With the winter in the rear view mirror and most consequential free agents signed, it’s time to look back on the White Sox offseason and grade their transactions. This will be my fifth annual installment of the series.
I’m going to provide an individual evaluation of every move involving major league players or major league commitments. I’m excluding minor league signings, the Rule 5 draft, and waiver claims from the individual move assessments because even though some may have a some real impact, they generally boil down to either “no risk, but with upside” or “a little extra depth can’t hurt.” The next minor league signing that deserves an “F” will be the first. However, I will take these moves into account for the final grade.
Here are broad definitions I’ll use for the various letter grades. The rationale for the scale as a whole is that most moves that major league teams make are helpful to their goals and have a good deal of logic to them.
For some orientation, I would consider a perfectly average move to be somewhere on the C+/C borderline.
Grade A – This includes moves that either are extremely significant in pushing a team toward its goals, involve “beating the market” (i.e. fleecing another team in trade, signing a key free agent at a very noticeable discount, etc.), or are otherwise brilliant for their fit or use of resources. For example, the trade of Chris Sale earned an “A” for both being the most critical trade of the rebuild and accomplishing the difficult task of attaining fair value for one of baseball’s most valuable assets to ever be on the block.
Grade B – Like an “A” move, but less superlative. “B” moves represent above-average decisions and are generally remarkable in some way. I put the Nate Jones extension from the 2015-16 offseason in this range.
Grade C – This includes moves that are helpful to a team’s goals, but relative to other moves, are not notable for their scale, brilliance, fit, or cost-effectiveness. They are generally reasonable decisions and preferable over doing nothing. Bringing back Miguel Gonzalez last season was a good example, even though it didn’t turn out great.
Grade D – While not all-out blunders, Grade “D” moves are not obvious steps in the right direction. This section of the scale includes either moves with questionable strategic fit, moves with a difficult-to-accept risk/reward ratio, moves with preferable and seemingly feasible alternatives, or total nothingburgers. Signing Jacob Turner in late 2015 for guaranteed money without much place to put him fits into this range.
Grade F – “F” moves are actively harmful to a team’s goals, even if the degree of harm is small. The most recent example of an “F” is non-tendering Tyler Flowers to sign Dioner Navarro, which would later demonstrate the cruel intersection of an awful thought process and unfortunate results.
Decisions to tender or non-tender a player along with choosing whether to pick up a team option are binary decisions, so they’ll be evaluated on a pass/fail basis.
Let us begin.
No. 1: Option decisions:
- Exercised $4.65M option on Nate Jones – Pass
- Declined $16M option on James Shields – Pass
Duh.
No. 2: Acquired RHRP Alex Colome from the Seattle Mariners for C Omar Narvaez
It’s not often that a team can trade away its best hitter from the previous season and basically nobody bats an eye. The main reason is that Narvaez is horrendous at his stated position of catcher, rendering him close to replacement level despite a very good 122 wRC+. That bat is useful in a lineup in some capacity, though barring a sudden and large improvement in Narvaez’ framing abilities, it’s unlikely to be a loss that burns the White Sox.
Shipping off four years of Narvaez for two years of Colome would be a good idea for teams with designs on contention in the near-term. Unlike Narvaez, Colome is above-average for his role (late-inning reliever) and more likely to be important to a team with postseason hopes. However, the White Sox sat on their hands for the rest of the offseason and didn’t convert on potential improvements. A 2019 team with a low-70s win total won’t reap the maximum benefits of having Colome, and it looks more likely than not that he’ll be a trade chip at some point. We just saw a high-performing Joakim Soria yield very little in such a deal.
Decision Grade: C-
No. 3: Tendered contracts to:
- Jose Abreu – Pass
- Yolmer Sanchez – Pass
- Carlos Rodon – Pass
- Leury Garcia – Pass
No. 4: Non-tendered
- Avisail Garcia – Pass
- Matt Davidson – Pass
The Davidson decision could have gone either way, but these choices were generally fine and non-controversial.
No. 5: Acquired RHP Ivan Nova from the Pittsburgh Pirates for RHP Yordi Rosario and international bonus slot money
Rather than sign a free agent starting pitcher, the White Sox essentially acquired their stopgap via a trade in which they gave up very little. Nova’s $8.5 million salary is approximately commensurate with his abilities, so there’s a reason he didn’t cost much.
