Let’s get this out of the way first: from my perspective the White Sox are almost done moving veterans for prospects. Other than trading away Avisail Garcia and Jose Abreu, the plan for 2018 is a two-pronged one where the organization is letting prospects develop while also taking advantage of market situations to add elite talent this year that may not be available next year. The historic free agent crop of 2018 is going to break records and set new salary standards, and the White Sox ownership failed to adjust to the new normal the last time this happened in the late 2000’s.

So I’m proposing that the Sox make a move to declare that they will be in on these free agents, by trading for one of the highest paid and most productive players in the game, Giancarlo Stanton. This won’t take the Sox off the short list of teams never to have spent $100 million on a free agent but it would signal that they can and will authorize the $250+ million it would take to pursue Manny Machado in 2018 as well as shoring up a major cornerstone in the rebuild.

Arbitration-eligible (with projected salaries from MLBTR):

Jose Abreu, $17.9M - Tender

Avisail Garcia, $6.7M - Tender

Yolmer Sanchez, $2.1M - Tender

Carlos Rodon, $2.0M - Tender

Danny Farquhar, $1.5M – Non-Tender

Zach Putnam, $1.4M - Tender

Leury Garcia, $1.2M - Tender

Jake Petricka, $1.1M - Tender

Al Alburquerque, $1.1M - Tender

Impending free agents (re-sign, let go or qualifying offer)

Geovany Soto: Made $2 million in 2017 – Let Go

Mike Pelfrey: Made $8 million in 2017 – Let Go

The Mike Pelfrey rotation / bullpen experiment was fun, but is now over.

Free agents

OF Melky Cabrera, 1 year $11 million plus option

Melky’s value as a solid professional hitter combined with his reportedly excellent clubhouse presence makes all the case I need to bring him back. He’d spend most of his time in the DH position.

RHP Addison Reed, 3 years $39 million

Adding in a proven closer who is familiar with our coaching would be a big plus for a bullpen in flux.

Dumpster Dive rotation special: 1 year, $7m-$11m

There’s a lot of bad pitching out there, I wont lie and say that I’m up on everything but we need an arm to fill innings, I don’t particularly care who.

Dumpster Dive bullpen special, multiple players: 1 year, $1m-$4m

Ditto on the bullpen, we need some arms and lotto tickets to see if we can find another Swarzak.

Trades

Trade OF Avisail Garcia, SP Spencer Adams, PTBNL (from White Sox list of prospects from #15-20 on the list) for Giancarlo Stanton and cash.

This is another trade that doesn’t make much sense for 2018, although it would bring in a fair amount of star power and legitimacy to a team that’ll need that the following year to sign free agents to finish off the bullpen and rotation. The 2018 White Sox aren’t ready to contend, but the 2019 White Sox might be if some of our prospects’ development breaks right.

Trade 1B Jose Abreu to Colorado for RHP Riley Pint, LHP Kyle Freeland, and RHP Antonio Senzatela

Abreu would immediately help a Colorado team that struggled to hit away from Coors but his relatively high salary and lack of controllable years limits his return to these high ceiling lottery ticket pitchers who can immediately step into either a rotation or bullpen spot.

Lineup:

C – Leury Garcia

1B: Yolmer Sanchez

2B: Yoan Moncada

SS: Tim Anderson

3B: Matt Davidson

OF: Nicky Delmonico (Eloy Jimenez)

OF: Leury Garcia

OF: Giancarlo Stanton

DH: Melky Cabrera

Rotation

James Shields

Carlos Rodon*

Lucas Giolito

Reynaldo Lopez

Tyler Danish

Carson Fulmer

Bullpen

Addison Reed

Juan Minaya

Chris Beck

Aaron Bummer

Lotto Tickets

I’d expect the team salary to be at least $95 million once all the filler and lotto tickets are in. This doesn’t look like a contender to me, although stranger things have happened, but the following year if prospects can settle in and start actualizing their potential the bones of a contender are there. The big thing is that by adding Stanton there would be a solid flare to the club, and a position player to anchor around for the next few years.