Kendall Graveman will miss all of 2024 after undergoing shoulder surgery for an issue that caused him to miss the postseason with the Astros last October.
This is news that doesn't pertain to the White Sox, because they traded Graveman to Houston for Korey Lee a few days before the deadline. Lee fared so poorly in his initial audition with the White Sox that they acquired two veteran catchers to push him down to Charlotte, but with Graveman out of action, the deal can officially rate no worse than a wash.
Under slightly different circumstances, this could've been the White Sox's problem, because even a mediocre White Sox team could've been within striking distance of first place in the AL Central by late July. That could've inspired Rick Hahn to stand largely pat the trade deadline, because that's what he did the previous year to his own chagrin.
And if that didn't pan out? Yyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeecccccchhhhhhh.
Besides everything indicated by the standings and vibes, the thing that made the White Sox's fire sale obvious and tolerable was the fact that they had so many impending free agents. Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López, Keynan Middleton? Free agents. Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly weren't likely to be worth their club options.
Graveman was slightly different because he still had one year and $8 million left on his contract, but with Kelly and Liam Hendriks unlikely to factor into the 2024 picture, he wouldn't be enough to headline a bullpen. Taking what we now know of his condition, provided Graveman would've suffered the same wear and tear pitching for the White Sox as he did for the Astros, then he wouldn't be contributing to the 2024 White Sox, either. Consequently, just about everybody the White Sox removed from the roster would've departed the roster for one reason or another.
PERTINENT: Kendall Graveman and Joe Kelly showed limits of White Sox's bullpen-first approach
This had me thinking of the decisions the White Sox would've faced in a world where they had a runner-up's chance of winning an AL Central, especially in a landscape where the Twins are cutting payroll and the Guardians are running in place.
Hit CTRL+Z on all the White Sox's moves to take their roster back to the end of the World Series, and here's what the payroll looks like:
| Pitchers | Salary | Position players | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dylan Cease | $8M | Yoán Moncada | $24.8M |
| Kendall Graveman | $8M | Andrew Benintendi | $17.1M |
| Aaron Bummer | $5.5M | Eloy Jiménez | $13.833M |
| Michael Kopech | $3M | Luis Robert Jr. | $12.5M |
| Touki Toussaint | $1.3M | Andrew Vaughn | $3.25M |
| Garrett Crochet | $800K | ||
| Matt Foster | $750K | ||
| Total | $27.35M | Total | $71.48M |
The White Sox would also owe $13 million in dead salaries, buyouts and deferred payments, and Graveman would effectively make that column $21 million since he wouldn't be able to pitch.
So you're looking at a payroll that's already passed $110 million while still needing at least two credible starters and a couple of comfortably mid-leverage guys on the left side, and non-negligible investments at catcher, second base, shortstop and/or right field on the right. This team would still have Jake Burger for the league minimum, but he wouldn't be helping any of those spots.
The White Sox also couldn't count on supplementing their 26-man roster with in-house options, because their farm system's improved standing is reliant on the prospects they received in the trades that never existed in this scenario. Here's Baseball America's top 10 prospects for 2024 minus the players who wouldn't be around:
- Colson Montgomery
- Noah Schultz
Nick Nastrini- Bryan Ramos
Edgar Quero- Jacob Gonzalez
Jake Eder- Cristian Mena
- Jonathan Cannon
- Peyton Pallette
And they'd also be without Jordan Leasure, the White Sox's best relief prospect.
What would the White Sox do in this scenario where they're only moderately disappointing instead of an abject disaster? Taken literally, that's probably an easy question to answer. "Moderately disappointing" was the default setting for the White Sox during Hahn's tenure, so you'd assume he and Kenny Williams would get a chance to embark on a third rebuild. It took a spectacular failure in order for Jerry Reinsdorf to consider the extraordinary measure of trying somebody else atop baseball operations.
A rebuild couldn't necessarily be assumed, depending on how the White Sox notched those 16 or so extra wins. If they came from a healthier Moncada, Jiménez and/or Tim Anderson, a better Oscar Colás or Lenyn Sosa, perhaps they'd try to make some mild buys along the lines of Erick Fedde or better with an eye on kinda-contending, which they've done before. If free agents drove those improvements -- and you can include Elvis Andrus and Mike Clevinger, neither of whom were impactful enough to be traded -- then they'd merely be looking at spending a lot of money just to not be worse.
Compared to either of those two scenarios, the White Sox are in a preferable state. The additions of Quero, Nastrini and the gang put them a year ahead of where they might be otherwise, and Chris Getz leaves a little bit more to the imagination simply by virtue of being new. None of that counts as good, but we should all be accustomed to worlds, real or imagined, where the White Sox are the only team the White Sox can beat.