It was clear the White Sox needed at least one starting pitcher to fill the innings-eating void left by James Shields’ departure and Michael Kopech’s barking elbow. Nova should fill that role admirably. If there’s a drawback with this move, it’s that the starting rotation was one area that the White Sox could have attempted a significant upgrade to push themselves toward contention in 2020 and beyond. Nova’s primary contribution will be stability rather than wins. It’s a fine trade, but it was a bellweather of a quiet offseason on the starting pitching front.
Decision Grade: C
No. 6: Acquired 1B Yonder Alonso from the Cleveland Indians for OF Alex Call
The stated explanation for acquiring Alonso made no sense. He’s a square peg on the White Sox roster who will either eat into Daniel Palka’s plate appearances or force everyone to watch Palka play the outfield more often. The White Sox have Abreu at first base, and he generally shouldn’t come out of the lineup when healthy. Alonso’s likely a little better than Palka, but given Palka’s late-season improvement, that’s not a certainty and the projected difference between the two is not consequential. I do like Alonso and his cerebral, data-driven approach to hitting, but given that he partially blocks 2018’s most exciting player and that the trade actually helped out a division rival with $8 million in cash relief, this decision was a failure on paper.
However, everyone understood the true point of acquiring Alonso was to help lure Manny Machado to Chicago. With the dust settled on that pursuit and Machado suiting up for the Padres on a reasonable contract, it’s clear that Alonso was a just a ploy to get Machado to sign an offer at a relative discount. Had the White Sox offered the most money and tried to use Alonso to help convince Machado to choose the Sox over a less lucrative offer at a more favorable destination (e.g., the Yankees), there would have been at least some justification for this, even if it failed. However, we now know that the White Sox put out a lowball offer and Alonso was merely a tool to attempt to shave dollars off of Machado’s megadeal, and it didn’t even work. There is little redeeming about this decision.
Decision Grade: F
No. 7: Signed C James McCann for one year, $2.5 million
Early in the offseason, the Angels claimed Kevan Smith, the White Sox’ most productive catcher in 2018, on waivers. It was a little strange that the White Sox let Smith go, but given Welington Castillo’s salary and Narvaez’ emerging bat, it appeared they were sticking with their mantra that it’s easier to teach pitch framing than good hitting. Shortly after, Narvaez was traded, which added to the confusion. I’ll give the White Sox credit for not knowing they’d have a Narvaez trade opportunity when they tried to sneak Smith through waivers, but the pair of moves left a void at catcher.
Then, the White Sox did something familiar and attempted to solve their catching problem in the worst possible way. James McCann doesn’t belong in the major leagues. He offers nothing at the plate outside of the odd extra-base hit. The White Sox’ young pitchers have had the misfortune of throwing to tiny strike zones and guys who let the ball get away, and McCann’s poor receiving and pitch-blocking will help continue that trend. McCann can throw, but that’s about it. It’ll be easy to show him the door if and when the White Sox promote Seby Zavala, but the White Sox could have just signed a strong defender like Rene Rivera (on a minor league deal!) if they wanted a stopgap. Hell, even Matt Wieters took a minor league deal with a lower salary.
The White Sox started the offseason with three catchers. They kept arguably the least desirable one, jettisoned the other two, and signed one that’s worse than all three. This move is small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, but the decision to hand McCann a major league contract was simply incompetent.
Decision Grade: F
No. 8: Signed RHRP Kelvin Herrera to a two year, $18M deal with 2021 team option
Similar to the Colome trade, this move makes a great deal of sense for a team with aspirations to compete in the near future. However, we now know that the White Sox don’t meet that description.
It was curious that the White Sox used what money they planned to spend to double-down on reinforcing the bullpen, the area of their team that appeared to need the least short- and long-term help. Excluding guys specifically intended to recruit Manny Machado, the White Sox’ acquisitions added about $28M to the 2019 payroll. Almost 60 percent of that salary went to relief pitchers.
Herrera’s falling strikeout rates give some cause for concern, but in a vacuum, this appears to be a fine deal. It’s just a curious allocation of resources. For reference, a real catcher in Wilson Ramos signed for just $1M more. A superutility player with starter’s credentials in Marwin Gonzalez signed for just $3M more. With mid-tier free agents getting squeezed left and right, the White Sox appeared to have paid the “old” market rate for Herrera. That’d be fine if the rest of the team was good enough to make Herrera look like an important piece on a competitive roster rather than just another flippable reliever. It’s not, and he doesn’t.
