If starting pitching wasn't at the very top of the White Sox Offseason Priority List, it still won out in prominence, because it's the only position where Rick Hahn said he needed to get two of somebody.
Alas, as we officially hit the middle of December, a dozen pitchers or so have changed teams, but not one of them has chosen the White Sox. The Sox's pursuit of Zack Wheeler was well-documented, but there isn't much public knowledge about interest or rumors in the other players signing elsewhere.
At any rate, I was looking up for myself which pitchers remain available for signing, and where they slot into the greater free agent market, and I decided that I may as well share it with you.
The rank on the left is where the player ended up on FanGraphs' top 50 free agent list. You may prefer somebody else's, but given the players below link to their Baseball-Reference.com pages, you might want a site that also makes it easier to compare on FanGraphs.
| Rank | Pitcher | Team | Contract |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gerrit Cole | Yankees | 9/$324M |
| 3 | Stephen Strasburg | Nationals | 7/$245M |
| 8 | Madison Bumgarner | ||
| 9 | Zack Wheeler | Phillies | 5/$118M |
| 12 | Dallas Keuchel | ||
| 13 | Hyun-Jin Ryu | ||
| 15 | Kyle Gibson | Rangers | 3/$30M |
| 17 | Jake Odorizzi | Twins | 1/$17.8M |
| 19 | Cole Hamels | Braves | 1/$18M |
| 20 | Michael Pineda | Twins | 2/$20M |
| 28 | Tanner Roark | Blue Jays | 2/$24M |
| 29 | Adam Wainwright | Cardinals | 1/$5M |
| 31 | Rick Porcello | Mets | 1/$10M |
| 32 | Wade Miley | ||
| 36 | Josh Lindblom | Brewers | 3/$9.125M |
| 37 | Rich Hill | ||
| 40 | Gio Gonzalez | ||
| 41 | Kwang Hyun Kim | ||
| 45 | Jordan Lyles | Rangers | 2/$16M |
| 50 | Homer Bailey |
Those off the list, signed:
- Brett Anderson: One year, $5 million with Milwaukee
- Martin Perez: One year, $6 million with Boston
- Michael Wacha: One year, $3 million with the Mets
Those off the list, unsigned:
Yasmani Grandal's opinion of the pool is close to mine:
Grandal has also been blunt about his recommendations regarding how to improve the White Sox rotation, which he has mostly praised. So who does Grandal think the White Sox should pursue? He initially deferred to the front office but when offered a choice of Madison Bumgarner, Hyun-Jin Ryu or Dallas Keuchel, he replied:
“My thought is that I don’t want to face any one of them,” Grandal said. “So, give us all three.”
