PREAMBLE
Wow, who would have known the baseball season could be fun? After 11 years of ineptitude the Sox finally rewarded our patience with one of the most exciting core group of young players in all of baseball along with productive veteran leadership, all while maintaining a well below average payroll, well it is time for that to change.
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
- Nomar Mazara: non-tender
- Carlos Rodón: non-tender
- Lucas Giolito: extend, I'm just going to borrow this extension from a much smarter person than me. It seems like a fair deal to both sides with a good amount of guaranteed money while also giving the club team options should Giolito continue to develop into the ace starter we've seen the past 2 years.
- NEW DEAL: 7 years, $108 million
- 2021: $4.5 million
- 2022: $9 million
- 2023: $13.5 million
- 2024: $19.5 million
- 2025: $19.5 million
- 2026: $21 million (Club Option)
- 2027: $21 million (Club Option)
- Reynaldo López: tender (reluctantly) $2M, it would be a grave mistake to count on ReyLo to be a starter at this point of his career, but there's value in a long relief/spot starter type that is still young enough to figure it out with a new pitching coach.
- Evan Marshall: tender $1.9M
- Adam Engel: tender $1.4M
- Jace Fry: tender $1M
- Yolmer Sánchez: Uncertain non-tender/offer minor league deal
CLUB OPTIONS
Write “pick up” or “decline” or “rework” after the option.
- Edwin Encarnación: $12M decline
- Gio González: $7M ($500K buyout) buyout
- Leury García: $3.5M ($250K buyout) decline, I originally had picked this up but I need the 3.5M used elsewhere. Engel will be our primary back-up outfielder, with mendick in the infield.
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
Try to retain, or let go?
- Alex Colomé (Made $10,532,500 in 2020) Let go, sorry Alex, and KenWo. Colome was great but I'm fine rolling with the young guys and trading for a veteran closer during the season if they fail.
- James McCann (Made $5.4M in 2020) Let go, sorry James, and Lucas. McCann will get, and deserves, starting catcher money and I don't think it makes sense to pay that for a backup catcher/DH/1st baseman.
- Jarrod Dyson (Made $2M in 2020) Let go.
COACHING STAFF
Here’s a first: Pick your manager and pitching coach, with any elaboration.
- Manager: Bruce Bochy It sounds like Hahn wants Hinch and I don't hate that but I have some reservations about a guy that was powerless to stop rampant cheating inside his own clubhouse. Plus it sounds like the strength of Hinch was using the data provided to him by the Astros, unfortunately we are not the Astros and until proven otherwise I have very serious doubts that our data/analytics are remotely similar.
- Pitching coach: Chris Fetter. Once again I'm borrowing this from someone far smarter than I am. I don't know the first thing about pitching coaches, but if the Yankees wanted him he must be pretty good at his job. We've got too many talented young pitchers with performance questions to mess this up, let's get the best option out there.
FREE AGENTS
No. 1: Trevor Bauer (3 years, $75 million).
Let's get the #1 pitcher on the market to give us a truly elite playoff rotation with Bauer, Giolito and Keuchel. Plus all the young guys! Bauer had said he was only interested in 1 year deals but his agent said on twitter they are open to all types of contracts. I could see the pandemic plus CBA uncertainty pushing Bauer to be more open to a multi-year deal.
No. 2: Tyler Flowers (1 year, $4 million). Not the most flashy signing, but we need a backup catcher. His bat may have never developed the way the Sox imagined when they traded for him but he's a quality defensive catcher and would give the Sox a couple top notch pitch framers.
TRADES
No. 1: Trade Michael Kopech and Jonathan Stievers to other Chicago team for Yu Darvish, Craig Kimbrel and Jason Heyward + $10M. Jason Heyward is coming off the best season of his Cubs career and has 3 years/$72.5M left on his contract. Yu Darvish is one of the favorites for NL Cy Young this year, along with our major FA addition. Remember that playoff rotation I laid out earlier? Well now we are looking at Bauer, Giolito, Darvish, Keuchel...good luck to the rest of the AL. Craig Kimbrel, well he stinks but in order to get Yu Darvish we may need to help the poverty ridden Ricketts by taking one of their terrible contracts off their hands. #theosleague
SUMMARY
This brings our total payroll up to around $174M, a smidge higher than the soft cap of $135M. Looking at 2019 payrolls that would put us right around #7 in the league and given the amount of money Jerry was able to bank during the rebuild with bottom 5 payrolls I think it's pretty fair to expect Mr. Reinsdorf to open up the wallet again and act like a he owns a team that based in Chicago and not one that's based in Tampa.
In the matter of an hour I built a team that competes for a World Series for the next 3 years, it took Hahn 7 years to win a playoff game.
Aurora University Education - 1 : Michigan - 0.
Projected Lineup
SS - Tim Anderson
3rd Base - Yoan Moncada
1st Base/DH - Jose Abreu
C - Yasmani Grandal
LF - Eloy Jimenez
CF - Luis Robert
RF - Jason Heyward
DH/1st Base - Andrew Vaughn
2nd Base - Big Stick Nick
Starting Pitchers
Trevor Bauer
Lucas Giolito
Yu Darvish
Dallas Keuchel
Dylan Cease
Dane Dunning
Relief Pitchers
Kimbrel, Lopez, Marshall, Fry, Cordero, Heuer, Foster