Decision Grade: D+
No. 9: Signed Jon Jay to a one year, $4M deal
Heading into the 2018-19 offseason, the White Sox outfield consisted of Eloy Jimenez and a bunch of spare parts. The dearth of attractive options made for a good opportunity for the White Sox to upgrade their current and future roster. Instead, they did nothing until signing Jay, another spare part. Jay’s a punchless hitter who can nonetheless slap some singles and get on base, and the White Sox are certainly in no position to eschew OBP. He’s stretched defensively in center and good in a corner. In other words, Jay is the prototypical fourth outfielder at this stage of his career, and would be excellent in that role for that price.
However, the White Sox didn’t need a fourth outfielder anywhere near as much as a productive one, and Jay projects to play far more than he should. Plus, it’s clear that like Alonso, Jay was another effort to reduce the price of close friend Manny Machado, and the weird Friends and Family Plan didn’t work. There’s nothing wrong with Jay being on the White Sox roster; he’s just disappointing in light of the Sox’ failure to acquire any outfielders of note.
Decision Grade: C-
Overall Assessment
The White Sox entered this offseason with a golden opportunity to add to their core and build toward contention as soon as 2020. With premium talent on the market and players signing for prices that ranged from reasonable to insultingly cheap, there was every reason for the White Sox to capitalize by beginning to build their 2020-2021 rosters and plenty of reasons to be worried they’d sit the winter out.
In the end, the White Sox did add $40M worth of acquisitions to their 2019 payroll. That’s not disappointing in of itself. However, rather than using that payroll space to add a piece or two that could have pushed the White Sox closer to contention, it went to six players that either don’t fit, are somewhere between below-average and bad, are more likely to be flipped for a lotto ticket than to actually matter, or some combination of those three. With expectations soaring high, that was a bitter pill to swallow.
The longer the offseason went on, the more it became clear that the White Sox were either going to get Manny Machado or do nothing important. Few thought the Sox would sign Machado at the outset of the winter, but much of that resignation came from the expectation that teams with either a fatter wallet or a contending roster would make the White Sox play second fiddle. In that light, not signing Machado would have been disappointing, yet somewhat forgivable.
However, the White Sox ultimately failed with Machado in the most inexcusable way possible. They were outbid by a team that 1) isn’t traditionally a financial power, 2) is coming off a season just as dreadful as that of the White Sox, 3) is also selling hope more than near-term contention, and 4) only put forth what many thought would be merely the baseline offer for Machado’s services at 10 years, $300 million. This is to say nothing of the subsequent halfhearted “pursuit” of Bryce Harper and the fact that the White Sox made zero other consequential moves to augment their future.
As a result, the White Sox of March 2019 are no closer to a championship than the White Sox of November 2018, save for the literal passage of time. The market could not have fallen any more into the White Sox’ lap than it did this offseason, and they failed to do anything at all to help themselves. That goes beyond “disappointing”; it’s a thorough destruction of whatever goodwill the overly-tenured trio of Jerry Reinsdorf, Kenny Williams, and Rick Hahn had left. Ownership gives management lemons, management sucks at making lemonade, and the fans are stuck drinking weird-tasting yellow water. The White Sox could potentially rectify this mistake by making big, aggressive moves after this season; there’s just no reason to expect them to come through anymore.
Offseason Grade: F
F – Im not wasting the time with much analysis, this team is absolutely no where near contention and the only viable moves have been to add decent relief pitchers that will only be here for 2 seasons of non contention at a pretty lofty price both in terms of dollars and for 4 years control of a soild obp/bat, bad defensive catcher who maybe could have gotten a little better.
They were presented the greatest opportunity of our lifetimes to add super star talent via free agency when all things are considered and purely botched it.
The scary part is, management wont be held accountable by ownership who wont be held accountable by fans, cause the fans barely matter to ownership’s bottom line thanks to the success of other MLB franchises and shared revenue streams.
“Relative discount” heh!
Spot on…particularly the last few paragraphs:
As I was reading the last three paragraphs in my head I was picturing you calling Jerry and using this line from Billy Madison: I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul.
