PREAMBLE
The White Sox have a playoff-ready lineup with depth and talent coming up and/or back from injury. (Bonemer, Cholowsky, Baldwin, Murray, etc.) The focus has to be figuring out the pitching, and if a quality veteran bat falls into the lap, go ahead and take it. I understand the desire for both Smith and Taylor as starting pitchers, but I want one of them as my closer, so I am leaning towards Taylor converting to a starting pitcher, with Smith taking Taylor's high leverage roll. That makes Taylor, Burke, and Martin the 1,2,3, and leaves two starting spots to figure out. Bullpen Config: Smith, Hicks, Hudson, Vasil, and four open spots. There are a lot of talented arms ready to contribute (some more promising than others), but I will deal with them when I get to them.
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
- Miguel Vargas: Tender
- Brenton Doyle: Tender
- Joey Bart: Non-tender
- Huascar Brazobán: Tender
- Jordan Leasure: Tender
- Chris Murphy: Non-tender
Vargas is obvious, Doyle's defense is important until someone else displaces him, Brazoban and Leasure are cheap if they work out, and not too expensive if not. Murphy would fall into that category except that he has no options, so he's not worth it. Bart didn't get a chance to prove himself, and I am not sure he's any better than what we have to backup Teel. I am still hopeful that Quero can figure it out, and Romo is fine as a backup.
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
- Erick Fedde
- Randal Grichuk
- Sean Newcomb
Newcomb - 2 yrs, 16 mil
Grichuk - 1 yr, 10 mil
Fedde - 1 yr, 5 mil
Newcomb was a slam dunk. Whatever it takes to get him back should be taken. Grichuk is a solid bench bat. Probably won't be necessary after this year, but should be valuable for another year. I waffle about Fedde, but he was good enough out of the bullpen, and seemed to thrive in the flex roll, so I would keep him around and use him as a second Vasil. 5 mil is cheap enough to get rid of him if he is blocking someone, but it's never a bad thing to have an extra arm.
FREE AGENTS
I am currently just over 80 million, so I've got 50 million to work with. I am trading for a high-end starter, so these are mostly just around the edges.
No. 1: Bryan Abreu - 3yrs, 30 mil, 12 mil mutual option for '30 with a 3 mil buyout
No. 2: Hoby Milner - 1yr, 3.5 mil
No. 3: Jordan Romano - 1 yr, 1 mil
Moving Taylor to the rotation means we have to get a quality right-handed arm. Abreu is that. Milner seems like a good low-risk, high-reward flyer. Jordan Romano is more just to have a third person, but he's been good at times in his career, and he's only 33. A good depth piece to figure out the bullpen
TRADES
No. 1: Trade Caleb Bonemer and Noah Schultz to Tampa Bay for Shane McClanahan.
Any solution to the rotation is probably going to start with Bonemer. There aren't many high-end starters and they are all going to be overpriced. McClanahan is coming up on his last year of arbitration, and his arb number is already on the high end of contracts that Tampa keeps. Hopefully, the idea on the White Sox side is that you make the trade and immediately extend McClanahan in the range of 5 yrs, 120 mil. I really don't understand why the Sox seem to be so hesitant to trade Bonemer, but he doesn't have a position on the major league team, and they NEED an ace to push Burke and Taylor to 2 and 3.
SUMMARY
C - Teel
1B - Murakami
2B - Meidroth
SS - Montgomery
3B - Vargas
RF - Montgomery
CF - Peters/Doyle
LF - Antonacci
DH - Benintendi/Grichuk
BN - Acuna, backup catcher
SP - McClanahan, Taylor, Burke, Martin, Sandlin (or someone else who beats him out)
RP - Smith, Abreu, Newcomb, Hicks, Hudson, Vasil, Fedde, Schweitzer
I added 25 million with the McClanahan extension, and ~15 million with the free agent signings, so we are looking at 120 million. Murakami is sitting at 17 million, so I'd probably also try to give him a 4 yr, 100 million extension. That would put me at 128 million. The hope would be that Cholowsky comes up by the end of this year and moves Montgomery/Vargas/ Murakami around, making Benintendi and Grichuk unnecessary next year. Maybe Baldwin takes Acuna's spot, but I am just defaulting to this year's lineup, and anyone who comes back from injury will have to take a spot from them.
