The Offseason Plan Project is upon us, and the 2024 White Sox gave us the most miserable exercise to date.
If that sentence sounds familiar, it's the same one I used for the last OPP, only updating the year. It's pretty ghastly out there, as "avoid setting a new record for losses in modern MLB season" represents an actual bar for improvement.
But some elements have shifted. Unlike last season, the White Sox have a rosterable five-man rotation even if no changes are made. All the planning stress has been shoved to the position-player side, which has only two surefire starters, both of whom play the outfield.
Set aside the specifics, and the heart of the task remains the same. Whether you prefer "putting lipstick on a pig" or "polishing a turd," your offseason plan will aim to make the 2025 team a more professional outfit while making 2026 a season to truly anticipate.
If you’re new to the OPP, it’s a staple of our late Octobers and early Novembers, in which Sox Machine community members attempt to chart out their best vision for how the White Sox should proceed. In previous years, the task was to strengthen a postseason contender. This year, the task is a lot more open-ended.
To participate in the Offseason Plan Project, here are the steps:
- Copy the template below
- Paste it into the text editor on this page
- Fill it out* and submit it. Here is a good example from last year.
(*In case it isn’t etched into your memory like it is mine, Andy Gonzalez’s number is 26. You will need to know that.)
Here's how the White Sox payroll breaks down as the hot stove season approaches:
- Obligations: $32.1M to six players
- Club options: $32.5M to two players ($5.5 million in buyouts)
- Arb-eligible: $22.9M to nine players
- Retained salaries: $1.5 million to John Brebbia
- Deferred salary: $2.5M to José Abreu and Liam Hendriks
Bring back everybody under team control and fill in the rest of the 26-man roster with players making the $760,000 league minimum or thereabouts, and the maximum incumbent payroll is $98.34M.
That gives you a minimum of $15 million to play with, because I'm setting the budget at $113 million, which is last year's 26-man Opening Day roster total. In truth, that's probably aspirational for what ownership is willing to spend to prop up a failing roster when their TV revenue could be in the toilet. However, now that the White Sox are out from under a couple of early-career contract extensions that backfired on them, it gives you an opportunity to imagine what last offseason could've been like without such onerous albatrosses.
You're free to spend less if you think this team needs a rebuilding or retrenching -- or if you prefer to play the game at the Hall of Fame difficulty level -- and you're free to spend more if you can make the case for it, but the challenge is staying within the constraints.
Some last points before we get to the template:
*Cot’s Baseball Contracts has the White Sox’ payroll obligations, as does Spotrac for a more granular, sortable approach to finances.
*MLB Trade Rumors has the list of 2024-25 free agents. Note the players with club options and exercise common sense when it comes to their potential availability.
*Spotrac has a rough MLB market value estimator if you're attempting to hash out fair contracts, and it's worth running trade ideas through Baseball Trade Values to see if it's in the neighborhood of fair.
*There are such things as dumb ideas, but the threshold is fairly high to cross it. Even an unworkable plan might have a great suggestion contained therein, which works for our goal of generating the highest number of feasible ideas possible.
*If you’re critiquing, try to make it constructive, even for the leakier proposals. A fair percentage of the Sox Machine community joined the fray sharing an offseason plan. We’re among friends here.
————— ✂️ [cut along the perforated line] ✂️ —————
PREAMBLE
Establish where you see the White Sox at this point, and your mindset/philosophy/strategy in putting together the roster for the upcoming season.
MANAGER
Whether the White Sox make their own decision before you get around to creating your plan, select your preferred managerial candidate.
ARBITRATION-ELIGIBLE PLAYERS
Write “tender,” “non-tender” or “rework/extend” after each player and their projected 2025 salaries. Feel free to offer explanation afterward if necessary.
- Andrew Vaughn: $6.4M
- Nicky Lopez: $5.1M
- Garrett Crochet: $2.9M
- Gavin Sheets: $2.6M
- Enyel De Los Santos: $1.7M
- Jimmy Lambert: $1.2M
- Justin Anderson: $1.1M
- Steven Wilson: $1M
- Matt Foster: $900K
CLUB OPTIONS
Write “pick up” or “decline” or “rework” after the option.
- Yoán Moncada: $25M ($5M buyout)
- Max Stassi: $7M ($500K buyout)
OTHER IMPENDING FREE AGENTS
Try to retain, extend qualifying offer, or let go?
- Michael Soroka (Made $3M in 2023)
- Mike Clevinger ($3M)
- Chris Flexen ($1.75)
FREE AGENTS
List three free-agent targets you’d pursue during the offseason, with a reasonable contract. A good example of a bad idea:
No. 1: Yasmani Grandal (1 year, $3 million). He knows what he did.
TRADES
Propose trades that you think sound reasonable for both sides, and the rationale behind them. A good example of a bad idea:
No. 1: Trade Andrew Vaughn to Miami for Jake Burger. Let's reunite Shurger at first base.
SUMMARY
If you finish up with a fairly firm 26-man roster, roll it out here. If you don’t, at least offer a sense of the payroll required, but more detail is always welcome.
What’s more important is describing how you settled on your plan — how or whether it resolves key positions, and what kind of position the White Sox occupy heading into 2025 and the following offseason.
Every plan may not be comprehensively sound, but even the shakiest ones may have one name or argument that hasn’t crossed the minds of the rest of the community. The point of this exercise is to generate as many possibilities as possible, to see which players are the most popular, and how it compares to Getz's actual performance. Anybody could've matched him last year because whether a team went 41-121 or forfeited 162 games, they'd still have set a record for losing. Good luck attaining a more ordinary form of bad.
