ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
- Jose Abreu, $16M: Tender
- Avisail Garcia, $8M: Tender
- Yolmer Sanchez, $4.7M: Tender
- Carlos Rodon, $3.7M: Tender
- Matt Davidson, $2.4M: Tender
- Leury Garcia, $1.9M: Tender
- Danny Farquhar, $1.4M: Non-Tender – Sign to Minor League Contract.
CLUB OPTIONS
- Nate Jones, $4.65 million/$1.25M buyout: Pick up option
- James Shields, $16 million/$2M buyout: Decline
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
- Miguel Gonzalez: Bye.
TRADES
- Jose Abreu, Leury Garcia, and Jace Fry to NYY for Miguel Andujar and Jacoby Ellsbury. This trade works out for both teams. The Yankees drop Ellsbury’s salary that they can reallocate towards Machado or Harper plus they gain Garcia – who can fill in for Gregorious to start the year – and Abreu who can fill their 1b hole. Fry also helps to give them another young bullpen arm. The White Sox gain their cost-controlled 3b for the next while and they can sign him to an extension down the road if needed. Ellsbury can fill a corner outfield slot and be a stabilizing veteran.
FREE AGENT SIGNINGS
Nathan Eovaldi: Five years, $80 million + 2 option years at $20m each
Love this guy and would love to see him anchor the rotation temporarily. As Cease/Kopech/etc… grow, they would be future anchors and Eovaldi could drop to a 3-4.
Payroll: ~$90-95 million?
SUMMARY
Here’s the Sox’ lineup:
2b Moncada
SS Anderson
3b Andujar
DH Palka
RF Garcia
1b Davidson
LF Ellsbury
CF Engel
C Narvaez
Bench:
C Castillo
OF Engel
UT Rondon
UT Sanchez
Pitching:
Rodon
Eovaldi
Lopez
Giolito
One of Covey/Stephens/Adams/Guerrero (until Cease)
Bullpen:
Burr
Hamilton (closer)
Vieira
Jones
Frare
Fulmer
One of Covey/Stephens/Adams/Guerrero
My plan does a few things:
- The team actually gets younger. We add another 2 centerpieces to the core and they fit the window.
- Avi holds a place for Eloy. If he’s good, he builds trade value. If he sucks, he gets released or moves to DH when Eloy arrives. Win/win for the Sox here and it’s a win for Avi if he’s actually good.
- Ellsbury can also take over 4th OF or DH the next couple years if needed. He’s an expensive extra but young, cost-controlled stars like Andujar are rare.
- This takes away the need to get Machado/Harper/Arenado/etc… If we were able to land Arenado in 2019, we could move Andujar to DH in place of Palka. I guess I have PTSD from the early 2000’s bulls swinging for the fences…and getting Ron Mercer and Carlos Boozer. Wah wah.
- This buys time for prospects like Nick Madrigal and Luis Robert to develop in the minors as needed and keeps Moncada and Anderson in their current defensive positions to lesson their learning curves (versus moving them to new positions to make room for Madrigal). It also builds healthy competition on the MLB roster.
- We also would have some cash to land another piece or two next offseason…like…Chris Sale? David Robertson? Just saying, it definitely wouldn’t hurt the Sox to pull a “Stan Bowman” there.
