Had Carlos Rodón reached free agency in most of the White Sox's seasons since 2016, giving him the qualifying offer would've probably been an easy call, because it's not like they were interested in spending more money more productively. They may as well shoot for the compensatory pick, with hopes of trading him for an equally interesting prospect during the following season if he'd happened to accept it.
Following the 2021 season, there are a few key places where the White Sox can direct those resources, which would amount to $18.4 million in 2022 if Rodón accepted. It's overstating it to say every dollar counts, but it's fair to say every $5 million counts, and the White Sox might've been obligated to pay Rodón that 3.68 times over.
We just saw the upside of retaining Rodón, which is an All-Star. We also just saw the downside, which is the fleeting nature of that peak form. Take the glass-half-empty view and add the $18 million currently owed to Dallas Keuchel -- unless the White Sox can find a taker elsewhere -- and that would be one-fifth of the payroll devoted to a pair of pitchers who might not be great bets to make it to the All-Star break.
Ideally, the White Sox would have given Rodón the qualifying offer, and Rodón would've declined it. The problem is that the first step also could facilitate the worst outcome, which is Rodón accepting the offer as fast as he can and issuing a ban on takebacks because what's going on under the hood is pretty gnarly. Scott Boras clients are not known for taking the QO, but they're also not known for passing up the highest AAV, which $18.4 million could very well represent.
The White Sox chose the course in between by withholding the qualifying offer, and here's where the information asymmetry is a little too stark for me to have strong feelings about it. If the White Sox were phrasing Rodón's injury issues as euphemistically as possible during the second half of 2021 and don't think he's a great bet to ever hold up for six months, then their decision is readily defensible. They're just going to have to wait for Rodón's 2022 innings total to illustrate that thinking, because coming out and saying it while Rodón's trying to find his next job would be a dick move.
There's also the matter that Rodón has plenty of company. Of the 14 players were given a qualifying offer, only four were pitchers.
- Received qualifying offer: Justin Verlander, Eduardo Rodriguez, Robbie Ray, Noah Syndergaard.
- Didn't receive offer: Rodón, Clayton Kershaw, Jon Gray, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood, Steven Matz
Rodón had the best season of the second group, but the rest were worthy of consideration, and the last four pitchers finished the season in full working order. Now they're all reaching a free-agent pool that was already teeming with starters, which muddies the concept of Rodón's trade value. When factoring in the extensive injury history, does enough differentiate him from a dozen other starters on the open market? I'm skeptical, because we just saw the Reds put Wade Miley on waivers rather than pay him a $10 million team option after posting a 3.37 ERA over 163 innings. Miley lacks Rodón's dominant arsenal, but he just posted a 5 bWAR season like Rodón, and even threw his own no-hitter to match.
Here's the Reds' official reasoning:
[Reds GM Nick] Krall said he’d been gauging interest in Miley for the last two weeks and didn’t have any offers. The team then put him on waivers to see if he’d be claimed. If he wasn’t claimed, his option would be declined and the Reds would pay him $1 million. When the Cubs — who did not express interest in trading for Miley, according to Krall — claimed him, it saved the team the $1 million buyout.
Perhaps the Reds are so spectacularly cheap that they just wouldn't let the market play out, but if the market is that cool to Miley at one year and $10 million, I don't see one year and $18.4 million of Rodón being any more enviable.
(You could make the same argument for Craig Kimbrel after the White Sox picked up his $16 million team option, and I too am skeptical of his trade value. Two potential differences: $2.4 million, and the list of free-agent relievers pales in comparison to the free-agent starters.)
There's an undercurrent in the response to this decision that I don't care for, and that's the idea that Michael Kopech represents all the pitching depth the 2022 rotation needs ...
... but when it comes to the Rodón decision in and of itself, I'm not seeing a friendly environment for issuing a qualifying offer if the team isn't genuine in its intent to retain the specific player. The decision to let Rodón enter free agency without a qualifying offer would've surprised me at the start of the White Sox's offseason, but the events of the last week have revealed the risk.
I also think there's a little bit of endowment effect at play, which is the natural tendency to overvalue something -- or in this case, somebody -- you personally experienced, beyond the point of the price making sense to somebody with no such attachment. We saw it last year with James McCann, where the result of Rick Hahn's best pound-for-pound free-agent pickup made a lot of White Sox fans want to keep the dream alive, even if his desired role and salary just didn't fit in the White Sox's plans. Rodón gave White Sox fans similarly high highs for a low, low cost, and it'll be just as anticlimactic if it just ends with Rodón signing elsewhere with no compensation to the White Sox, but as McCann showed in his first year with the Mets, sometimes it's best to move on.
Just like with the exercising of the Kimbrel option, "time will tell" is such a boring and unsatisfying thing to write, but it just happens to be the honest one two decisions in a row. The combination of an uncertain labor environment and Rodón's uncertain physical condition makes it hard for me to see any kind of clear mistake committed by the White Sox in real time, even if there's a chance history doesn't look kindly upon it. After last winter, I wouldn't put it past Rodón to prove me wrong two years in a row.
(Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports)
