The Glove Glove Awards were announced on Sunday, and as expected, the White Sox were lucky to even get a finalist in the field.
The honorees included 14 first-time winners, which is pretty cool, and you can peruse the entire list if you're so inclined here. Because the White Sox didn't have any true hopefuls -- apologies to Nicky Lopez -- I was more interested in seeing the final SABR Defensive Index rankings. They hadn't been updated since early August, because the scores account for roughly a quarter of the Gold Glove voting process and Rawlings probably doesn't want any spoilers.
As expected when I pre-wrote a Gold Glove finalist post about him and had to settle for reshaping it into a post about defense from White Sox's younger pitchers, Chris Flexen finished with the highest individual SDI score at 2.6. It's just that six other pitchers slipped ahead of him over the final two months to explain his absence among the finalists. Lopez only finished with an SDI of 0.8, yet it was the third highest score among second basemen, and Rawlings felt compelled to make every position a three-horse race.
Otherwise, the White Sox were a mess at every position where they had a qualifier.
- C: Korey Lee, -7.1
- 1B: Andrew Vaughn, -1.6
- 2B: Nicky Lopez, 0.8
- SS: Paul DeJong, -8.8
- LF: Andrew Benintendi, -5.9
- RF: Tommy Pham, -3.4
None of these register as shocks, but DeJong's deficit is surprising since Statcast thought he was pretty much average there. I'm curious how it'll affect his market, because he received a guaranteed deal from the White Sox on the strength of his defense. This time around, he'll probably be advertised as a utility infielder with a .200 ISO.
Free agency opens at 4 p.m. CT today, and Michael Wacha's name won't be on the list. He exchanged his $16 million player option for a three-year, $51 million contract to remain with the Royals. There was a chance he could've done better than the new $18 million he's now guaranteed for 2025, but the three-year deal fell right in line with FanGraphs' crowdsourcing.
Other loose ends include Gerrit Cole, who triggered an opt-out that requires the Yankees to consider whether they want to void the opt-out by guaranteeing him another $36 million for 2029, and Nathan Eovaldi, who seems like a lock to decline his $20 million club option with the Rangers if they don't have a new contract in mind.
Keith Law published his top 50 free agents list at The Athletic, and MLB Trade Rumors will probably have its rankings and predictions later today, when the field is settled. MLBTR also recently published its list of the top 35 trade candidates, and it's not so much a surprise to see Garrett Crochet atop it as it is to see Erick Fedde at No. 3. If the Cardinals end up flipping Fedde, everybody around the White Sox will be zeroed in on the return for purposes of comparing and contrasting.
More than two weeks have passed since The Athletic reported that Jerry Reinsdorf was "open" to selling the White Sox, and in "active discussions" with Dave Stewart. The only material update is more than a week old itself, with Tony La Russa telling WBBM that "Jerry's not selling that team."
Barring an unforeseen bulletin that immediately undermines this hunch, it seems like Stewart's ties to the Nashville expansion efforts were probably the point of that leak. Perhaps it's better off being a ruse, because the White Sox, along with the Bulls and Blackhawks, joined forces with the obscure Nashville-based Standard Media company to launch the Chicago Sports Network, and that move isn't paying dividends.
