ASINWRECK’S 2024 OFFSEASON PLAN: THE DITCH

“‘Heart of Gold’ put me in the middle of the road. Traveling there soon became a bore so I headed for the ditch.” – Neil Young, Decade liner notes.

In 1972, Neil Young had just released the blockbuster album Harvest and embarked on a large tour. Like the 2023 White Sox, that experience went worse than anyone involved expected. Not everything about each experience was terrible; Luis Robert Jr. was brilliant for these White Sox, and Young recorded some outstanding new songs on that tour. He released them as the album Time Fades Away, the first of his “Ditch Trilogy” albums with On the Beach and Tonight’s the Night that did not reach the commercial heights of Harvest or the CSNY records, but comprise much of his most-loved work.

The 2024 White Sox will be horrible no matter what direction the organization picks. I’m taking the team into the ditch in hopes they will emerge younger, better, and more interesting on the other side.

ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS

  • Dylan Cease: $8.8M Tender, but #84 will not be staying in Chicago. (See below.)
  • Andrew Vaughn: $3.7M Tender.
  • Michael Kopech: $3.6M Tender.
  • Touki Toussaint: $1.7M Non-tender.
  • Trayce Thompson: $1.7M Non-tender.
  • Garrett Crochet: $900K Tender.
  • Clint Frazier: $900K Non-tender.
  • Matt Foster: $740K Non-tender.

CLUB OPTIONS

  • Tim Anderson: $14M ($1M buyout) Decline. Wow, Tim Anderson was fun for several years. I am not confident that he is a major-league baseball player anymore.
  • Liam Hendriks: $15M ($15M buyout, paid $1.5M annually over next 10 years) Decline. Congratulations, Jerry. You’ll be 97 when the buyout is complete. More seriously, congratulations to Liam Hendriks on the biggest win of the 2023 season. May he enjoy health and prosperity for many years to come.

MUTUAL OPTIONS

  • Mike Clevinger: $12M mutual option ($4 million buyout). Takes buyout. Mike Clevinger being the most successful transaction of Rick Hahn’s final offseason says so much about how 2023 went.

OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS

  • Yasmani Grandal (Made $18.25M in 2023) Let go.
  • Elvis Andrus ($3M) Retain.
  • Bryan Shaw ($720K) Let go.
  • José Ureña ($720K) Let go.

FREE AGENTS

This is the heart of my plan, shaping more than a third of the 2024 roster.

No. 1: OF Jung-Hoo Lee (5 years, $100 million).
No. 2: SP Raúl Alcántara (3 years, $18 million).
No. 3: SP Shinnosuke Ogasawara (3 years, $18 million).
No. 4: SP Erick Fedde (3 years, $12 million).
No. 5: DH Sung Bum-Na (1 year, $7 million; buy out remainder of KBO contract for $6 million).
No. 6: RP Yuki Matsui (1 year, $3 million).
No. 7: RP Raidel Martínez (1 year, $2 million).
No. 8: RP Liván Moinelo (1 year, $1 million).
No. 9: C Roberto Perez (NRI).

The free agent market is pretty thin, especially for young-ish players who might be more than a short-term patch. I’m turning to the international market even though Yoshinobu Yamamoto is well beyond Jerry Reinsdorf’s price range.

The big investment is in Lee, a young lefty hitter who’s a far better bet to solve right field than anyone the Sox have tried in the past decade. He will be the subject of a bidding war and has the best chance of anyone in my plan to be with the Sox in 2028. Cheaper (older, more powerful, and less athletics) is Na, who I’ve tabbed for DH (or 1B if there’s an attractive trade for Andrew Vaughn out there). There’s little interest in Na from MLB teams, but his history of production looks especially valuable to a team that got so little from anyone not named Robert or Burger. I have no idea about the legalities of buying out his contract, but I mention it as a potentially creative way to expand the organization’s talent base.

