 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

A waste of what? Jerry’s dollars? You’re worried about his money?

At bats and development.  As you ignored a million times.

[southsider2k5]

1 hour ago, Tony said:

I also disagree with this. As Ray pointed out, if there was history to tell us “ok the payroll is going to be historically low but when guys start to develop, that saved money is going right back into the payroll” but that’s not how it works. It’s just going into the pockets of ownership.

This team still has no foundation. Is signing Santander going to make a Sox a contender? Absolutely not. Is he going to make the lineup better? Yes, and he’s not going to be blocking anyone, because there is no one to block. 
 

There were a few boobs here saying “there is no difference in losing 100 games and 120 games.” Which most of us,  myself included, strongly disagreed with. But that works both ways. There is a difference between winning 60 games and 75 games. And I think a lot of fans are starved, and deserve some competitive baseball on the South Side.

The point is adding some actual talent to the 2025 team shouldn’t be a bad thing. It simply costs money, and shouldn’t take away from the efforts of actually rebuilding the right way. You should be able to do two things at once. The Sox probably can’t because they’re incompetent, but that’s also not an excuse for them. 

I'd be willing to listen on a real OF vs IF, RP, or C.

[Look at Ray Ray Run]

2 hours ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

It really is sad. People contending that signing a guy projected to make $15M AAV or less is too expensive for a roster with a current payroll of $60M. wtf. Honestly, there is no reason the Sox couldn’t easily afford signing Kim, Alonso, and Santander. Not saying they’d be a contender if they did but they’d have an actual mlb lineup then and it would generate some actual excitement around the team unlike whatever this is. Payroll would still be less than $120M, well below league average.

Agree on the strategy 100% and they should be absolutely doing it. I might not sign the same guys you are naming/would, but I 100% agree that should be their strategy. The Sox would have some legitimate +side variance possibilities by doing that. What they're doing now is disgraceful.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

9 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

At bats and development.  As you ignored a million times.

Haven’t ignored, I disagree. There’s plenty of ABs to go around. You must think all the young guys will stay healthy 162 games AND perform well enough to remain on an mlb roster.

Edited Sunday at 05:59 PM by JUSTgottaBELIEVE

[Chicago White Sox]

16 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

MLBTR projects Santander at 4/$80M. And yes, I would do that deal as well as Alonso and Kim. Everyday lineup would be the best in the ALC with those additions and any type of moderate bounce back from Robert. Still payroll would be no more than $125M over the next couple years. By next year they could even let guys like Vaughn, Rojas, Slater, Tauchmann walk backfill with league min guys and use the proceeds to fill another hole all while keeping the team payroll at a well below league average number.

When does Kim come back?  And where is the competitive pitching staff?  No doubt we’d be a better, more entertaining team, but we still aren’t going to be good enough to compete next year.

If you laid this out next offseason, I could get potentially get behind something like this.  But again, we need some semblance of a core before we make these type of signings.  We’re simply a year too early IMO.

[southsider2k5]

6 minutes ago, JUSTgottaBELIEVE said:

Haven’t ignored, I disagree. There’s plenty of ABs to go around. You must think all the young guys will stay healthy 162 games AND perform well enough to remain on an mlb roster.

No I think we have close to 10 guys on the IF who need to be evaluated.  Stealing 500 PAs and blocking our top prospect destroys that.

[Tony]

16 minutes ago, Chicago White Sox said:

For most teams there is a salary cap…it’s called their Operating Profit before player expenses.  Sounds like your expectation is that owners should make bad financial decisions to keep fans mildly entertained during a rebuild because they can theoretically course correct down the road by taking on losses when they’re finally good and eat into their own personal wealth.  Unfortunately, baseball is a business and most owners are going to let a franchise operate on its own financial merits.  I too wish we had Steve Cohen as our owner, but that’s the exception and not the rule.

See, this is where you’re wrong. That’s not my expectation. Far from it. 
 

What you just described is exactly how the White Sox have operated the last three decades, and I want something more than that. 

[Chicago White Sox]

25 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

See I don’t buy that they had bad luck at all. They had a top 3 pick in a draft that so far has produced 7 all stars, that’s excellent luck. The 2019 draft looks to suck fine that’s the one bit of bad luck, but in 2020 despite all the weirdness they had a college pitcher who threw 103 fall to them and he turned into an all star. Seems pretty good luck to me.

Bad luck is related to the new lottery process.  When you set the all time loss record and can’t pick above 10th that really sucks.  And that’s because the year before we didn’t win the lottery, but also didn’t move backwards enough to keep our lottery status this year.  Meanwhile, the Guardians won the lottery this past year and the Twins jumped up to 5th overall in 2023 and were able to get Walker Jenkings.  If you don’t consider that bad luck, I don’t know what to tell you.

