If White Sox fans didn't have sad news, they'd have no news at all. The franchise remained mostly idle on Tuesday, but sadly lost a team legend in Lamarr Hoyt. Hoyt passed away at the age of 66, according to former Sox exec Dan Evans on Twitter.
Hoyt won 74 games across parts of 6 seasons with the Sox, including 24 in his 1983 Cy Young Award winning campaign for Tony La Russa's Winning Ugly division champs. He was traded to the Padres after the '84 season, returning Ozzie Guillen among others. Hoyt made the NL All Star team in 1985, but was out of the league by the end of 1986 due to a combination of drug problems and a shoulder injury.
Condolences to Hoyt's family, friends, and fans.
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In the wake of several high-level infield options flying off the free agent shelves in recent days, any White Sox fans hoping that the non-tender market might feature some intriguing names will have to look elsewhere.
The deadline for teams to tender eligible players major league contracts came and went fairly quietly, with a scant few recognizable names added to the free agent pool and virtually none at the White Sox's two most pressing areas of need: second base and right field. Among the casualties:
- The Tigers non-tendered longtime starter Matthew Boyd, who's coming off a 3.89 ERA but only made 15 starts and was brutal in 2020.
- The Braves let go of reliever Richard Rodriguez, formerly of the Pirates. Rodriguez was a fairly major bullpen addition at the 2021 trade deadline, but notably struggle after MLB started enforcing the "sticky stuff" ban.
- The Marlins gave up on former top prospect Lewis Brinson, who was the centerpiece of the Christian Yelich trade with the Brewers, but has been worth -3.4 bWAR in parts of five big league seasons.
- Old friends Juan Minaya (Twins), Luis Gonzalez (Giants), and Jose Rondon (Cardinals) all lost their roster spots.
The White Sox had already taken care of their roster business earlier in the offseason, when they outrighted Brian Goodwin, Jace Fry, Jimmy Cordero, and Evan Marshall, making all four free agents.
Here's the full list of non-tendered players.
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Elsewhere, two more second base options came off the board -- and one of counts as a mild relief.
Cesar Hernandez signed a 1 year, $4 million deal with Washington, short circuiting any ill-advised reunion ideas that might be floating around the White Sox front office -- a scenario that was starting to seem all too possible after the return of Leury Garcia. If you somehow blocked it out, Hernandez hit .232/.309/.299 in 217 PA's with the Sox last year.
Meanwhile, a more interesting option went from Tampa to Miami, as the Rays traded Joey Wendle to the Marlins for outfield prospect Kameron Misner. Wendle made his first All-Star team in 2021, putting up 3.8 bWAR powered by a slightly above average bat and plus defense across 2B, SS, and 3B. He also bats left-handed, hittnig .284/.333/.431 against righties over his career, plus he's controllable through 2023. Misener is a decent but not elite prospect, so one would think the Sox could have beat the Marlins' offer if they tried.
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The offseason clock ticks ever closer to self-destruction. MLB and the MLBPA are reportedly at the bargaining table, but if a deal isn't reached by 11:59 PM ET tonight, then the owners will officially lockout the players and put a pause on all offseason operations (and in-season operations, for the matter) until a new Collective Bargaining Agreement is agreed to.
Meanwhile, ESPN's Jesse Rogers reported that one of the ideas under discussion is expanding the playoffs to 14 teams. Per Rogers:
The format would call for 14 teams -- seven from each league -- to make the playoffs, four more than currently play in the postseason. The three division winners in each league would be joined by four wild-card teams to make up the playoff field. Here's how it would work:
• The team with the best record in each league would get a bye into the best-of-five division series.
• The remaining two division winners would get to pick their wild-card opponent from the bottom three wild-card teams. The division winner with the second-best record would pick first, then the No. 3 seed in the league would pick its opponent from the final two wild-card teams. The wild-card team with the best record would play the wild-card team that wasn't picked by a division winner.
• Once matchups are set, the higher-seeded teams would host all three games in a best-of-three wild-card round.
• Winners in the wild-card round would advance to the division series and the playoffs would continue as they have in the past.
My only question: why not make the whole season out of the playoffs??
We'll be here to cover further developments.