Fedde and Alcántara are the foreign-born KBO starters with the highest K/BB ratios. Each threw over 180 innings last year and are a much better bet to top 150 innings than Crochet or Kopech are. Ogasawara has a lower K/BB ratio and fewer innings in the JPL, but those 160 innings still make him a better rotation bet than the in-house candidates. He’s only turning 26. The rest of the pitchers coming from the other side of the Pacific are ticketed for the bullpen.

I am pursuing this strategy for two reasons. First, it brings in talent in bulk for Brian Bannister to try to fashion into a rotation. If it results in getting even one starter and even one reliever who contribute to winning baseball in 2026, it will be worthwhile.

The second reason for focusing so much on Japan and South Korea this year is establishing the White Sox as an organization pursuing such player in the future. That could matter when Roki Sasaki, Munetaka Murakami, Kazuma Okamoto, and Baek-ho Kang become available over the next 2-3 years.

Finally, Roberto Pérez is getting an invitation to spring training. He’s coming off rotator-cuff surgery. If healthy, he and Carlos Pérez split catching duties. If not, we get to enjoy the Korey Lee experience in Chicago.

TRADES

No. 1: Trade Dylan Cease (-$8.8 million) to Orioles for 3B Coby Mayo, P Cade Povich, & SS Leandro Arias. The Orioles need to improve their rotation, the White Sox need to improve their talent pipeline, and there’s little reason to keep Cease over his last two years of control. Why not get Moncada’s likely replacement at third, a potential starting pitcher, and a teen shortstop with a high ceiling? Mayo and Povich could be up as soon as September and could be major contributors to the 2025 team.

No. 2: Trade Eloy Jiménez (-$14 million) to Padres for SS Ha-Seong Kim ($7 million) and SP Yu Darvish ($16 million). The Padres need to cut payroll and are likely trading Juan Soto for prospects this winter. This deal allows AJ Preller to bet Eloy can replace some of Soto’s production while reducing payroll further. Darvish was shut down with a stress reaction in his elbow. If Darvish is healthy enough to pitch, he’ll get flipped sometime in 2024. There’s a chance he doesn’t throw a pitch in 2024; that worst-case scenario is fine by me because the Darvish risk (and San Diego’s surplus of major-league infielders) is the reason Kim is in this trade. The White Sox get a fine defensive middle infielder who’s under 30 years of age. Kim and Andrus should give the Sox solid defense up the middle in 2024, and I have a younger player joining them through the Rule 5 Draft.

RULE 5 DRAFT

No. 1. Draft SS Aeverson Arteaga from Giants. Arteaga will be 21 on Opening Day, plays a legitimate shortstop, has power potential, and there are questions over the Giants adding him to the 40-man roster this winter. The 2024 Sox aren’t going anywhere. The play here is to roster Arteaga in 2024, rotate him in with Andrus and Kim 2-3 times a week, hope the likely beating he receives from major-league pitching doesn’t destroy his confidence, then put him at Birmingham in 2025 as (one hopes) Carson Montgomery and José Rodríguez are well past that level.

SUMMARY
Here are your 2024 Chicago White Sox:

ROTATION $35.6 million
Yu Darvish ($16 million)
Raúl Alcántara ($6 million)
Shinnosuke Ogasawara ($6 million)
Erick Fedde ($4 million)
Michael Kopech ($3.6 million)

BULLPEN $14.58 million
Gregory Santos ($770,000)
Aaron Bummer ($5.5 million)
Yuki Matsui ($3 million)
Garrett Crochet ($770,000)
Raidel Martínez ($2 million)
Liván Moinelo ($1 million)
Tanner Banks ($770,000)
Declan Cronin ($770,000)

LINEUP $102.27 million
LF Andrew Benintendi ($17.1 million)
RF Jung-Hoo Lee ($20 million)
CF Luis Robert Jr. ($12.5 million)
DH Sung-Bum Na ($13 million total compensation with buyout)
1B Andrew Vaughn ($4.1 million)
SS Ha-Seong Kim ($7 million)
3B Yoán Moncada ($24.8 million)
2B Elvis Andrus ($3 million)
C Carlos Pérez ($770,000)