[46DidIt]

1 hour ago, southsider2k5 said:

No I think we have close to 10 guys on the IF who need to be evaluated.  Stealing 500 PAs and blocking our top prospect destroys that.

There’s no way our top prospect is blocked by adding a couple players. We don’t have that many quality players and guys like Rojas and Kim can play multiple positions. There would still be room for all of our glorious outfield and firstbase prospects as well if we signed a Santander or Alonso

[Quin]

2 hours ago, Fielder Jones said:

This is a Josh Rojas MEGA-thread

More like the Philosophy of Rojas

[caulfield12]

17 minutes ago, 46DidIt said:

There’s no way our top prospect is blocked by adding a couple players. We don’t have that many quality players and guys like Rojas and Kim can play multiple positions. There would still be room for all of our glorious outfield and firstbase prospects as well if we signed a Santander or Alonso

JR clearly believes his cry poor stadium strategy works better at $50-60 million payrolls than $80-100...but no politician in the world wants to get behind an all-time losingest franchise with little to no hope on the immediate horizon. 

It's already controversial enough in KC for the Chiefs to get stadium funding on the Johnson or Wyandotte County sides of the border and they basically have a dynasty/monopoly in that market/region.

[caulfield12]

3 minutes ago, Quin said:

More like the Philosophy of Rojas

Following a failed Mariners' strategy doesn't exactly scream ideal future outcome.

They were trying to pull it off with a pretty awesome starting rotation and Jose Rodriguez. 

We otoh imagine what that Sox rotation MIGHT be in 2026 or 2027...if almost every outcome breaks their way with Schultz Smith and especially Taylor.

[Balta1701]

4 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

Bad luck is related to the new lottery process.  When you set the all time loss record and can’t pick above 10th that really sucks.  And that’s because the year before we didn’t win the lottery, but also didn’t move backwards enough to keep our lottery status this year.  Meanwhile, the Guardians won the lottery this past year and the Twins jumped up to 5th overall in 2023 and were able to get Walker Jenkings.  If you don’t consider that bad luck, I don’t know what to tell you.

Maybe they should have tried not losing 222 games over 2 years.

[southsider2k5]

4 hours ago, 46DidIt said:

There’s no way our top prospect is blocked by adding a couple players. We don’t have that many quality players and guys like Rojas and Kim can play multiple positions. There would still be room for all of our glorious outfield and firstbase prospects as well if we signed a Santander or Alonso

I mean if you want to operate under the assumption that Chris Getz player development regime with continue to be a complete failure, that is probably a fair assumption.

[southsider2k5]

5 hours ago, Tony said:

I didn’t say I wanted to give Santander 5 years at 100 million, you did. 
 

I’ll make it simpler for some folks:

- I want more quality players on the Sox 

- I don’t want to see the team I root for win 50 games a season consistently. 

- I don’t have an issue spending money while the team is “rebuilding” 

- I don’t really care if the contract doesn’t work out as intended, and I have an expectation as a fan that a team won’t let that contract get in the way from achieving the ultimate goal of winning, especially when their isn’t a salary cap in baseball. 
 

I don’t expect the White Sox to do any of the above. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be what the standard is. 

Nobody wants to see this be the worst team in the history of baseball, but we are already here, like it or not.  Now the road back starts with what we can develop out of the group that is either already here, or will be in 25.  Blocking key evaluations in that process is exactly what we did last year, and here we are trying to figure out who a few of these guys are, all while having a 41 win team.  Great.  This is so much better.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

Maybe they should have tried not losing 222 games over 2 years.

Exactly why they should be signing quality mlb free agents rather than running a $60M payroll in 2025 and 2026. They’ll still end up with a top 10 pick in 2026 most likely even if they sign a few guys this winter. Or maybe they get lucky like Cleveland did in 2024 and end up #1 overall anyways.

[JUSTgottaBELIEVE]

5 hours ago, Chicago White Sox said:

When does Kim come back?  And where is the competitive pitching staff?  No doubt we’d be a better, more entertaining team, but we still aren’t going to be good enough to compete next year.

If you laid this out next offseason, I could get potentially get behind something like this.  But again, we need some semblance of a core before we make these type of signings.  We’re simply a year too early IMO.

The pitching would be why the ceiling would be ~70 wins in 2025. But there’s a lot of hope there as the young guys progress to where you can start to squint and see an 80+ win roster in 2026 if they do.