With the news of the Whitesox being interested in Machado and Harper breaking, I figured lets have some fun and hash out a plan in which we sign BOTH of them. Lets devise an all in plan that starts in 2019. The November before Hot Stove season is the month in which all fans can dream, after all.
Dont worry – I will be updating the salary breakdown as we go. And of course, there are some trades
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
• Jose Abreu, $16M - TENDER
• Avisail Garcia, $8M - NON TENDER
• Yolmer Sanchez, $4.7M - TENDER
• Carlos Rodon, $3.7M - TENDER
• Matt Davidson, $2.4M- NON
• Leury Garcia, $1.9M - NON
• Danny Farquhar, $1.4M - NON
Avi, Davidson, and Leury of casualties of saving as much money as we can.
CLUB OPTIONS/Impending Free agents
• Nate Jones, $4.65 million/$1.25M buyout - Picked up
• James Shields, Miguel Gonzalez, Hector Santiago – all gone
Updated 2019 payroll: 46.5 Million
FREE AGENTS
#1 + #2. Manny Machado - 10 Years, 330 Million, Bryce Harper – 10 Years, 330 Million. This was the premise of this entire post, you knew this was coming. The Whitesox spend 600 Million dollars and create a media circus we’ve probably never seen on the Whitesox. Updated 2019 Payroll: $112.5 Million
#3. Nathan Eovaldi – 3 Years, 42 Million, 4th Year player option @ 6 Million. In my opinion the riskiest move I make and overpaying to boot. The Whitesox bring in Eovaldi to be a Swing man in the bullpen. We plan on using him in an Andrew Miller style of role, but we can swing him out to the rotation early if certain trade pieces don’t work out. The player option is there as a sweetener because I suspect he is going to get overpaid, he’d take it if he flames out/gets injured. Updated 2019 Payroll: $126.5 Million
TRADES
Whitesox Trade Luis Alexander Basabe to the Cubs for Albert Almora and Tyler Chatwood. The Whitesox get their Centerfield of the Future and eat Chatwood’s contract. Its not all bad, they will trot Chatwood out as a #5 starter. The Cubs get to dump Tyler Chatwood and that will cost them. They get a Centerfielder to restock their farm some. Updated 2019 Payroll: $139.50 Million
Whitesox Trade Nick Madrigal, Zack Collins, and Alec Hanson to Marlins for C JT Realmuto: JT Realmuto is a Stud,We’re going all in in this plan and we need a veteran catcher. Pitching is going to be a weakness in 2019 so we at least need a guy who we can trust behind the plate. Narvaez/Sebby make solid potential #2/3 catchers. The Marlins get one of the safest prospects in baseball in madrigal, and 2 high bust/upside guys in Collins/hanson. Updated 2019 Payroll: $146 Million
Whitesox Trade Dane Dunning and Blake Rutherford to Mets for Steven Matz: – Matz is young and still has a lot of team control, if this team is going to compete it needs a starter with variance to pair with Rodon/Lopez. The Mets do their typical pseudo rebuild – They land a near MLB ready matz replacement and add Blake Rutherford to their farm. Updated 2019 payroll: $147 Million
Whitesox Trade Wellington Castillo and Konnor Pilkington to Red Sox for Jake Thompson (their 30th ranked guy): This is a salary dump for us, I’m looking to do Reinsdorf a solid. Castillo is a big upgrade for the Redsox, and they get a decent SP project from us for it. Updated 2019 Payroll: - $ 139.75 Million
Conclusion
There you have it. We just landed Machado AND Harper, put together a roster that will challenge for the division in 2019, and come in a shade under $140M. Yes, that is over $110M. The Whitesox have spent more than this in the past, so I think in this fantasy land we can convince Reinsdorf to spend the cash when you think about all the marketing opportunieis.
The Goal of this excersize was to keep Kopech/Cease and make the best 2019 team otherwise, while maintaining long term flexibility. I believe 140M is a reasonabel payroll, and in 2 years guys like Chatwood/Abreu can come off the books to create flexibility elsewhere. The only hole on the team is DH, but we want to keep some flexibilty to possibly bump harper or Eloy to 1b/dh in the future, may as well see what Palka has – you can easily find a platoon righty for our last roster spot. Maybe we bring back davidson after all for it.
Our top prospects after the big 3 graduate will now be Luis Robert… and Micker Adolfo. But hey, we still have the #3 overall pick coming on in, and Walker/Gonalez/Burger make for some semi exciting depth pieces.
Lineup:
1. Yoan Moncada – 2B
2. Manny Machado – 3B
3. Bryce Harper – RF
4. Jose Abreu – 1B
5. Eloy Jiminez – LF
6. JT Realmuto - C
7. Daniel Palka – DH
8. Tim Anderson – SS
9. Albert Almora – CF
Bench:
Yolmer Sanchez – INF, Adam Engel – OF, Omar Narvaez – C
Rotation:
1. Rodon
2. Lopez
3. Matz
4. Giolito
5. Chatwood
Bullpen:
Eovaldi, Frye, Hamilton, Covey, Burdi, Frare, Jones (7)