BENCH $3.08 million
C Roberto Pérez ($770,000)
INF Aeverson Arteaga ($770,000)
INF Lenyn Sosa ($770,000)
OF Adam Haseley ($770,000)

DEAD MONEY $6.5 million
Mike Clevinger buyout $4 million
Liam Hendriks buyout $1.5 million
Tim Anderson buyout $1 million

TOTAL PAYROLL: $162.03 million

Oscar Colás is in Charlotte; Gavin Sheets might join him when no other team wants him, and maybe some of the other 2023 White Sox join them alongside some of the trade deadline pickups and (hopefully) Colson Montgomery, Cristian Mena, and Bryan Ramos. If Moncada, Benintendi, Darvish, or Bummer show enough to opposing teams, we are open for business at the trade deadline.

The bet here is that some of the 2024 MLB roster may be part of the next good White Sox team. Robert, Kim, Lee, and, well, maybe Vaughn might be a core for the lineup. If Na thrives, he’s a lefty bat who could DH for 3-4 years. Joined by Coby Mayo, Colson Montgomery, and Bryan Ramos, I can squint and see a good lineup in 2026.

Gambling on veteran pitchers from overseas means not forcing the Nick Nastrinis, Cade Poviches, and Jake Eders of the organization into important roles unless they are ready.

These moves are gambles. Most of these players probably won’t enjoy success with the White Sox. This is not a good team, but this may be the best scenario for whatever time is spent waiting for Jerry Reinsdorf to leave the stage.

“Best” is a highly relative statement. As you read my plan, you might be reminded of a song from my favorite of the ditch albums, On the Beach. Near the end of “Ambulance Blues,” Neil sings:

You’re all just pissin’ in the wind
You don’t know it but you are
And there ain’t nothin’ like a friend
Who can tell you you’re just pissin’ in the wind

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StockroomSnail

The answer my friend, is pissing in the wind.

FishSox

So do I have it right that we’ll need 3 interpreters in the dugout, Spanish, Korean and Japanese? Jerry won’t be happy with the added expense, especially with travel.

FishSox

Please pass the needle and spoon.

HallofFrank

I don’t really see why the Sox would tie up ~$36m in fresh 2026 obligations to unknown commodities. It’s one of the reasons this last rebuild failed.

For that matter, if we’re trading Cease and squinting into 2026 to maybe see a winner, then I don’t see the point in keeping Robert around. Punting on ‘24 and ‘25 effectively means you’re paying Robert something like $60m for two years instead of four. Now, that’s still surplus value with this version of Robert, but likely not as much as they’d get in return for a trade. If we’re looking to ‘26 (and beyond), let’s push as much present value to the future as we can.

Alfornia Jones

Everybody knows this is nowhere.

andyfaust

I love the Eloy trade if SD would do it. I have my doubts. I also traded Cease to Baltimore in my plan, but brought back a completely different package of prospects. I prefer my return to yours but I’d be very happy with yours. Sox have holes everywhere to fill and Baltimore seems to have talent to spare at every position.

ParisSox

Love the reference and historical music anecdotes. Best OPP ever

LamarHoyt_oncrack

Why would the Padres trade Kim, who has had two straight 5 WAR seasons and only makes 7 million, for Eloy, whose salary is twice that and has never posted one over 2? Darvish by himself for Eloy might at least be possible.

Kim would solve some problems for the White Sox, which is why it for sure won’t happen but we gotta let the dreamers dream or else they end up with an OPP like some dude named Matt who just did the lazy “connect the dots” philosophy…this effing team has worn me dry of creativity.

LamarHoyt_oncrack

If we’re gonna dream crazy, and they’re gonna trade with the Padres, they should get Tatis back!

ChiSportsDrummerMJ

This is very creative with a lot of Pacific guys who I’ve never heard of. thanks for the insight and if the team goes in a direction to add more guys from overseas, that would be a nice way to get my hopes up for Roki…which would ultimately hurt more when it doesn’t happen. Either way, solid information and very creative effort to help the White Sox. We will see how it unfolds.

upnorthsox

I like the music references, the rest of it….I feel like I’m getting Rick Rolled….Gangnam Style.