Chicago White Sox: Three best contracts right now

3. Eloy Jimenez

Eloy Jimenez‘s deal signed prior to the 2018 regular season makes the list for a few key reasons.

The 23-year-old and the team agreed to this six-year, $43 million contract with two club options (Spotrac) before that season in order to give him a spot on the Opening Day roster as the organization wasn’t inclined to get involved with service-time manipulation.

Their decision to do this was somewhat rewarded in his first season as he had his fair share of growing pains, but also showed improvement over the course of the season.

Over his 122 games with the club, Jimenez hit .267/.315/.513 with 31 home runs, 79 RBI, and a 116 wRC+ (FanGraphs).

His well-publicized defensive issues (-11 DRS and a -5.1 UZR) were a concern throughout the season for Jimenez and brought down his overall value to a 1.9 fWAR.

The biggest plus of this contract for Jimenez, though, is that it allowed him to enter the 2020 season with a full year of major league experience under his belt.

Jimenez might have already gone through the majority of the growing pains he will experience early in his career, allowing this sophomore campaign to be a potential breakout season for him.

If the White Sox are going to contend in 2020, Jimenez is going to be a big part of that, and already having experience certainly doesn’t hurt.

The left fielder could become a star in this league next season and, if he does, that contract becomes an absolute steal for the Chicago White Sox going forward.

Rick Hahn has done something special with the Chicago White Sox by locking up much of his young core for the long haul and every team in MLB should be looking at them as an example of a well-run organization right now.