I appreciate the detail, but you could have just given the grade – no explanation is necessary.
F-. Why spend $35M over the next two years for two back end relievers, if you don’t upgrade the rest.
Why sign James McCann to $2M guaranteed.
Why trade for Alonso to take DH at bats away from Palka.
Why not acquire one of two generational talents at below market rates.
Again F-, and I’m being generous.
I’m a traditional guy. I don’t give out A+ or F-
Fair enough. You’re analysis was spot on, Patrick!
Like I posted yesterday, I don’t know what we would do as Sox fans without you guys’ great analyses here at Sox Machine. Thanks so much for all of your insight. You guys are the best!
I was thinking of the Calvin & Hobbes strip where Calvin wants the teacher to at least give him a F+
Also, when I was in college, in my differential equations class the first exam was pretty tough (mainly because it was entirely too long to complete – it was the only test in all of undergrad that I ran out of time on). Prof came in the next week, fuming about how people did on the exam, and put up a grade scale on the board.
80-100: A
70-79: B
60-69: C
50-59: D
40-49: F
<40: Bad F
The Bad F was made for this offseason.
Ted Williams: The last player whose batting average ascended above “Bad F”.
Ahhh, one of my favorite college memories. College professors blaming all their students for collectively doing bad instead of looking inward at their own teaching or test.
Got a pretty good idea what the weird-tasting yellow water the management is selling us, and it ain’t lemon-lime gatorade
Bud Light Lime?
This was harsh, in an incredibly fair way. In fact, I think you might have even been generous; the one area where the Sox are loaded with young guys knocking down the door of the MLB roster is the bullpen. Did they really need to go out and acquire relievers? In a year you’ve accepted you’re not going to compete, there are plenty of options to fill out an opening day bullpen in house: Jones, Fry, Burr, Hamilton, Frare, Bummer, Ruiz, Vieira, Fulmer, Stephens, Burdi (if healthy), Adams, Lambert, Medeiros, Guerrero.
Aside from the Herrera grade, agree with everything said here. In that instance, I think it’s a more value-added move than Jon Jay was, even if the price was a bit on the high side for the market. There’s enough upside there to see it working out, whether on the mound or through a trade. Jay strikes me as a placeholder at best and the next Emilio Bonifacio at worst.
” Jay strikes me as a placeholder” I would say a patch. Probably the same thing. No mention of Ervin Santana. I guess because he has a Minor League deal.
Three things that would make this mess more palatable to me.
Sign some of the “core ” players to long term contracts. Instead of just talking about it.
Go get either of the Dodgers marginalized LH out fielders. What we have is a mess.
They still have 30 or 40 million to spend. If an in season opportunity presents it self, pull the trigger.
HELL YEAH, BURN IT DOWN!!!!!
Most of this looks on point.
I think you made a better case for downgrading Nova to a D because they passed on opportunities to upgrade. That makes the move one with preferable alternatives and not a step in the right direction. Same with Jay.
I guess Narvaez for Colome is also fine on its own–probably the only move that is in the C range. In context–where the Sox are left with Castillo, then sign McCann, and make no improvements so the only real benefit is sparing the rotation and other parts of the pen–it looks worse.
I think Nova is C-level because of his impending free agency. If the Sox have been intrigued by him for years and can successfully see an improvement plan through, they might be laying track to solve a 2020 roster spot.
That might merit an incomplete until we see how it turns out.
I’m not inclined to give them that leniency because they’re loaded with maybes and possiblies. Nova adds another rather than being a transition to clear, likely upgrades. They need to be adding more certain production. Their recent track record with projects doesn’t really instill confidence, either.
Shifted my attention from their awful PR to their inept decision making.
Thanks?
Conventional wisdom would say any addition to a 100 loss team should be an improvement. Bullpen help aside, the Sox went out of their way to add guys who would challenge that wisdom.
F is the only possible grade. To paraphrase something I once read somewhere, the Sox offseason plan cratered so hard it left a mark in the geological record.
Great article, as usual, pnoles!
I completely agree with everything except the Herrera deal, which I think is even worse than you give it credit for.
Let’s look at all relievers signed this offseason, what Steamer projects them to get and what applying a simple aging curve (-0.1 WAR/yr for 30+ year olds) for future seasons.
