The Chicago White Sox had a very tough year in 2022. They came in with high expectations and blew it. For the entire season, they trailed first place and they were just never able to grab it. Now, they will miss the playoffs for the first time since 2019.
In the middle of the season, the White Sox had a chance to either bolster their chances in 2022 or take a step back and reset for 2023. Instead, they did neither of those things so the trade deadline was a major failure.
As a result, there are some players that are on the current roster that survived the trade deadline this year but could be gone next year.
These are the three players that weren’t traded at the deadline but should be on different teams by the time the 2023 MLB season starts:
The Chicago White Sox offloaded Craig Kimbrel right before the season by trading him to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for AJ Pollock. For most of his career, Pollock has been a great player. He didn’t have a terrible year in 2022 but he certainly had a year that failed to meet expectations.
He has a player option in 2023 so he may or may not return. Knowing this, it might have been smart for the White Sox to trade him. It was somewhat clear at the 2022 trade deadline that making the playoffs would be hard this year for the Sox and they didn’t act on it.
Pollock was one of the names that was in rumors this year but he survived the deadline. Now, don’t be surprised if he isn’t back in 2023. Even if he uses his player option, he could still be traded once again. It would have just been nice to get assets for him in 2022.