I wrote about the White Sox’s disastrous start on Friday, and over the weekend the team went 2-1 and ended a nine-game losing streak with a stunning seven-piece bottom half of the ninth inning, leaving the Rays. While this win provides some momentum for a listless South Side club, the Sox are already nine back in the AL Central. They would have to play at an 82-51 (.617) pace to get 90 wins. It’s not even clear that would be enough for a division win as the Twins play at a 95-win pace.
Early May is pretty early to give a forward-looking breakdown of what a team might have in store at this year’s close, but the White Sox’s current state is a little worse than usual. Their playoff ratings on FanGraphs have dropped from 30.5% before the season to just 4.2% now. PECOTA has its playoff odds at just 3.2%. They have the second-worst run differential in MLB (-65) and already struggle with countless injuries with some glaring depth issues.
One of the most frequently asked questions over the past week in the chats we host at MLBTR was who might be available when the Sox sell this summer. With that in mind, and with the obligatory caveat “it’s still only May 1st,” here’s a quick rundown of the possibilities and how they kicked off the season.
loan player
The most obvious candidates for a change of ownership if the Sox are actually sold, all of these players are hired as free agents at the end of the season anyway. There are a few qualified bid candidates within the group, so the Sox should feel like they’re getting back more than the value of a compensatory draft pick in those instances.
Luke GiolitoRHP, 28, salary of $10.4 million
Giolito won’t turn 29 until mid-July and is seen as one of the potential top guns in the free agent market next offseason…if he can get back in shape this season and put an ugly 2022 campaign behind him. From 2019-21, the former first-round pick was one of the American League’s top guns, made the All-Star team 19, and secured Cy Young votes in all three of those seasons — including finishing sixth and seventh in 2019 and 2019, respectively. 2020. During this stretch, Giolito recorded a collective 3.47 ERA with a whopping 30.7% strikeout rate and a solid 8% walk rate.
The 2022 season was a different story. Giolito’s fastball dropped to 92.7 mph from an average of 94.2 mph during that three-year peak. His strike rate dropped to an above-average, but still low, 25.4%. His walking rate increased a little to 8.7%. His opponents’ average exit speed increased from 87.8 mph to 88.8 mph and his hit rate increased from 34.5% to 39%. Neither are terrible numbers, but things went wrong for Giolito in 1922. A huge .340 BABIP certainly contributed to some of his struggles—it’s no fun being a flyball pitcher with the worst outfield defense in baseball—but it still wasn’t a great season.
Giolito picked up some momentum again earlier this season. His 23.1% strikeout rate isn’t nearly as high, but his 4.1% walk rate is easily a career high. If the White Sox sell, Giolito will likely be one of the best and most sought-after starters out there. He’s off to a decent start and with his track record, age and potential, barring a catastrophic collapse, a qualifying offer seems likely. The Sox should feel like they have more value than they would get in the form of a compensatory draft pick.
Reynaldo LopezRHP, 29, $3.625M
Lopez had a terrible start to the season with an 8.76 ERA and five homers allowed in just 12 1/3 innings (3.65 HR/9). However, he was very good in the pen in 2021-22, posting a 3.07 ERA with an above-average strikeout rate of 24.8% and a walk rate of 5.3%. In 2023, Lopez has a career-best strikeout rate of 33.3%, and he’s averaging a career-high 100 mph with his heater. His swing strike rate of 14.6% is excellent. If Lopez, who only allowed one home run in 55 2/3 innings last year, can get past that bizarre home run spike, he still has obvious late-inning potential and is the kind of affordable power arm that would appeal to other clubs.
Mike ClevingerRHP, 32, $12 million
Clevinger technically has an option on his contract until 2024, but mutual options are almost entirely accounting measures and are extremely rarely exercised by either party. Still only 32 years old, Clevinger’s happier days feel like they were a lot longer than 2017-20. He missed the 2021 season after Tommy John’s surgery, returned 22 with a diminished fastball and mediocre peripherals, and saw 2023 with a 4.60 ERA, a below-average 19.3% strikeout rate and an ugly 11.1% Walk not much better off rate in 29 1/3 innings. Clevinger has regained some but not all of his life on his radiator, and his current swing strike rate of 8.1% is both well below the league average (11.1%) and easily the lowest mark of his career. It’s like a fifth starter at the moment and not a particularly cheap one.
