The White Sox are one of the few clubs in baseball firmly in rebuild mode. They went 81-81 in 2022, followed by a 61-101 showing the year after. Last year, they reached a historic low, setting a modern-day record with 121 losses.
In that time, they have been willing to trade any established big league player for prospects. At the 2023 deadline, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo López, Jake Burger, Lance Lynn, Joe Kelly, Keynan Middleton and Kendall Graveman were sent out. Prior to the 2024 season, Dylan Cease, Aaron Bummer, Gregory Santos and others were flipped. At the most recent deadline, Michael Kopech, Erick Fedde, Tommy Pham, Eloy Jiménez, Paul DeJong and Tanner Banks packed their bags. This offseason, Garrett Crochet was the headliner.
There’s not much left to move at this point. Luis Robert Jr. is the big name still on the roster. Since he had an injury-marred 2024, the Sox have held him for now, hoping that a healthy and productive showing in 2025 will increase his trade value leading up to the deadline.
Whether a trade comes together or not, the Sox aren’t committed to Robert. He’s entering the final guaranteed season of his contract. There are $20MM club options for 2026 and 2027. Those give him more upside if he bounces back but the Sox will presumably decline the first of those if he has another wasted season.
The only player with a guaranteed contract beyond this year is Andrew Benintendi. His five-year, $75MM pact runs through 2027. The Sox would presumably love to trade him as well, as the first two years of that pact haven’t gone well. Last summer, it was reported that the Sox were shopping him. They also reportedly explored some scenarios where Benintendi and Crochet would be packaged together, though they wisely didn’t go down that path, which would have resulted in a lesser prospect package coming back for Crochet.
The Sox don’t really need to the cost savings. Per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, they had a payroll near $200MM as of a couple of years ago. That was down to $123MM last year. RosterResource projects them to be at just $81MM in 2025. As mentioned, Benintendi is the only deal on the books after this year. He will make $16.5MM in both 2025 and 2026, followed by $14.5MM in 2027. That’s a total of $47.5MM over three years, or $15.83MM in terms of average annual value.
That’s not superstar money. Players like Joc Pederson, Anthony Santander, Michael Conforto, Tyler O’Neill, Gleyber Torres, Ha-Seong Kim and Jurickson Profar got AAVs in the $14-19MM range this winter. Those are mostly solid-but-flawed regulars, rather than stars.
Unfortunately, Benintendi hasn’t been near “solid-but-flawed” lately. Through the end of 2022, Benintendi had hit .279/.351/.431 for a 109 wRC+. In his first two years with the Sox, his line has been down at .246/.309/.374, which translates to a 90 wRC+. His defense has also taken a turn for the worse. Prior to coming to Chicago, Outs Above Average was already not a fan, giving Benintendi a grade of -16 for his career, but Defensive Runs Saved had him at +25. Over the past two years, he’s been worth -18 OAA and also -16 DRS.
Perhaps health played a bit of a role there. Benintendi spent some time on the injured list last year due to left achilles tendinitis. His 26.7 mile per hour sprint speed was the lowest of his career, so maybe that impacted his ability to run the ball down.
Regardless, it’s been a rough couple of years. Needless to say, Benintendi will need a big bounceback to have any trade value at all. Though it may look bleak now, there is actually a reason to have some hope, as Benintendi finished the 2024 season on a strong note.
His aforementioned IL stint for the achilles injury was from June 2 to June 12. At the time he landed on the IL, he had a brutal line of .195/.230/.284. After being reinstated, he hit .251/.326/.470 the rest of the way for a 124 wRC+. He hit 16 home runs in 322 plate appearances while also drawing walks at a 9.9% clip and striking out just 18.9% of the time. His .264 batting average on balls in play was actually below the .290 league average, so it wasn’t a product of batted ball luck.
