On the heels of one of the worst seasons in baseball history, the White Sox must stockpile young talent while operating under a cloud of uncertainty about the future of the franchise.
Guaranteed Contracts
- Andrew Benintendi, LF: $47.5MM through 2027
- Luis Robert Jr., CF: $15MM through 2025, with a $20MM club option ($2MM buyout) for 2026 and the same club option for '27
Option Decisions
- Yoan Moncada, 3B: $25MM club option with a $5MM buyout
- Max Stassi, C: $7.5MM club option with a $500K buyout
Additional Obligations
- Owe $1.5MM buyout to released RHP John Brebbia
- Owe $250K buyout to released C Martin Maldonado
2025 financial commitments: $40.75MM
Total future commitments: $71.75MM
Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; salary projections via Matt Swartz)
- Nicky Lopez (5.139): $5.1MM
- Matt Foster (4.093): $900K
- Garrett Crochet (4.028): $2.9MM
- Enyel De Los Santos (4.015): $1.7MM
- Andrew Vaughn (4.000): $6.4MM
- Justin Anderson (3.122): $1.1MM
- Jimmy Lambert (3.108): $1.2MM
- Gavin Sheets (3.076): $2.6MM
- Steven Wilson (3.000): $1MM
- Non-tender candidates: Lopez, Foster, De Los Santos, Vaughn, Anderson, Lambert, Sheets, Wilson
Free Agents
While we knew this team would be bad, we didn't realize it would be historically bad. The 2024 White Sox set the modern record for total losses with 121, and it easily could have been worse had they not surged to win five of their last six games. Starting pitchers Garrett Crochet and Erick Fedde were the only glimmers of hope, but the latter was traded and the former seems on his way out.
The Sox fired manager Pedro Grifol on August 8th, with Grady Sizemore serving as interim manager for the remainder of the season. Sizemore is at least under consideration for the full-time job, but the list of known candidates has also included Donnie Ecker, Will Venable, Clayton McCullough, Danny Lehman, George Lombard, A.J. Ellis, Phil Nevin, Daniel Descalso, and Skip Schumaker. Grifol was Rick Hahn's hire, so the new manager will be the first chosen by senior vice president/GM Chris Getz.
Beyond the managarial change, existential issues loom over the White Sox. One is whether longtime owner Jerry Reinsdorf intends to sell the team. On October 16th, Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic reported that Reinsdorf is "open to selling" the team, and furthermore, "is in active discussions with a group led by former big leaguer Dave Stewart." Stewart's involvement has led to speculation about potentially moving the team to Nashville, given the former pitcher's efforts to bring an MLB team to that city.
The Stewart rumor follows January news of Reinsdorf's aim of getting a new stadium built in a (Chicago) South Loop area called "The 78." A relocation threat is one of the oldest in the new-stadium playbook, of course, and Reinsdorf successfully leveraged a potential move to St. Petersburg back in 1988 to get the current Guaranteed Rate Field built in Chicago. Back in 1995, Reinsdorf famously said in reference to his St. Petersburg play in a Cigar Aficionado interview, "A savvy negotiator creates leverage. People had to think we were going to leave Chicago."
Moving from Chicago to St. Petersburg hardly made sense in terms of market size, and the same is true of Nashville now.
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Acoss1331
White Sox outlook is 50 wins and Jerry Reinsdorf selling the team. That’s all that it comes down to.
Atlanta Jack
Please,please sell the team to someone who will keep them in Chicago!!
Mikenmn
How does putting a historically abysmal team on the field jive with
“Reinsdorf’s aim of getting a new stadium built in a (Chicago) South Loop area called “The 78.”?
I guess the answer is the same as with other teams. There’s always at least a “mystery bidder” and always some municipals officials who don’t want to lose a major league team on their watch. Not very nice for the fans, but their job is to buy tickets, merchandise, parking and the occasional beer and stay out of the way.
metsin4
Easiest offseason team to project. Doom and gloom until the team is sold.
