PREAMBLE
The White Sox right now have an excellent lineup and some great young arms especially in the bullpen, but have a slight lacking in right handed bats and a major problem with starting pitching, which may turn into a bullpen problem as some guys move into the rotation. In order to be a true WS contender they will need to address these problems.
The needs I sought to fulfill were:
One top rotation SP
One mid rotation SP
One or high leverage reliever to replace those moving to the rotation
A couple of cheaper relievers who pitched well last year but not enough to get a bigger contract
One RH bat in the starting lineup, and others to help the Sox shift from a lefty heavy lineup to a more balanced one
Offloading some of our more expensive contracts
Brooks Boyer has publicly stated that he wants the White Sox to be Japan’s AL team, and Murakami, at least according to my admittedly anecdotal exposure online to Japanese baseball fans, has certainly helped increase the White Sox profile in the land of the rising sun. Business wise it makes sense to tap into the overseas TV revenue that has certainly helped the Dodgers spit on the MLB’s luxury tax. I will look to add one or two Japanese players to be the Yamamoto and Sasaki to Murakami’s Shohei.
In addition I wanted to maintain the following:
Keep position player defense at a high quality
Where I cannot have good defense and a good bat, allow for more flexible lineup arrangements to cover those weaknesses.
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
- Miguel Vargas: Tender
- Brenton Doyle: Tender
- Joey Bart: Tender
- Huascar Brazobán: Tender
- Jordan Leasure: Non-tender
- Chris Murphy: Non-tender
Don’t really need to explain Vargas. Doyle provides a RH bat with potential upside and great defense, something the Sox need desperately. Bart is a solid option at $2.9M to bring back as Teel’s backup to play against lefties. Brazoban at the very least is incredibly cheap so if he doesn’t pan out it would not be hard to cut him loose. Leasure and Murphy are not really worth a 40 man spot.
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
- Randal Grichuk
- Sean Newcomb
Randal Grichuk - 1 year $5 million
Sean Newcomb - 2 years $15 million
As much as I enjoyed Fedde showing me how he reminds me of who I really am this year, he is probably not worth coming back as a spot starter/long reliever. I wish him the best on the next rebuilding team he joins and has a blast hanging out in the coolest bars in the VIP with the movie stars.
Rogers was for the most part an emergency add after Bart went down. I’d be open to signing him to a minor league deal if possible
Newcomb was too valuable both as a high leverage reliever and a bulk reliever that it felt necessary to bring him back in a pretty dry FA market.
Grichuk is simply the best RH bench bat on the market right now. The White Sox need RH options and Grichuk excelled at that last year. We’re bringing him back
FREE AGENTS
OF/DH Seiya Suzuki - 4 years $100 million with a $30 million player option
LHP Alex Vesia - 2 years $24 million
RHP Hiromi Itoh 3 year $33 million
RHP Mark Leiter Jr. 1 year $3 million
Finally! We get a 9 figure contract! Suzuki gives us the answer to having a solid RH bat with pop to add on to Vargas and Meidroth. This provides a great deal of flexibility with the lineup, as Will will have more options to rotate in the OF. Suzuki will primarily DH, but may slot in in LF for Antonacci or RF for Braden Montgomery against lefties.
Vesia provides another veteran LHP bullpen arm, which will be much needed given a trade I plan to make.
Itoh will provide an option as a 3-4 starter with top end rotation upside for a mostly lower salary.
Leiter is a RHP arm that has had some unfortunate run-ins with the BABIP gods over the last few years, but should at the very least help provide another solid righty arm in the pen.
TRADES
Angels
Angels Receive
SS Billy Carlson
LHP Hagen Smith
LHP Anthony Kay
OF George Wolkow
LHP Blake Larson
White Sox Receive
LHP Reid Detmers
Yes I’m still not letting go of the trade we should have done this past deadline, but hopefully with Arte Moreno gone the Angels will have some sense to trade a piece they will not need in the next two years. Carlson is definitely my least favorite of the shortstop prospects and is still a couple years away from contributing to this team. To compensate for that I went with Hagen Smith as the other major piece going to the angels. I’m still much more pessimistic on Hagen Smith than most Sox fans. He has amazing stuff, and I think he’ll make a fantastic high leverage lefty arm, but he’s never shown at any level that he can have the command necessary to be a top starter.
