PREAMBLE
Don't count on the AL being a cesspool again.
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
- Miguel Vargas: Tender
- Brenton Doyle: Tender
- Joey Bart: Tender
- Huascar Brazobán: Tender
- Jordan Leasure: Tender
- Chris Murphy: Tender
Vargas is a no-brainer, and Doyle serves as a sort of bird-in-hand fourth outfielder. I considered just dropping Bart but I think Quero needs to get sent back down after his wretched 2026 campaign and Bart is a competent backup. There's just too much need for pitching to let go of Brazoban at that price, though neither Leasure nor Murphy can justify even those low price tags. Leasure could be worth a minor league deal as he recovers from TJS, and Murphy does have a decent curveball, but neither merits serious consideration for the 26-man.
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
- Erick Fedde
Offer Fedde 1 year, $8 million with a $10 million vesting option if he pitches over 120 innings. He's reliably hit that mark even when he's been bad, and while I don't necessarily think he can repeat a sub-4.00 ERA, I do think he can at least burn some innings when needed and save higher leverage arms some wear and tear. I like Newcomb but I think he's going to be overpaid and don't care to enter a bidding war for him. Grichuk is due for regression and none of the others moves the needle.
FREE AGENTS
No. 1: Tarik Skubal (9 years, $400 million, $30 million signing bonus, $20 million in first year, $40 million per year the remaining 8 years, defer the remaining $30 million over 15 years. Opt-out after three years; deferred money remains even if opt-out is exercised). Trying to get a little creative here, and obviously this is almost assuredly not going to happen, but the White Sox need a front-line starter and their in-house options are just not materializing. While Skubal will be entering his age-30 season and had some injury troubles, he still pitched over 150 innings with a sub-3.00 ERA, and that is exactly what this team (and every team) needs. I get a little creative with the contract structure, and after three years if he can beat 6 years/$240 million in free agency, he's welcome to try. The deferred money being guaranteed is almost an incentive for him to take the opt-out here.
No. 2: J.P. Crawford (1 year, $10 million). After years as a reliable shortstop for the Mariners, Crawford chose a bad time to have a down year. Now entering his age-32 season, his defense declined and his bat settled in around league average. He wasn't awful, but he certainly wasn't good. I'm looking to grab him on a make-good contract (if he has a larger market then I'm sorely misjudging league sentiment here); there may be more left in the tank for him and I'd like to have a bridge guy up the middle.
No. 3: Enyel De Los Santos (1 year, $3 million). Not an exciting choice here, as even in his best years EDLS was a pretty middling reliever. I pick him up because he's cheap, he's pitched 64+ relief innings in each of the last four seasons, and he has a workable three pitch mix.
TRADES
No. 1: Trade Colson Montgomery, Luis Castillo, and Noah Schultz to the Angels for Mike Trout. Yup, insanity. Castillo is mostly a way to balance some of Trout's money. For the Angels, they get out from under the remaining four years of an aging star's money and get two high upside young players to build around. Heck, toss in George Wolkow just to give them a high upside lottery ticket type. The White Sox assume huge risk here as Trout is a perpetual injury risk and in the downturn of his Hall of Fame career, but the bat is still dangerous and he can still play outfield to an acceptable degree. As opposed to...
No. 2: Trade Andrew Benintendi to the Mets for Devin Williams. I was looking for a bad contract swap to finally rid us of Benintendi, who is pretty much just cluttering up the roster at this point to almost no benefit. The Mets might not be eager to take him on, but he's actually a massive improvement for them at DH (Jorge Polanco was beyond disastrous) and this rids them of the remaining two years of Williams' contract, which did not pan out well in year one. Williams still generates tons of strikeouts and doesn't really walk a ton of batters, but he has severely underperformed his FIP for two straight seasons now. I'd like to see if the White Sox can get him back on track, and they need high upside arms.
SUMMARY
STARTING LINEUP
C - Kyle Teel ($800k)
1B - Munetaka Murakami ($17m)
2B - Chase Meidroth ($800k)
SS - J.P. Crawford ($10m)
3B - Miguel Vargas ($5.4m)
LF - Sam Antonacci ($800k)
CF - Tristan Peters ($800k)
RF - Braden Montgomery ($800k)
DH - Mike Trout ($35.5m)
While I'm not the biggest fan of running with Braden Montgomery in right field, between Trout and Doyle there's a couple of decent fallback options if he has to be sent back down to the minors. Crawford is a placeholder for the time being, buying time for the likes of Caleb Bonemer and Roch Cholowsky (among others) to make their way to the roster. If he's good, he's either great depth or a trade piece. If he's bad, then there's multiple options on the way to rectify that. I had considered just moving Meidroth over to short and bringing Antonacci to second, but didn't want to mess with Meidroth when he just put in a best-in-class campaign at the keystone.
BENCH
C - Joey Bart ($2.9m)
OF - Brenton Doyle ($3.6m)
UT - Luisangel Acuna ($800k)
UT - Rikuu Nishida ($800k)
Acuna and Nishida make for a pretty weak back end of the bench, but they're both versatile and capable defenders with plus speed. It isn't out of the realm of reason to snatch a cheap infielder somewhere either.
STARTING PITCHERS
LHP - Tarik Skubal ($20m)
RHP - Sean Burke ($800k)
RHP - Davis Martin ($800k)
LHP - Anthony Kay ($5m)
RHP - Shane Smith ($800k)
I think the first four are pretty obvious. I'm giving Smith another chance to find his 2025 All-Star form, but there's other options waiting in the wings.
RELIEF PITCHERS
CL - Devin Williams ($17m)
RHP - Grant Taylor ($800k)
RHP - Jordan Hicks ($8m)
LHP - Hagen Smith ($800k)
LHP - Bryan Hudson ($800k)
RHP - Enyel De Los Santos ($3m)
RHP - Huascar Brazoban ($1.6m)
RHP - Erick Fedde ($8m)
Between Taylor, Smith, and Fedde, there are three relievers here who can go multiple innings and could perhaps even be moved into the rotation in a pinch. In the minors you still have David Sandlin and Mike MacDougal who can possibly fill similar roles.
Total payroll: $147.4 million (not including $30m signing bonus for Skubal)
Yes, I went a bit over the payroll, but I signed a top free agent and there's a couple places on this I could probably save some money, so I'll deal.
