PREAMBLE
The White Sox 40 man roster is fudged, this team needs a left handed hitting bottom-kicker. And I want to get weird in the bullpen. LFG!!!
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
Write “tender,” “non-tender” or “rework/extend” after each player and their projected 2022 salaries. Feel free to offer explanation afterward if necessary.
- Lucas Giolito: $7.9M - TENDER
- Reynaldo López; $2.8M - TENDER
- Evan Marshall: $2.3M - NON-TENDER
- Adam Engel: $2.2M - TENDER
- Brian Goodwin: $1.7M - NON-TENDER
- Jimmy Cordero: $1.2M - TENDER
- Jace Fry: $1M - TENDER
CLUB OPTIONS
Write “pick up” or “decline” or “rework” after the option.
- Craig Kimbrel: $16M ($1M buyout) - BUYOUT
- César Hernández: $6M - DECLINE
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
Try to retain, extend qualifying offer, or let go?
- Leury García (Made $3.5M in 2021) - LET GO
- Carlos Rodón ($3M) - QUALIFYING OFFER (SIGNS ELSEWHERE)
- Billy Hamilton ($1M) - LET GO
- Ryan Tepera ($950K) - LET GO
FREE AGENTS
No. 1: Jonathan Villar 2 years $7 million - Here is your 2022 2nd basemen, a Kmart Blue light special and someone who can play shortstop to back up Tim Anderson.
No. 2: Josh Harrison 1 year $1 million - He will reprise the role of Leury Garcia on the 2022 White Sox. I once heard Kevin Goldstein say on his podcast Chin Music that Harrison was an 80 grade clubhouse guy, so how could I go wrong bringing him in to mix with our squad.
No. 3: Manny Pina 2 years $4 million - The White Sox were desperate for a competent back up catcher last season when Yasmani went down with injury, so I had to go out and get one. My thought here is to have the flexibility to allow Yas to slide into the DH role a little more often, have a few more rest days than in 2021 to keep him fresh for another season that runs into October. Pina is an okay hitter, very good framer / defender. He's a nice compliment to this roster.
No. 4: Michael Conforto 4 years $64 million - The White Sox don't have much internal depth in the outfield, we'll get to that in a little bit, so I thought a lefty bat that helps remedy their extreme right handedness, with power, with patience, for a price that we can afford under the constraints of this game. Conforto had a down year last year, so I undercut the pricing that I saw out there from some folks. I think this is fair, but I could be coerced a bit in either direction. .873 career OPS vs RHP. That's helpful.
No. 5: Collin McHugh 2 years $4 million - He was really good for the Rays last season, but he's 35 next year, his fastball doesn't even break glass, so he's the classic type of pitcher you can get cheap but that should be effective. Kinda like prime Evan Marshall.
No. 6: Hansel Robles 1 year $1.5 million - He was meh last year, but better after he got to Boston at the trade deadline. Robles also has closer experience, which I wanted at least one new guy to have closed before to take the days when Liam needs a breather. I went with ALL right handers in this bullpen because I feel like you can just do that in the AL at this time.
No. 7: Vince Velasquez 1 year 2.5 million - with a team option for $5M in 2023, no buyout - Ole Vince used to be the bees knees, except he never actually pitched good. He's mostly been a starter in his career, but I figured, let's take a gamble on an athletic guy with some arm talent and see if Ethan Katz can find a pitch mix that works for him in relief. It is probably going to be tough though as teams hit the daylights out of most of his offerings, so let's let the pitcher whisperer take a look make some tweaks, maybe like Chubbs Peterson it will be all in the hips.
TRADES
I wrote a blog about the flat posterior of the White Sox 40 man roster (at FromThe108 dot com) of which I am an expert.
No. 1: Trade Zack Collins to Cleveland for OF Daniel Johnson. I think we are at the point with Zack Collins where he's not really a catcher. He was just so bad defensively in 2021, that I think it's time to give up the catcher thing and just let him hit and hope he can figure that part out. The White Sox don't have any room for Collins to figure it out because they are A) Contending and B) Have tons of 1b / DH types that are much better than him. So I took a look at the teams that were absolutely terrible with 1st base production and Cleveland was definitely one of them.
Johnson is an OF who has hit in the minors, .274 / .340 / .457 across his minor league career and similar numbers at the upper levels, but for some reason hasn't really gotten much of a chance in the majors. Cleveland had tons of garbage run through their OF the last two years and they didn't even think highly enough to give him much run, so why not grab him, he hits lefty and has a minor league option, so he serves as 40 man depth. These two guys can take each others spots.
No. 2: Yermin Mercedes to Milwaukee for LHP (Reliever) Clayton Andrews. Yermin was awesome last April, then less awesome in May, then horrible in June and demoted to never return. He threatened to quit baseball on Instagram and then the next day he was back, he pulled the Larry David, "Fudge You and I'll see you tomorrow". I don't think the White Sox see him as having a future here, so making a move for a reliever that they can potentially use in the short term makes sense. From the Milwaukee side, they are likely inheriting the DH in 2022 due to potential rule changes. They had little to no thump in their 2021 lineup AND, they've been pretty damn good at coaching up Catchers on framing, an example would be former White Sox Omar Narvaez. All of that poop lines up to a low risk trade for them.
Clayton Andrews is weird. He throws really slow. like 30 grade fastball, he's also really small, he's 5'6".........but he's been really good in the minors so far. Only one problem, he went on the 60 day minor league DL in June and I can't find an update, so it's possible he needs Tommy John surgery or maybe he's just chillin on an island with Snoop, Bad Bunny and Tupac, but either way, we might have to wait on him a bit.
No. 3: Garrett Crochet and Luis Mieses to Toronto for C Alejandro Kirk, RH SP Bowden Francis and RH RP Julian Merriweather. I wanted to see what I think a trade could look like for Crochet. I wanted to repair the White Sox 40 man, by adding SP and RP depth. I love Alejandro Kirk, he's like 5'8" 245 lbs of #108thiccness that can hit and isn't a bad defender either behind the plate. The Blue Jays already have two other good catchers in Reese McGuire and Danny Jansen. I can see the team that developed Nate Pearson wanting a shot at Crochet. Mieses is an OF that is in the lower minors still, but the Jays prospect lists are missing basically any outfielders, so I figured he fit nice.
Bowden Francis is a starting pitcher, without overwhelming stuff, basically a back end of the rotation guy, but he's been in the high minors so he can start in AAA Charlotte and basically be the first guy to get the call if the any of the White Sox starters scuffle or get hurt.
Julian Merriweather is a quality reliever who has had some injury issues, but also has a minor league option left. In fact, all of these guys have minor league options and are upgrades on the current 40 man helping fix it some.
I know most people are thinking you trade Crochet and you get a very good mlb player for him. But what if you got like 3 real usable major league caliber players. Isn't that a great outcome for a White Sox team that has struggled with depth? It's not sexy, but it seemed like a fair deal to me.
To close out the 40 man proceedings, I DFA Seby Zavala, Micker Adolfo and Blake Rutherford. I promote Kade McClure to the 40 man.
I didn't trade Keuchel, because I think the White Sox aren't willing to pair a prospect with him just to get another team to take him. Plus I think they can get league average production outta him. He's got a dead cat bounce in there.
SUMMARY
