We got a ton of questions in the Patreon mailbag this week. In fact, we got so many questions that I'm going to break it into a two-parter for your Sox Machine-supporting pleasure.
As always, thanks for your help in backing the site.
From Andrew:
Who are the next men off the 40 man to either make room for future FA signings or in case they want to draft a rule V player?
After the White Sox made their Rule 5 protections, I came up with an unordered list:
Palka came off with the Grandal signing, and if I had to pick the next one, I'd guess it'd either be Frare or Medeiros, just because of the three-batter minimum the league is expected to codify next year. If the Sox want to keep all their lefties, I'd guess that Vieira is on the block, as Ruiz occasionally flashes the breaking ball that Vieira doesn't have.
Update: While I was writing this, Yolmer Sánchez came off the 40-man roster on outright waivers, but the Sox will likely have more players to exchange.
Speaking of the Rule 5 draft, Doug asks:
Are the Sox done with picking up player from the rule 5 draft? Seem to be win now and cannot stash.
I would guess they'll be out of the running this year, just because there will probably be future 40-man shuffling after further additions. That said, the rosters expanding to 26 may make it easier for teams to stash, if they can compartmentalize and pretend they're only playing with 25.
Either way, I don't think the Sox have another Dylan Covey-like season-long product. I wouldn't rule out the Sox taking an arm they like at the expense of Vieira or somebody similar, or potentially selecting an injured player they can hide on the injured list for the first half of the year. Both probably seem like more trouble than it's worth, though, especially if teams were as aggressive as the Sox in protecting anybody worthwhile.
From John:
What impact could the Abreu contract have on 1B/DH types in the system- Vaughn, Collins, Sheets, Mercedes or even Jimenez, Adolfo? Also, Rick said DH neeeded to be addressed. Could they still be looking to acquire a one?
I think the Sox still might be in the market for a DH, but the Grandal acquisition knocks it down to the lowest priority, behind an outfielder and two starting pitchers. Grandal, Jose Abreu, James McCann and Zack Collins can all share time there and create a useful-enough platoon if nothing works out, so I'm guessing they'll wait until January and see if any bat-first/bat-only guys remain on the market for a decent price.
I think the additions of Abreu and Grandal make defensive improvement from Eloy Jiménez imperative, because I think they'd ideally like to reserve the other 1B/DH spot for Vaughn. Logically, that means everybody in between is expendable. For that matter, I also wouldn't rule out moving Vaughn, if there happens to be a young player of similar stock who is equally redundant in somebody else's system. I wouldn't deal him for a year of Mookie Betts or something equally short-sighted, though.
From William:
Keeping in mind a reasonable White Sox team salary limit, what would be the most you would spend for Cole, Wheeler, and Ryu before it wasn’t worth it?
Zack Greinke holds the average annual value record for pitchers at $34.4 million, and I don't think you can pursue Cole in earnest without beating it. I don't know if a team like the Sox would feel a difference between paying $34 million and $40 million a season, but I'd guess $37 million would mark the point where I'd want to see the years come down.
For Wheeler, I'm not sure where the rumored 5/$100M contract figure comes from, but five years makes me flinch more than $20 million per. I'd put Ryu down for a similar number on a shorter deal, due to being a few years older and showing less durability over the last few years.
Lew asks:
If McCann's good half-season had followed his bad half-season -- instead of vice versa -- how would that affect his prospects for 2020?
From our perspective, I don't think it'd make much of a difference because of how much he needed batting average on balls in play to break out. If he had a season with a lopsided walk rate or power surge, maybe you could say he was a different hitter from one half to the other, overcame some kind of injury or made some kind of magic adjustment. But since his walk rate and ISO basically remained unchanged, there's a half with a .408 BABIP and a half with a .299 BABIP, and they have a proportional impact on his success or lack thereof.
This being the case, if he flipped halves and started slow but finished strong, I'd hope the White Sox would assume that his fortune wouldn't be a great bet to follow him into 2020. Given that Grandal helps the Sox in a few other ways -- lineup balance, walks, framing -- I think it would've taken a lot more from McCann to make the Sox look elsewhere for that kind of help.
From Tom:
Are the contracts for Moncada and Robert the same as any drafted players? Are they still eligible for arbitration? Because Kopech was on the major league roster when he was injured was 2019 considered a year of service?
Yup, Moncada and Robert are essentially draft picks who had slot values of $25 to $32 million. They're still subject to the same rules and procedures as all other players with zero to six years of service time. The only difference is that the large sums of money they received upfront might make an early-career contract extension less urgent for them. If they've already received an infusion of life-changing money, they probably won't be so inclined to sell away years of free agency at suppressed prices.
Regarding Kopech, he indeed earned a year of service while rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. The Sox could theoretically regain the missing year if they keep Kopech in the minors until late May, and I'd treat that as silver lining for a rocky recovery than Plan A or Plan B. If Kopech is one of the team's five best starters by the end of spring training or mid-April, I don't think they could justify an extra five to eight weeks of Covey or whoever in a season where they spent a franchise record on a 31-year-old catcher.
