With the free agent list officially finalized on Monday, a number of outlets finalized their free agent rankings over the last couple of days. Here are but six of them for your consideration:
- MLB Trade Rumors' top 50
- FanGraphs' top 50
- Keith Law's top 40
- ESPN's top 50
- Yahoo Sports' Top 50
- CBS Sports' Top 50
The rankings are the construct that draws attention, and the predictions for the teams leads to easy aggregation for sites that want it, but the most applicable part of the exercise as far as the White Sox are concerned is the contract projections.
Let's take Michael King, who feels like a very White Sox target to me in terms of what he's done, how he pitches, and what he could cost. The projected contracts vary, but all are within the neighborhood of a contract they've reportedly offered a pitcher before, even though Zack Wheeler declined a guaranteed five-year, $125 million offer from the Sox to take a little less with Philadelphia.
| Site | Ranking | Contract |
|---|---|---|
| MLBTR | 6 | 4/$92M |
| FanGraphs | 4 | 4/$100M |
| Athletic | 10 | 3/$90M |
| ESPN | 9 | 3/$79.5M |
Whether you prefer Trevor Rogers, Freddy Peralta or Clay Holmes over King among this second tier of pitchers behind Tarik Skubal, they're all in that precedented range of either years or AAV. Perhaps there will be competition that pushes the prices beyond what was initially expected -- Wheeler was projected to get something closer to four years and $72 million at the start of that offseason -- but with teams operating off models that often end up in similar places, most bidding wars tend to have guardrails these days. The White Sox would appreciate a set of those, because any of these contracts would set a new franchise record for total guaranteed outlay.
Spare Parts
The Mariners made an unusual choice for their new manager in Jason Kanzler, a whose major league dugout experience is limited to being an assistant hitting coach in Houston several years ago, and was more recently the director of player development with the Cubs. He's Dipoto's third attempt at hiring a manager, he's the third without any previous managerial experience.
That said, his background is a fascinating one. He has a bachelor's degree in psychology, taught high school science between his playing and pro careers, and coded apps with Houston to track player progression. At 36, he's the second-youngest manager in the league after Washington manager Blake Butera, but a Washington-like situation is far more forgiving with regards to the learning curve. We'll see if that matters here.
After a year spent in Houston as the assistant pitching coach for a coaching staff on its last legs, Ethan Katz is back atop a coaching chart, albeit at the toughest place to do it. He's reunited with the organization that drafted him, as well as one of his A-ball teammates in Warren Schaeffer, so he had a sense of whether the Rockies had made any strides.
“I let him know how impressed I was with the turnaround -- just everything I saw from playing the Rockies over the years,” Katz said. “Everything looked and felt different. That doesn't take away from what's gone on in the past. I just thought it was a testament to how well he's was getting things going in the right direction.”
- On his first day as Astros GM, Randy Flores was in full control. Can he maintain it? -- The Athletic
Speaking of the Astros, this isn't the kind of headline you want on your first day at GM, but the hope is that an ex-player in Randy Flores has enough gravitas to ward off any potential meddling from Jeff Bagwell, who offers plenty of counsel for owner Jim Crane. It's also a little weird that the Astros have talked to managerial candidates before hiring Flores.
Major League Baseball made a new proposal that still involves a salary cap, but one with a higher cap and floor, and one that wouldn't be implemented until the 2028 season. The union still shot it down. Now we'll see if the pre-lockout concessions are merely a "well we tried" gestured before a labor stoppage, or whether owners truly lack the cards to get into a prolonged conflict this time around. With a national TV deal up for negotiation after the season, it's a particularly challenging period for sabotaging interest.
