The perfect 2022 Chicago White Sox off-season plan

There are some big moves to be made by the Chicago White Sox this winter.

Manager: Keep Tony La Russa. Yes, he’s not the greatest manager in the world anymore but he’s also not the worst. La Russa did a lot better job with the White Sox than either Robin Ventura or Rick Renteria did. National news types who blame Tony for the Sox struggles didn’t pay attention to the White Sox much from 2006-2020 and that’s evidenced in their commentary.

Interestingly, the 1983 White Sox under Tony La Russa also lost their first playoff series 3 games to 1. The solution should be to build a team better than the 2021 or 1983 White Sox and win 100 games. If that still doesn’t get them far in the playoffs, then it’s time to move on from La Russa.

Upcoming Free Agents:

The White Sox should decline the option on Cesar Hernandez and Craig Kimbrel. It should be obvious that Hernandez shouldn’t have his option picked up. Hernandez was bad in a Sox uniform and they should have traded for someone better but that’s in the past now.

Unfortunately, Bob Nightengale reported that the White Sox are likely to pick up Kimbrel’s option and then try to trade him. This isn’t going to work as no one would want him after the way he pitched.

If the White Sox think that teams are going to overvalue Kimbrel just because they did when they traded former #4 overall pick, Nick Madrigal, for him, they’re terribly wrong. Just cut him and admit you made a mistake as the money could be spent better elsewhere.

The Chicago White Sox should resign Carlos Rodon.

• Carlos Rodon’s career resume: 42-38 career record, 3.79 ERA, 11.5 WAR, 1X All-Star, 1 No-hitter
• Lucas Giolito’s career resume: 42-38 career record, 4.19 ERA, 11.1 WAR, 1X All-Star, 1 No-hitter

This isn’t to say that Rodon is as important to the White Sox as Lucas Giolito is but he’s pretty close. Resigning Rodon on a 2 or 3-year contract with a decently high AAV is the right move to make.

One criticism of Rodon is he’s never made more than 28 starts in a season. It would be an interesting idea for the White Sox to try a six-man rotation next year which would give every pitcher about 27 starts.

The White Sox should also resign Leury Garcia. The clutch three-run homer that Garcia hit in game 3 pretty much clinched the need for him to be back with the White Sox next year. He is the longest-tenured White Sox player, going back to win the team traded Alex Rios for him in 2013. That said, he needs to be in a utility role as he isn’t good enough to be a starter at second base or right field on a championship team.

The Chicago White Sox has a couple of positional needs to fill this offseason.

Second Base:

With Nick Madrigal being traded away, the White Sox are going to need to find a permanent long-term option that will be a better player than him. That’s not going to be easy to do but there are a lot of options on the 2021 free-agent market with Marcus Semien being the most obvious example.

Semien played for the White Sox before and has spent his whole career in the AL so that would make him a good fit. The best thing about him is the 45 home runs he hit in 2021, a massive upgrade over Nick Madrigal’s 2 and Cesar Hernandez’s 3.

The White Sox power numbers sagged both in the regular and post-season, so they could really use 40 extra home runs. Signing Semien would also help correct what is easily one of Rick Hahn’s worst-ever trades. That said, besides Semien, there are a lot of options the White Sox can go with.

Free Agent Middle-Infielders sorted by 2021 bWAR:

Carlos Correa 7.2

Marcus Semien 7.1

Trea Turner 6.5

Javier Baez 4.5

Trevor Story 4.2

Cory Seager 3.7

Preferably, the White Sox would sign one of the top 3 guys rather than the bottom 3 but if they don’t sign at least one of these 6 guys I would consider this offseason to be a failure. Semien does make the most sense as he would probably give you the most bang for your buck while fulfilling a positional need.

Right Field:

Well, I don’t want to beat the dead horse on this too much but the White Sox should have absolutely signed Bryce Harper. While the White Sox got replacement-level performances from the right field this year, Bryce Harper was a top-tier MVP candidate putting up nearly 6 WAR.

Those 6 extra wins would have given a home-field advantage to the White Sox in the playoffs and helped them score more runs. Would it have been enough? We’ll never know but it was a mistake not to sign him.

In the meantime, the White Sox have to find a left-handed bat that can give them 25 home runs and play right field to at least platoon with Andrew Vaughn. One option could be trading for Cody Bellinger (it would be great if they could trade Kimbrel for him) but I don’t think that will happen. Another option would be to sign Kyle Schwarber which the Sox should have done last year.

Kyle Schwarber is a great option for the White Sox. He’s still only 29 years old, hits extremely well in the playoffs, and would ease the pain from Cubs fans bragging about having Nick Madrigal. He hit well with the Red Sox so I don’t think it will be too hard for him to adjust to the American League.

The one problem is that he isn’t really a right fielder but if he can learn the position to be at least average he’ll be worth getting. I hope the Sox sign him to a 2-year deal. There are other options for right field but I think that Kris Bryant is too expensive and Nick Castellanos likely won’t opt out of his current contract. As a result, the best ex-Cub outfielder to get is Kyle Schwarber.

The Chicago White Sox needs to have their pitchers and catchers in order before 2022.

Backup Catcher:

The backup catcher is probably not the most important position but it would have been nice for the White Sox to have a real backup catcher in 2022. Seby Zavala and Zack Collins weren’t great for the White Sox in this role, which was exposed when Grandal got injured.

It’s too bad they didn’t keep Jonathan Lucroy who was released or James McCann who was overpaid by the New York Mets. Yermin Mercedes could get another chance at this role but that bridge may have been burned.

Starting Pitching:

The White Sox had one of the best rotations in the league in 2021 but they didn’t show up in the playoffs. The first priority should be to sign Carlos Rodon but if they can add an ace like Robbie Ray that would be really cool.

Dallas Keuchel had a rough year and some want him off the team but I would still give him another chance as the fifth starter. If he gets 160 innings pitched in 2022 then his 20 million option for 2023 is guaranteed so I’d move him to the bullpen if he doesn’t pitch well. That way you could replace him with Michael Kopech in the rotation.

Summary: In case this is too long for you to read, I think the White Sox should sign Semien, Schwarber, and re-sign Carlos Rodon. That would net at least 10 more wins for the White Sox (based on WAR), which would make them a 103 win team.

Take that and replace Dallas Keuchel with someone like Robbie Ray and you’re talking about a 110-win team. That’s probably getting greedy at that point but hopefully, the White Sox are able to expand their payroll enough to get their top three targets. 100 wins are within reach and the Chicago White Sox shouldn’t miss this opportunity.