As of Feb 12 (when I did this), 14 relievers had signed for a total guaranteed amount of $252m over 28 player seasons. These players were projected to produce 21.2 WAR over those seasons, leading to an average of $11.9m/proj. WAR.
At $18m/2 years and a projected WAR of 0.6 over that span ($21.6m/proj. WAR), Kelvin Herrera ranks as the third worst reliever signing of the offseason. Only Adam Ottavino ($23.2m/proj. WAR) and Justin Wilson ($22.7m/ proj. WAR) look worse. At least these two moves were made by teams in contention, for whom overpaying for bullpen help makes some amount sense. Not to mention that Ottavino’s complete overhaul of approach (reducing his FB% from ~25% from 2015-2017 to ~5% last year while increasing his sinker usage from ~24% to ~39%) gives a solid reason to think that projection systems might be too skeptical of his stellar 2018.
For Herrera, it’s hard to really see projection systems (PECOTA and ZiPS also project him similarly) skepticism of Herrera as too skeptical. His K% has dropped in recent years, his FB velo has lost 2 mph since 2015 and his health history has been bad. Maybe his track record is good enough reason to think he’ll bounceback, but the Sox aren’t paying him like a bounceback candidate. They’re paying him like he’s already bounced back. Herrera’s 80th percentile PECOTA projection is 0.7 WARP. If he produces that in 2018 and 2019, then he’ll have paid at a rate of $12m/WARP. You can’t quite compare that number to the one before (fWAR vs. WARP and all), but it’s not a good sign when you’re 80th percentile case for a signing is the 50th percentile case of all other signings.
Look at the two relievers flanking Herrera in terms of total guaranteed money: Soria and Robertson. Soria got $15m/2 and is projected to put up 0.9 WAR (more than 2x Herrera’s projection). Robertson got $23m/2 with a *team* option for an added $10 in year 3. Robertson is projected to put up 1.4 WAR next year. In the last four seasons, these three players have put up 6.2 WAR (Robertson), 4 WAR (Soria) and 3.1 WAR (Herrera). Herrera is the worst of these three pitchers and got (depending on how you value the difference between Herrera’s year 3 vesting option and Robertson’s year 3 team option) the best deal of the three.
I could see a case to drop it to a D or D-, in that light.
Utterly fair. Individual pieces are okay (Nova, Colome, Jay), overall F.
I was never in the “get Machado or the rebuild is doomed” camp. (Doesn’t mean I’m not pissed about how it all went down, but that’s not my point here.) But there were many other ways the Sox could have improved themselves without blocking their young players. Cincinnati did lots of moves with that definition. The Twins finally got off their asses and did similar things.
Good work, pnoles. I hope the new LL season is treating you better than the Sox offseason.
It’s not! (Okay, maybe a little better, but juuuuust a little). I don’t want to be relegated!
Long way to go! I spent last season in relegation land until the last 4 days.
Meanwhile, the White Sox should be relegated.
If the White Sox had the offseason that the Twins or Reds did, I think most fans would have been satisfied. Instead they lied to everyone and managed to add $40M of payroll while treading water.
with payroll coming off, they are up about 16 million.
Say what you will about the decision to rebuild, but at the very least you could look at all the moves from December 2016 through November 2018 and see a clear organizational philosophy and direction.
Everything since then has mostly just been confusing. Is the emphasis still on waiting for the young players to matriculate? Are they trying to be good in 2019? Are they spending money or aren’t they? (Machado notwithstanding they added $40M of payroll and hardly moved the needle)
The only thing greater than the confusion of the fans seems to be the confusion within the front office regarding what they should be doing and what direction they should be going in.
Thanks for the write up PNoles.
The emphasis has been to pay the lowest payroll possible.
Sure that could be the answer. But even then, what’s up with the Herrera signing? Why trade for guys with non-insignificant contract obligations in Nova and Alonso who are also unlikely to be worth much at the deadline? Even if that’s their goal, they are totally failing at that as well.
But that’s the truly amazing thing. This FO is even bad at being cheap. If they were truly cheap and didn’t sign much at all, they would have had a better offseason. Instead they added $49.3m guaranteed to the books for players who by-and-large suck at baseball.
Mood: When does football start up again?
Sometime after the hockey playoffs end.