Elvis Andres2B/SS, 35, $3MM
Andrus was great with the White Sox in place of an injury Tim Anderson 2022 on the stretch (.271/.309/.464, nine home runs, 11 steals) and 2023 so far has been the opposite, averaging .206/.274/.245 in 113 plate appearances with well below average quality of contact, per Statcast. He can still play in defense and has now shown his willingness to spend some time at second base, so another club could consider him an option for a skilled field. However, he has to score more than in the first month of the season.
Hans AlbertoINF, 30, $2.3M
Alberto was typically a solid defender at three infield spots with good stick-to-ball skills, a bottom-of-barrel walk speed, and minimal power. This season, however, he’s made some glaring misses at third base, hitting just .211/.211/.368 in 19 plate appearances before hitting the IL with a quad strain. It’s a tiny rehearsal, but he needs to get healthy and play better to even make it to the big league list until the close.
Yasmani GrandalC, 34, $18.25 million
The Switch-hitting Grandal has bounced back to the plate with a .241/.323/.446 batting line (114 wRC+) and three homers in 93 plate appearances. His 8.6% walk rate is well below a career level of 14.5%, and his once-vaunted defensive stats have fallen below average at 34. Given his hefty salary, Grandal will only change hands if the ChiSox pick up a good chunk of the bill.
Signed/controlled for an additional year
Moving someone from this group would signal a more aggressive seller stance from the front office, but the Sox would generally be able to hold on to their core players while unlocking larger returns than they would land on their generally modest collection of rental properties.
Tim Anderson, SS, 30 | $12.5M in 2023, $14M club option for 2024
Anderson batted over .300 in four straight seasons from 2019-22 for an overall .318/.347/.473 dip that was 23% better than the league average as measured by wRC+. The two-time All-Star is a regular threat for 15-20 homers and 15-25 steals. Defensive metrics are mixed when he works at shortstop, but his only underperforming season after DRS, UZR and OAA came in 2022 when he was hampered by a groin strain. Anderson is a well-above-average starter with all-star potential and an extremely affordable salary through the 2024 season.
The White Sox’s top prospect is a 2021 first-rounder Colson Montgomery, who has become one of the most senior shortstop prospects in the game. He opened the season on the shelf with an oblique strain but could be ready for a big league look in 2024 after achieving Double-A in 2022 as a 20-year-old.
Lance Lynn, RHP, 36 | $18.5M in 2023, $18M club option for 2024
Lynn, who turns 36 next week, wasn’t himself in 2023. His 10.1% walk rate is easily the highest since 2018, and he’s been posting an incredible 2.20 homers per nine frames. The 94.4 mph he averaged on his heater in 2019-21 is down to 92.6 mph in 2023, and while he’s still missing bats in the zone and off the plate, Lynn has to plenty of hard contact allowed when opponents connect. Hitters notched a .192/.238/.335 slash against Lynn’s four-sail as recently as 2022, but they hit .283/.365/.587 when they bring the pitch into play this year. Lynn’s 2019-22 version is worth the option price of 2024, but he needs to work out his home run issues.
Liam Hendricks, RHP, 34 | $14M in 2023, $15M club option for 2024
Hendriks has not played this season but recently announced he is cancer-free after battling non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in recent months. Hendriks is one of the best helpers in the game and the priority is just getting back on the field. If he looks like himself, he would arouse interest.
Yo Kelly, RHP, 35 | $9M in 2023, $9.5M club option for 2024
Kelly has been in the IL three times since signing a two-year, $17 million deal with the White Sox ahead of the 2022 season. He also has a 6.26 ERA and a 12.6% walk rate with the South Siders. He still misses at-bats, collects grounders and has improved control in his tiny 4 2/3-inning rehearsal this season. The Sox might have to eat some money to move him even if he throws decently.
Kendall Graveman, RHP, 32 | $8 million in 2023, $8 million in 2024
Graveman still throws hard and misses bats on a solid clip, but his sinker isn’t getting any grounders anywhere near his previous level. He’s sitting 23 at a 38.7% groundball rate, having lived at 54% in 2021-22 and at 52.1% in his career prior to the current season. On a surely related note, he’s giving up home runs at the worst rate of his career (2.38 HR/9). Graveman’s first season in Chicago was solid, but he’s in danger of becoming another high-priced bullpen misstep.