It’s possible this was a fluke in another way. 16% of Benintendi’s fly balls left the yard in that stretch. That’s well above his 8.3% career rate and the 11.6% league average last year, despite his exit velocity and hard hit rate being near his previous levels. However, it’s also possible it came from a change in approach. In that hot finish in 2024, Benintendi pulled the ball at a 49.1% clip and also hit fly balls at a 43.9% rate. For his career, those numbers are just 36.6% and 38% respectively.
Whether that late-season surge was just a small-sample blip or a meaningful course correction remains to be seen. Like Robert, Benintendi’s trade value is at a low ebb and a big correction will be required for the Sox to be able to get anything in return. But if Benintendi can perform well to start 2025, it could then be legitimately framed as a year-long bounceback.
Given the aforementioned financial situation, the club should be willing to eat most or all of Benintendi’s deal. They aren’t a revenue-sharing club, so unlike the A’s or Marlins, they could bottom the payroll out without worrying about the possibility of an MLBPA grievance. Still, there are reasons for them to prioritize prospect returns as opposed to cost savings.
They aren’t likely to return to contention by 2027. Even if they do get good by then, Benintendi’s salary shouldn’t stand in the way of them making moves. Owners surely don’t love throwing money at a hopeless team, but the payroll will still be incredibly low in 2026 and 2027 even if the Sox are still paying Benintendi. If he is playing well this year, then perhaps a contending club with a tight payroll and/or competitive balance tax number would be enticed by the possibility of getting Benintendi at a low financial cost, giving up more prospect capital instead.
Robert will have much of the focus in 2025 and rightfully so. He has huge upside, having put together a borderline MVP performance in 2023. He will be one of the top deadline trade candidates if he gets anywhere near that. Benintendi won’t have as much of the spotlight but he will have his own chance to play his way into some attention. Though he’s been around for a while, he’s only 30 years old. His deal is underwater right now but isn’t atrocious by MLB standards. He’s had a rough couple of years but was legitimately good for the final three-plus months last year. Though he’s something of a forgotten man at this point, it’s possible he could play himself onto a contender over the next few months.
Hahahahahaha!
26.7 mph sprint speed????? I’m assuming that 16.7?
ft/sec, not mph
I’m guessing they meant 26.7 feet per second
Ya gotta love overpaid underperforming players
Especially when the players union says players live paycheck to paycheck
Ah yes the hedge fund leeches that buy the teams should just keep rent seeking
Commie gotta commie.
Isn’t baseball the exact opposite of communism? Meaning it has no salary cap nor limit on what a player can earn?
What does that have to do with anything?
The cost of running the team is passed onto the fans
No one is forcing you into being a fan.
Wow, that’s deep. Thank you. No one is forcing you to be a fan… Biblical
I feel for the fans. I wouldn’t buy a single ticket, and might even pass up free tickets.
Yea. I been passing up cubs free tickets ….. even a pair w free parking….. thats how bad both franchises have fallen. Lucky for Nickels, the cubs fan base is insanely loyal for anything and gullible
Gorman, Scott, and Nootbar for Robert Jr and Jairo Iriarte makes sense.
No it doesn’t.
It doesn’t for the White Sox. Those guys are all poo.
thank you whitesox for 121. the burden is finally gone
-mets fans everywhere
Well, until the Mets met again at least
That’s 2021 Gold Glove winner and 2022 All-Star Andrew Benintendi to you, sir!
Ah memories! We all have them, don’t we?
When you have an owner so cheap he wants to clear the books in future years while at thee same time being too cheap to pay down the only contract on the books in future years in order to move it
A real immovable object vs unstoppable force scenario
Tommy Nickels says hi. He doesn’t want any money past 26 either
This was a really well considered and well written piece.
I’m not a CWS fan, but for the sake of that woebegone franchise’s fans, I gotta hope that both LRJ and Benintendi have a very good 1st half-season.
If the white Sox would cover the difference I’d trade Jemier candelario for Andrew Benintendi. Being a Cincinnati native might help Andrew rebound
The problem with that is what would the White Sox do with Candelario? There’s like 4 or 5 guys in camp already competing for 3B. Vaughn is seemingly locked in at 1B. I guess they have DH AB’s to give but that’s an expensive DH
The White Sox don’t want major Leaguers in return. They want 3 of your best prospects. That means 3 of: Burns, Lowder (if not injured), Stewart, Collier, Arroyo. And they’re not sending any cash.
