PREAMBLE
Establish where you see the White Sox at this point, and your mindset/philosophy/strategy in putting together the roster for the upcoming season.
Last year’s team was fun until they played Cleveland in games that mattered, then they collapsed, both in the regular season and the playoffs. A lot of players struggled against Gavin Williams, Cade Smith and Jose Ramirez, so its tough to really fault the team for that, but the Cleveland team revealed a couple fundamental flaws of the White Sox team.
1) The rotation wasn’t deep enough, which led to a bullpen getting overused and scouted/game-planned against correctly
2) The hitting philosophy of “decisions, contact, damage” morphed into “damage” for everyone, which led to the team setting a strikeout record in Game 4 and then re-setting the strikeout record in Game 5
3) For the most part, the team itself did not have the bat speed to catch up to high velocity
Some of this can be fixed internally, so I’ll set some goals for a few team groups:
Coaching – the game plan against premium starting pitching early in the game should focus on decisions and contact. That will drive up pitch counts by forcing these pitchers to get cute with their sequencing, having them work out of the stretch and chasing them early. Once the bullpen is in, then the approach can be primarily about damage (it worked against basically everyone besides Cleveland).
Hitting – the biggest success story between 2025 & 2026 was Miguel Vargas, who gave most of his credit to bat speed training. It helped that he had a good whiff rate prior to increasing his bat speed. All of these guys are in their early to mid-20s, which means they all have the athletic ability to increase their bat speed. There are a few guys with elite bat speed (Colson, Mune) that need to improve their whiff rate. I think that means a lot of time on the trajekt machine to work on swing decisions in order to get their K rates under 35%.
Pitching – the focus should be on durability and accuracy. A lot of the guys have really good stuff, but they wore down. Better durability leads to better repeatability leads to better results.
All of this in addition to whatever strength, speed, agility, recovery, endurance and all other individual improvement training is set forth by the team and their private trainers.
As far as the front office goes, the goal should be to put on a better product than they put on last year – so that means having enough versatility to put all players in spots where they have the most likelihood of success. Here’s my go at it:
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
- Miguel Vargas: Tender
- Brenton Doyle: Tender
- Joey Bart: Non-tender
- Huascar Brazobán: Non-tender
- Jordan Leasure: Non-tender
- Chris Murphy: Non-tender
I’d like to re-sign Murphy and Leasure to minor league deals but I’m not sure they would go for that.
Brazoban fell off when he left the Mets. He’s fully dependent on his fastball/changeup combo which leads to lower margin for error. If I can’t trade him, I’ll let him test the market.
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
- Erick Fedde
1 yr, $3 million
I think re-signing Newcomb would be paying him for what he did and not what he’s going to do, but I’m happy for him that he’s going to get paid by someone.
Fedde as a reliever in the playoffs was interesting. I’m not sure if someone else will offer him a starter job or more guaranteed money, but he seemed to like it here, so maybe he’ll go for this.
FREE AGENTS
No. 1: Adrian Morejon (5 yrs, $95 million)
The offer is based on Josh Hader’s contract. I envision him as an any leverage bullpen piece. It is likely that San Diego will give him a qualifying offer so the Sox will lose their second round pick.
No. 2: Luis Robert Jr. (1 yr, $5 million)
The intent is to use him as a short-side platoon option in any outfield spot and defensive replacement as well as marketing based on nostalgia and a possible redemption arc. Hopefully the limited usage can keep him healthy. He still has elite bat and foot speed. This could be a nice use of his skill set. Or it could be similar to when they re-signed Adam Eaton after shipping him to the Nats.
TRADES
No. 1: Trade Andrew Benintendi, Edgar Quero and Jonathan Cannon to the Rangers for Nathan Eovaldi
From the Rangers perspective, they get some interesting cost-controlled players in Quero and Cannon, a Joc Pederson replacement in Benintendi, and some salary relief. From a Sox perspective, they fix a lineup clog and acquire a starting pitcher with postseason experience and familiarity with the head coach.
No. 2: Trade Luis Castillo to the Mets for Sean Manaea
Bad contract swap. I’m betting Steve Cohen would prefer Castillo’s name recognition. It’s only one year for either guy. I think Manaea is more likely to reach 170 innings, so he’s my preference.
No. 3: Trade Mathias LaCombe, Colby Shelton and Blake Larson to the Yankees for Heliot Ramos
I think the Yankees are probably pissed that Ramos batted 198/309/379 for a negative WAR after they acquired him from the Giants at the deadline. They may look to cut bait but probably won’t nontender him because they gave up a real prospect in Henry Lalane to get him. Mathias LaCombe and Colby Shelton are both real prospects, though not with Lalane’s upside. This is some decent cost recovery for the Yankees. The White Sox go back to New York to get a direct Grichuk replacement.