Jake Diekman, LHP, 36 | $3.5M in 2023, $4M club option for 2024
The White Sox acquired Diekman from the Red Sox at last year’s close even though he had run 17.5% of his opponents in Boston and the lead has only gotten worse. Diekman ran a whopping 13 of his 58 opponents (22.4%) in 2023 while posting a 7.94 ERA. Command has always been a weak point, but this current rate just isn’t sustainable. If he can’t repair the ship, it’s hard to imagine him staying on the list until the end of trading.
Long-term players
Removing someone from this group is harder to imagine as it would effectively signal a larger rebuilding effort. While the Sox could still move a player, or even more, from that group without necessarily embarking on a full rebuild, those moves would mark a definite step backwards from the competition, not just in 2023, but likely at least 2024 — possibly longer .
Dylan stops, RHP, 27 | $5.3M in 2023, Arb eligible in 2024-25
The trade freeze would mean waving a white flag not just this season, but the entire rebuild the Sox went through from 2016-20. Stop coming second Justin Verlander In the American League, Cy Young voted last year and was so dominant — 2.20 ERA, 30.4% strikeout rate, 6.4 bWAR in 184 innings — that he won another year in which he didn’t make a historic comeback pursued by a future hall, might have won by Famer.
Cease’s speed, strikeout rate, and swinging strike rate have all declined somewhat this season, but not in glaring fashion. He has a 4.15 ERA despite taking virtually all the damage from the Rays last week when baseball’s hottest team tagged him for seven carries. Cease won’t be 28 until December. He’s a powerfully armed, batless monster with two years of arbitration left after the current season. Pitchers like this are almost never traded, and it’s especially difficult to see the White Sox bite the bullet and make a move because it just feels like a huge concession. If they reach that point, Cease could generate one of the largest gains in recent memory of trading deadlines.
Michael Kopech, RHP, 27 | $2.05M in 2023, Arb eligible in 2024-25
It was a poor start for Kopech (7.01 ERA in 25 2/3 innings) thanks to shaky leadership that translated into a career-high 11.1% run rate and, more problematically, a career-worst 2.81 HR/9 mark has manifested. Still, he’s a 27-year-old who was once considered the best pitcher in the sport, having a combined 3.53 ERA, 26.7% strikeout rate and walk rate in 188 2/3 innings as recently as 2021-22 of 10.4%.
Kopech spent most of the 2021 season in the bullpen as he worked his way back from Tommy John’s surgery and in that role fueled a whopping 36.1% of his opponents. He’s a high upside arm and has already seen his average fastball jump from 95.1 mph in 2022 to 96.2 mph in 2023. Teams would love to get their hands on Kopech now, and if he can cut walks and homers, his value will only increase. That trade wouldn’t necessarily be the white flag that the Cease trade would be, but it’s hard to see Kopech leaving unless the Sox are also pessimistic about their chances over the next few seasons.
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There are other names to consider, although each carries many red flags. Yoan Moncada is signed until 2024 and controllable through a club option until 2025, but he was neither healthy nor consistently productive enough to make the remaining $43.1 million in guarantees on his deal palatable to a trading partner. Luis Robert Jr., Eloy Jimenez, Andrew Vaughn And Aaron Boomer are all signed or controlled until at least 2026 (2027 in Robert’s case), reducing the urgency of moving those players. From the looks of it, the Sox would sell low on any of this talented group. None of this group appears to be a serious trade contender this summer.
Of the three categories listed above – “rent”, “an extra year” and “longer term” – rental properties are the most likely to be lost. Selling anything past that point, particularly a face of the franchise like Anderson or a controllable Cy Young caliber like Cease, would likely signal a step backwards and longer-term rebuilding efforts just two years after the Sox attempted to emerge from their previous rebuild. Owner Jerry Reinsdorf is as loyal as they come, but one imagines the current meltdown might try even his patience; GM Rick Hahn openly admitted in public comments last week that his job is likely at stake.
The White Sox still have a few months to try to turn things around, but unless things improve in a hurry, many of the names listed above will be the most talked about players in the summer of 2023 rumor mill when the competing Teams look to them to beef up their rosters ahead of a postseason push.