The alternative I considered was sending McDougal and Braden Montgomery to the Angels, and signing Michael Conforto to platoon DH with Grichuk, but eventually changed my mind once I realized that having both Suzuki and Antonacci in the corners almost every day would really hurt the defense, but this version of the deal is cheaper, allows the Sox to have better defense, and gives Braden more room to improve his bat at the cost of giving up a much more promising relief pitcher in Hagen Smith.
Kay goes mostly in a salary move and to sweeten things up by giving the Angels a solid innings eater to help them find their way through the dark. In order to make the White Sox a solid world series contender under our budget, Kay unfortunately doesn’t have a place on this team.
Detmers gives us a good lefty top of the rotation piece we need to pair with Burke, and will help add enough stability to help keep the bullpen fresh and limit the use of openers both in the regular season and the playoffs.
Giants and Phillies
Giants Receive
CHW RHP Luis Castillo
PHI CF Francisco Renteria (17 yrs old ranked 3rd on MLBPipeline PHI Top 30 and 73rd Overall)
PHI RHP Moises Chace (13 on MLBPipeline PHI Top 30)
CHW LHP Blake Larson
Phillies Receive
SFG 3B Matt Chapman
CHW RHP Jordan Hicks
$15,000,000 from the White Sox in 2027
$10,000,000 from the Giants 2028-2030
White Sox receive
PHI RHP Jonathan Bowlan
This is my complex salary dump trade. The Phillies need a bat that can play third, the Giants need prospects, and the White Sox need to shed salary and still have a solid high leverage righty.
The White Sox simply do not have room to give Castillo another shot if they wish to compete for a World Series next year, and his salary has become a burden. Hicks had a fantastic rebound this year, but given his higher salary and production before 2026, the time to trade him is now. In return the White Sox will help pay for Chapman and Hicks contract on the Phillies and give the Giants a good bounce back trade candidate as well as help the Phillies in the prospect haul for Chapman. Bowlan provides a young controllable RH arm who has had success the last couple of years for Philly to add to the pen.
Rockies
Rockies Receive
OF/DH Andrew Benintendi
RHP Matthias LaCombe
$5,000,000
White Sox Receive
PTBNL
This is a salary dump plain and simple. Benintendi simply doesn’t have a place on the roster moving forward as a lefty platoon DH bat. Better to simply offload his contract to a rebuilding team and toss in a prospect and some cash and move on.
SUMMARY
Overall this greatly stabilizes the rotation, helps supplement losses to the bullpen from either graduating to the rotation or trades, manages salary more effectively, and provides a wealth of options for balancing lineup platoon advantages and maintaining a good level of defense.
The OF in particular becomes more interesting with Suzuki, as he can play LF and RF both for platoon reasons and to potentially allow Antonacci to stay off the field if his fielding does not improve or he plays games at 2B.
For young guys moving into the rotation, I have much more faith in Grant Taylor being successful in this role given his performance in the post season and having a much more reasonable walk rate. The fifth rotation spot should be a competition between Schultz and Sandlin, the loser of which goes to the bullpen.
Starting Lineup:
C - Kyle Teel
1B - Munetaka Murakami
2B - Chase Meidroth
3B - Miguel Vargas
SS - Colson Montgomery
LF - Sam Antonacci
CF - Tristan Peters
RF - Braden Montgomery
DH - Seiya Suzuki
Bench:
C - Joey Bart
OF - Brentan Doyle
OF - Randal Grichuk
UT - Luisangel Acuna
Starting Pitchers:
SP - Sean Burke
SP - Reid Detmers
SP - Hiromi Itoh
SP - Grant Taylor
SP - Noah Schultz/David Sandlin/Drew Thorpe
Bullpen:
LHP - Mike Vasil
RHP/LHP - Noah Schultz/David Sandlin
RHP - Tanner McDougal
RHP - Huascar Brazoban
RHP - Mark Leiter Jr.
LHP - Alex Vesia
RHP - Jonathan Bowlan
LHP - Sean Newcomb
