3 White Sox who survived trade deadline but won’t be on 2023 roster

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.

The Chicago White Sox might try to see what they can get for Gavin Sheets.

The Chicago White Sox actually handled Gavin Sheets very well this season. He is one of the only players that you can say that about after the 2022 season. He got off to an abysmal start to the 2022 season to the point where you wondered if he might actually not be a Major League player.

Instead of complaining or being weird about it, he went down to AAA when he was sent there and he worked on himself. He is one of the few White Sox players that had the ability to look in the mirror, make changes, and get better. Following that, he got called back up and played very well down the stretch.

Sheets is a very powerful bat in the middle of the order. He can change a game with one swing which is something that other teams in the league might want in a platoon player. The White Sox could very well try to trade him at some point this offseason.

He survived, as every player did besides Reese McGuire, the trade deadline and now he could be gone before the 2023 season. If he is, they might get something nice back for him and he might be able to thrive with another team.

It would be nice to know that the White Sox were going to the playoffs but that just isn’t the case this year. With that in mind, it is smart to start thinking about next year and beyond. This team needs to be much smarter.