Atlanta Jack
I would like to get Michael and Oprah together and make the chairman a respectful offer.
HatlessPete
Lol imagine Oprah at arb time this year. You get a non tender! You get a non tender! Crochet you’re traded. Everybody else is getting a non-tenderrrrrrrr!
FemboySportsFan!
Please trade Lyle green…I’m begging you white Sox, me and Lyle are both from the same place, it would be nice to see a Russian make it into MLB…
Big Hurt
Why would you want them to trade him? He’s YEARS away, but he certainly doesn’t have a better shot of making it to the bigs on the Yankees or Dodgers? My pathetic Sox might be his only chance lol
FemboySportsFan!
I would say trade him to maybe someone like the rays
SweetBabyRayKingsThickThighs
With all the players they’ll cut during the offseason they should be aggressive in the rule 5 draft and waiver wire and look for any upside they can get
contigo
Find myself coming to this site less and less, as paid content gets more. Been here for 18+ years. Greed ruins everything lol
JoeBrady
Are you one of those people that work for free? That’s very generous of you.
Blackpink in the area
I think Tim did basically work for free at the beginning. Somewhere along the line he turned this into a legit source of income and then a legit source of income for others.
No right or wrong answers here. I will probably pay eventually but I worry young fans may not.
HatlessPete
2.50 a month is too greedy for you? I’m about to spend more than that on a freakin coffee!
johnrealtime
Funding a site on advertising is a dying business model. If you ran a site that receives decreasing ad revenue each year, and you have employees to pay, what would you do? While not getting greedy, mind.
The sort of aggregation you seem to be looking for is going to be generated by AI soon in places where it isn’t already
I’d rather pay a few dollars to help keep the quality up
Blackpink in the area
I hear you. I just worry making it less accessible to the casual fan will hurt in turning casual fans into serious ones. I can say for sure that this site and Fangraphs helped make that change for me.
Big Hurt
Left off of this depressing article is that the Sox also just fired most of their Latin American staff as well because they have been giving 7 figure signing bonuses to International stiffs for years as well. So yeah, fun times.
I will say, I think the rotation / minor league arms are a bit better than Tim’s analysis appears… and while the final numbers weren’t good, Sosa was really good late in the year, Baldwin had a great minor league year (if overmatched when up) and Fletcher is an exceptional defensive right fielder with SOME potential to still hit a bit.
Yes, I’m an optimist. And an idiot.
Blackpink in the area
I think the White Sox are better off than most act like they are. Smith and Schultz is perhaps the most exciting 1 2 punch in the minor leagues. Crochet and Robert are still around to trade. The farm system is deeper and simply better than I can ever remember it.
RWH 2
In addition JR is getting less TV money from his own network than if he had just kept the Bulls and Sox on NBC Sports Chicago aka Comcast. And Comcast won’t show the new network on its system.
citizen
Stassi hasn’t even played in the majors since 22 so He & Yoan will get cut.
This white sox makes the 100 loss oakland team look good.
Sox should do something interesting like trade Bendentini for Javier Baez and cash or Rendon & cash.
JoeBrady
If they wanted to do something interested, they’d keep Benni, but still trade for Baez & Rendon, with Detroit and LAA throwing in prospects.
JoeBrady
**inteesting**
TerryTurnbuckle
Rendon has a full no trade and Baez has a list of ten that may or may not include the white Sox. You could have looked that up before you spouted nonsense
Big Hurt
It also makes no sense. The Sox would trade Benintendi (who had a 124 OPS+ in more than half the season) for Rendon or Baez who are not only worse, but on worse contracts.
So – I’m sure it was a joke, but not a great one.
Big Hurt
Show the Sox some respect. The A’s only last 93 this year, or 28 games better than the White Sox. So yeah, they look good comparatively.
To put that in perspective, the horrible Angels were 25.5 games worse than the Astros this year. And the White Sox were 28 games worse than the A’s!
Wow.
RWH 2
Help us, Obi-wan, you’re our only hope.