I just want to add another comment to emphasize the awfulness of the McCann signing and applaud your spot-on analysis. As you said, the White Sox should be emphasizing defense at catcher given their young arms. Martin Maldonado, one of the best defensive catchers in the major leagues, is still unsigned at this point and I would imagine is going to settle for a deal close to what McCann got.
Why on earth the White Sox thought that they needed to jump the market and sign McCann in mid-December is beyond me. Looking back at that article about the catching market is just infuriating. Every White Sox fan can look at the Machado fiasco and realize what a debacle it was. What a lot of fans wont realize is that they consistently manage to fail even with the small moves.
Per Baseball Reference the Last time the team leader in WAR was under 3.1 (R. Lopez) was… never. And I think there’s a really good chance we somehow do worse than that this year; if Eloy merely has a pretty good (short) season with bad defense as seems to be the prediction.
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2823006-bryce-harper-signing-spurred-100000-new-phillies-ticket-sales Here’s the difference in what we offered Manny and what he took. Morons.
I think your math is off (though in the long run the point is fair)
Looking back at the post with the Flowers grade, and I cringe that I was at all inclined to question it.
As a piece of disastrous decision-making, it was probably a harbinger for what was to come.
I’m not going to be making excuses for Hahn anymore. I don’t see where any goodwill can come from at this point because I sense that it’s going to be a long while before they win again.
The Sox are doing pretty well at hitting the under on projected outcomes for their decisions so far.
Eaton’s injuries and Q’s regression are moderate saving graces at this point.
It has at least given them a disappointment/anger buffer before Tatis comes up.
#FUCUS
There’s been quite a few “wait and see” grades for Sox transactions this year, as well as the past few. My question is, have *any* of these turned out well?
Does Soria/Avilan count?
White Sox Baseball 2019: Wait and See
With this offseason, the Sox kept Jerry Reinsdorf’s expenses low while the value of the franchise continues to grow. For Jerry’s heirs, this is an A offseason. For anyone who gives a damn about the actual team, it is F-grade material.
Since everybody is so dour these days, here’s a positive thought: it’s looking less and less likely that we’ll get good right when the players go on strike!
Luis Robert with a two strike 3-run homer with 2 outs in the 9th and the Sox down by a run. He now has 2 triples and a homer in 8 at bats.
If he and Eloy are healthy and really good this year it would go a long way to making the overall futility tolerable.
Can we interest you in a James McCann?
Jon Heyman
Verified account @JonHeyman
12m12 minutes ago
Breaking: Tommy John surgery has been recommended for Royals star catcher Salvador Perez. He is expected to have the surgery next week, and would be back for the 2020 season.
Bye-bye, Adley.
I’m actually interested see how Shea Langeliers does at Baylor this year. He was supposed to be the better defensive catcher between the two, just needs his bat to rebound a little bit.
Pipeline Top 30
According to them 2020’s the year.
2019: (Hamilton), Jimenez, Cease, Dunning, Collins, Hansen, Burdi, Medeiros, Stephens, Zavala, (Ruiz), Adams
2020: (Kopech) Robert, Madrigal, Rutherford, Basabe, Adolfo, Burger, Gonzalez, Sheets, Lambert, Johnson, Flores, Henzman
2021: Walker, Pilkington, Curbelo, Rivera, Stiever
PS Don’t how Hansen could possibly make it up this year.
If they give up on him as a starter? Otherwise I cant see it either
He’s gonna play catcher…the Sox think the only requirement for that position is to throw hard.
I botched that. Was going off end of ’18 list. ’19 list is:
2019: Jimenez,Cease, Dunning, Collins, (Hamilton), Burdi, Zavala, (Ruiz), Thompson, (Frare), Stephens, (Burr)
2020: (Kopech), Robert, Madrigal, Basabe, Adolfo, Rutherford, Gonzalez, Hansen, Rivera, Sheets, Lambert, Henzman, Johnson
2021: Walker, Burger, Pilkington, Stiever
2022: Bush
I like Ivan nova and Ervin Santana. The scary thing is I am convinced they are our best two pitchers.
I don’t know how you guys can do it. Masturbating with sandpaper that is.
@Patrick Nolan Also probably time to add zeroes to the grade scale. Your discretion whether that’s for any move they didn’t make but should have or moves they tried and failed to close.
A well earned F.