I hold no hopes for contention in 2018. That said, I also have no illusions that this team can survive another year as bad as 2018. Therefor, I posit two (not mutually exclusive) ways to approach this offseason.
- We have gobs of money to spend
- We should be acquiring long-term talent
Given these two caveats, I present another boring ol plan to bring the White Sox up to mediocrity.
First, the knowns:
Jose Abreu, $16M — tender
Avisail Garcia, $8M — non-tender
Yolmer Sanchez, $4.7M — tender
Carlos Rodon, $3.7M — tender
Matt Davidson, $2.4M — tender
Leury Garcia, $1.9M — non-tender
Danny Farquhar, $1.4M — non-tender
Nate Jones, $4.65 million/$1.25M buyout — pick up
James Shields, $16 million/$2M buyout – decline
Miguel Gonzalez (made $4.75 million in 2018) — let go
Hector Santiago (made $2 million in 2018 — added) – let go
Nothing too surprising here. I like Leury, but his inability to stay healthy really kills his value. Having said that, i'm sure he'll hit .300 as the starting CF for the Royals.
Now, the unknowns:
Free Agents -
Mike Brantley - 3 years 54MM
Dallas Keuchel - 4 years 84MM
Charlie Morton - 2 years 36MM
Brad Brach - 2 year 16MM
With Avi gone, the Sox need a corner OF (this assumes Eloy spends the minimum time in AAA to steal a year of control). Brantley has injury concerns of his own, but the upside is worth it. Also, he doesn't strike out.
I kind of picked two Astros without thinking about it. You can swap Morton for any of the generic RH SP on the market (Lance Lynn, for example) but I feel like Keuchel is destined to wear the Pale Hose. Brach is one of those faceless, decent relievers, because you can't rely entirely on the kids (see below)
Trades -
Nate Jones and Alex Call to AZ Diamondbacks for 3B Jake Lamb
Yolmer Sanchez to Rockies for Raimel Tapia
Ya'll are gonna hate me for trading Yolmer, but the Rockies position players are bad, and they need depth. Yolmer can spell Arenado and Story and man 2B until Rogers comes up. Tapia, meanwhile, slides into CF. Lamb seems like a good buy-low option.
1B Abreu, 2B Moncada, SS Anderson, 3B Lamb, RF Brantley, CF Tapia, LF Eloy, C Wellington, DH Palka/Davidson, Bench Rondon, Narvaez, Engel
SP Keuchel, Rodon, Morton, Lopez, Gio / RP Brach, Hamilton, Burr, Fry, Covey, Bummer, Minaya
Payroll is right around 100MM. There's some upside here, although there's a lot of risk, but at least you aren't paying 35 percent of payroll to one guy for 10 years.