He has some weird baseball savant stuff: elite exit velocity, barrel percentage and hard-hit rate despite middling bat speed. He also has above average baserunning value despite middling sprint speed. His fielding is absolutely abysmal. His OPS was 907 against left-handed pitching. The bat speed training we’re mandating everyone else to do can potentially unlock an offensive breakout here.
No. 4: Trade Landon Hodge, Orlando Patino and Jeral Perez to the Pirates for Henry Davis
Let’s be real – Henry Davis is a bust relative to his draft slot.
Like Ramos, his baseball savant page offers intrigue: he’s above average in exit velocity, bat speed, fielding run value, blocking, caught stealing, pop time and sprint speed. He’s way below average in sweet spot percentage. There’s a lot of tools to work with and the sweet spot percentage can improve with better game planning and swing path training. Even if the hitting doesn’t improve, he’s got a high defensive floor and hits right-handed, which makes him a solid short side platoon partner with Teel.
No. 5: Trade a PTBNL to the Blue Jays for Nick Goodwin
I don’t like the current end of the bench options (Acuna, Baldwin, Murray, Nishida) so I’m buying a fringe roster candidate from the Blue Jays. Goodwin is not a top prospect. He’s played everywhere in the infield but mostly shortstop. He has not played the outfield. He’s not a stolen base threat. Over the last 2 years his OPS against left-handed pitching was over 900. It’s low-risk, high-reward. Also the Red Sox still owe the White Sox 2 PTBNLs from the Jordan Hicks trade. So the White Sox can just pass one of those over to Toronto.
SUMMARY
Starting Pitchers: Sean Burke, Nathan Eovaldi, Sean Manaea, Davis Martin, Anthony Kay
It’s two new veteran faces. I think these guys are a better bet to be effective every time out than whatever it was we saw last year. We can still deploy openers and bullpen days to preserve arms. We’ll also need guys like Shane Smith, Drew Thorpe and David Sandlin to start some games.
Bullpen: Grant Taylor, Jordan Hicks, Erick Fedde, Tanner McDougal, Adrian Morejon, Hagen Smith, Noah Schultz, Bryan Hudson
The goal of this bullpen is to be pretty modular. All pitchers have shown the capability of pitching multiple innings in an appearance. Half of these guys have shown the ability to pitch in any leverage.
Some deployment goals should be to stretch out at least Smith and Schultz for rotation spots in a future year. I’d rather have Taylor stay in the bullpen. Vasil will be up eventually as well.
Catching: Kyle Teel, Henry Davis
Straight platoon.
Infield: Munetaka Murakami, Chase Meidroth, Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas, Nick Goodwin
Same starters as last year. Goodwin gets the Acuna spot. Downgrade in sprint speed. Massive upgrade in batting (theoretically). Antonacci can play infield too.
I’d also like the organization to have Cholowsky undergo the major league training regimen as he could be up by summer.
Outfield: Sam Antonacci, Tristan Peters, Braden Montgomery, Brenton Doyle, Heliot Ramos, Luis Robert Jr.
The one who needs to improve the most is Braden. He came in with a ton of prospect clout and showed basically zero game power at the major league level. He’s got a lot of work to do otherwise he’s a fourth outfielder long-term.
I think Venable will primarily deploy the outfield based on handedness. The “no fly zone” consists of Peters, Doyle and Robert.
Similar to Cholowsky, I’d like Bonemer to undergo the major league training regimen since he could be up with the team pretty early.
Payroll: $127,543,000
Direct salary is $123,043,000. I’m anticipating that Burke, Martin, Taylor, Meidroth, Antonacci and Peters receive pre-arbitration bonuses from the pool and have allocated $3 million for those bonuses. They also owe Liam Hendriks $1.5 million in deferred money.
CONCLUSION
Last year’s team diappointed in the pivotal moments but were otherwise a joy to watch. Hopefully the returning players are pissed off and motivated enough to ensure success in those pivotal moments. The majority of the team is pre-arbitration players so in theory all those players should be on an upward trajectory.
The free agent starting pitchers are weird. There are 3 good arms that will get nine figures, Sonny Gray, and then a bunch of chronically injured or washed guys. So I didn’t go there.
A lot of the fixes are internal directives, but I hopefully added enough from a personnel standpoint without getting rid of prospects that matter or wasting money long-term.