$49.3 million is a lot of money to move without eating any of it. If the White Sox have any chance of moving Benintendi it’s like at the trade deadline in ’26 if he’s having a really good or or in the winter following the ’26 season
Robert could have a better season than Ohtani and Reinsdorf still wouldn’t pay him $20M. That’s enough for 20 players in Jerry World.
If league rules didn’t require 26 players on a roster, Reinsdorf wouldn’t want twenty players; he’d probably roll with ten.
This might be Robert’s best chance at getting out of Chicago. Play well and injury-free and you’ll be collecting your checks from a different team shortly after the ’25 trade deadline.
Benintendi’s got a long way to go before he even gets to “OK” but if someone is willing to take a chance on him…maybe but there’s negative value right now… It’s interesting–he was a number one prospect, started out strongly, but Chicago is his 4th team.
Either Vaughn is courting the bosses daughter or he’s got something on Sox ownership. I never see him mentioned as on his way out unless they are truly playing out the string for him to become a free agent and hoping something good happens in between until then.
The White Sox are the only franchise that can’t develop any decent outfielders or a first baseman that can hit. How hard is that?
You would think a team would accidentally find some of these guys out of the last 15 or so drafts.
White Sox first baseman before Andrew Vaughn:
– MVP winner Jose Abreu
– multiple All-Star selection and World Series winner Paul Konerko
– Hall of Famer Frank Thomas.
They have to be top 5 in production from 1B for the 1990-2022 period. (And Vaughn hit for an even 100 wRC+ across 2023-2024 which is not great for a 1B but is not terrible.)
I’ll add they did develop guys like Magglio Ordonez, Mike Cameron, Carlos Lee, Aaron Rownd, Dayan Viciedo, Luis Robert
Dayan Viciedo shouldn’t be on a list of positives.
81 losses in 2022
101 losses in 23
121 in 24
141 losses in 2025?
161 in…… nah, not even JR could pull that off.
Benintendi needs a change of scenery.
As do all White Sox players.
As do the fans!
Vaughn gets a pass…again.
For some reason, he doesn’t have to hit or field particularly well and he’s cemented at 1b.
Early in ST, there remains no sign WSox can teach anyone to hit whether youth or struggling vets collecting a check. That’s been the cause of this rebuild and the last.
What a depressing time to be a White Sox fan. That team has sunk to the level of the neighborhood where the stadium resides.
This was bad before the ink dried. I don’t know what they were thinking
And I don’t remember CWS having any competition to sign him. The ONLY thing Benintendi has accomplished for Chicago is stopping the revolving door in LF. Outside of that he’s essentially been a mostly healthy replacement level player who actually looks really good compared to Anthony Rendon.
Yep, that’s pretty much what he’s always been. Regrettable signing for sure.
Benny had some great moments for Bos. Had one really great year, but has settled into a pretty regular… regular.
Side note, another example of an untouchable prospect. Boston had several opps to use him to upgrade the roster. He was a no-go in every direction. Just sayin
I will forever love Andrew Benintendi for 2018. He was part of one of the best outfields of all time. Him, Betts and JBJ were an electric combination. Speed, great bats(JBJ less so but absolutely clutch) and all 3 tracking everything down in the OF. My favourite season in the 40 years I have watched The Red Sox.
@ellisburks. Glad that you have such a great remembrance!
Amen, that outfield was so great. The picture poses after the last out of every win.
In other news, team willing to trade struggling overpaid clubhouse cancer. Big if true.
Trade Robert Jr to the Dodgers, Then Vargas will not so unhappy.
Benintendi is only 30 years old, these numbers have to be reflective of the fact he’s playing on a bad team. It seems like H-town could’ve used him (assuming they were even interested and assuming the ChiSox would pay a healthy chunk of his salary)