Non-tender deadline looks like a quiet one for White Sox

When it's time to chart out the White Sox payroll in the Offseason Plan Project, the White Sox's pool of arbitration-eligible players aren't going to make much of a dent one way or the other.

MLB Trade Rumors posted its 2026 salary proejctions for this winter's arbitration-eligible players, and the White Sox only have three of them to consider:

• Mike Tauchman: $3.4M
• Steven Wilson: $1.5M
• Derek Hill: $1M

If that strikes you as a particularly low number of arb-eligible players, you'd be correct. For one, the White Sox are carrying the fewest such players in the league, even after the 11th-hour addition of Hill, who doesn't seem like the world's soundest bet to survive the tender deadline. The Cubs have four arb-eligible players, and everybody else has five or more.

"Five or more" is also how you could describe the White Sox's typical number of arb-eligible players, after going through the Offseason Plan Project templates from the 11 years we've been doing it:

• 2025: 9
• 2024: 8
• 2023: 8
• 2022: 7
• 2021: 8
• 2020: 8
• 2019: 7
• 2018: 9
• 2017: 9
• 2016: 5
• 2015: 6

It took a combination of factors to get to this point, starting with some transactions that got out ahead of dealing with future arb years. Gregory Santos and Jake Burger are newly arbitration-eligible, but it's with the Mariners and Rangers, respectively. Garrett Crochet and Gavin Sheets would've been on this list, but the White Sox traded the former and non-tendered the latter. (Sheets is projected to earn $4.3 million in 2026, so we'll see how the Padres handle that number after an OK-but-limited season.) Andrew Vaughn is also set to enter his third year of eligibility, but his first 48 games with the White Sox virtually guaranteed that they'd balk at whatever raise he'd be in line for in 2026. MLBTR estimates a $7.8 million 2026 salary for Vaughn after his post-trade bump with the Brewers.

Nick Madrigal has reached his final year of eligibility and Carson Fulmer his second, which I mention only as proof that time is indeed relative.

If the White Sox were that intent on slashing iffy tender calls, then it didn't make sense to acquire players who could turn into ones in short order. Instead, they prioritized post-hype prospects in trade returns, which instead created a glut of guys who are far away from free agency, but ran out of options before they were able to prove themselves.

So that covers the present and the past. As for the future, we've already acknowledged Hill, and Steven Wilson's projection is within the margin of error for low-leverage relievers, where being $300,000 high or low could change the calculus entirely.

Tauchman's the most interesting one, if only because of a profile that has made the White Sox walk the narrow path between praising his presence on the 2025 roster without guaranteeing his spot on the 2026 team. Chris Getz has routinely stopped short of commitment when asked about Tauchman's status, the most recent example being his year-end press conference on Sept. 17:

"Tauch's been really good. He brings a consistent at-bat. He's had some nagging injuries that he's played through, which is certainly appreciated. I think it's good for our clubhouse to see a guy at this stage of his career, fight the way that he does. But most importantly, he's been a productive player. He's a guy that you target players like that. We'll have our conversations with Tauch and his group and certainly openminded in bringing him back in some capacity." 

Tauchman's estimated salary explains the White Sox's reticence. By rate stats, Tauchman had the second-best season of his career (.263/.356/.400), but it's not worlds better than his performance for the Cubs in 2024, when he hit .248/.357/.366 while playing in 109 games. Tauchman was projected to earn $2.9 million, but the Cubs non-tendered him, which created the opportunity for the White Sox to sign him for a hair less than $2 million.

This time around, Tauchman is in line for an estimated $3.4 million salary coming off an age-34 season that was plagued by leg injuries, and ended early with a torn meniscus, so it seems like all parties are preparing for a similar cycle, where Tauchman's arb-year raise is higher than the market value, but he's still a major-league contributor somewhere.

Perhaps that "somewhere" is still on the South Side, but talking it up too much before the tender deadline would be dangling a price that they're probably not willing to pay. It's reminiscent of how the White Sox signed Kevin Pillar to a minor-league contract over the 2023-24 offseason, only to realize in spring training that Pillar's market price was below the original $3 million major league option they agreed to. They corrected the books on their end by releasing Pillar, then re-signing him for $1 million, but if I'm picking up what he put down on Twitter a few days ago, it doesn't sound like Pillar appreciated the audit.