3 Chicago White Sox Winter Meetings storylines to follow

The Chicago White Sox will be a team worth paying attention to at this week's Winter Meetings.

It is hard to recall the last time the White Sox and being a team worth paying attention to was mentioned in the same sentence.

What will make general manager Chris Getz a popular guy amongst his peers is that he is willing to deal Garrett Crochet, the best pitcher available on the trade market.

Crochet possibly getting traded is one of three storylines to follow this week.

Possibly is the keyword.

According to USA Today's Bob Nightengale, the Sox have already rejected a Philadelphia Phillies offer involving infielder Alec Bohm and prospect Justin Crawford.

The White Sox wanted the San Diego Padres two top prospects, catcher Ethan Salas and shortstop Leodalis De Vries, but Padres management wants to hold onto them even if they are still unknowns at Single-A.

The White Sox want at least three talented, young prospects back.

It sounds like they want highly thought of prospects that teams might not want to part with--at least just yet.

There are still elite free-agent options on the market, such as Corbin Burnes and Max Fried. While they come with a hefty price tag, they will just cost money. No future assets have to exchange hands to get them.

Once they are off the market, then willingness from contenders might improve to part with prospects since Crochet is projected to earn $2.9 million in arbitration coming off an All-Star season.

Remember, Getz waited until spring training to deal Dylan Cease because he had a high demand. It may take that long for another transaction that is similar to be completed.

The Sox attempting to trade Luis Robert Jr.

This is not the offseason to move him, but that is not going to stop Getz from trying to trade him. Despite coming off a season where Robert Jr. missed 62 games and finished with a .5 fWAR, the Sox front office thinks they can get something significant back for their former All-Star.

Had this been the first season he missed extended time, a team could have been willing to move a significant prospect to get his talent.

His career 2023 season was the only time he did not spend significant time on the injured list.

Teams are trying to tell Getz that his injury history is not worth a top prospect. Getz feels it is just teams trying to get something for nothing.

The better play is to roll the dice and hope Robert Jr. can stay healthy and have a bounce-back in the first half. That way, his trade value is reclaimed, and he can be one of the prized players at the 2025 trade deadline.

The Sox are hoping someone takes the remaining $47.5 million of Andrew Benintendi's contract off their hands.

This was going to be an offseason where the Sox were not going to spend much money in free agency despite losing a record 121 games this past season.

It feels like this is cutting payroll at all costs type of an offseason. Revenues being short are to be expected when a team loses that many games and the CHSN rollout has be rough to where it will be hard to project how much cash on hand the club has.

The Sox are reportedly hoping to unload Benintendi's contract. His deal is the richest free-agent contract in franchise history and so far the Sox have gotten a .246 average and a .684 OPS with a -.6 bWAR.

He was one of the worst hitters in baseball during the first half. He rebounded to put together a solid second half where he ended up matching his career in home runs with 20.

However, if the Sox are going to move Benintendi, they will either have to eat a significant portion of his contract. The other option and it is a scary one, is they tie him with Crochet in a deal. The reason you do not want that is it means the return will be significantly less since in that instance.

The Sox have to get a haul of impact players for a Crochet. Asking for salary relief by including Benintendi in such a trade would not accomplish that.