3 free agents the Chicago White Sox must avoid at all costs
The Chicago White Sox are one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball right now. They proved that on the field during the 2023 season when they went 61-101. They are also proving it off the field as they don't do anything to make themselves better.
This team seems to be more interested in getting their payroll reduced while adding more assets for the future. This comes with just two playoff wins coming out of their last rebuild and we're not talking about playoff series wins, either. They have won just two individual playoff games since their last rebuild started in 2016.
Chicago claims that they are not rebuilding, so they might do the thing where they add a bunch of mediocre players on the cheaper side to eat innings. That could lead them to a decent season or it could go down the drain again with the former being more likely.
The White Sox have a lot of issues from the top of the organization (the owner) down to the players. They don't need to be adding any more problems to their group right now and that means they need to be very selective in the players they add even if they aren't going to be pushing their chips in on 2024. These are the three players that they should stay away from in free agency:
Whit Merrifield
The Chicago White Sox have been doing a lot of things wrong lately. One of them has been making themselves look like a Kansas City Royals wannabe.
They hired their bench coach to be their manager, Chris Getz has ties to the Royals, and they even signed Andrew Benintendi who spent lots of time there. There are even rumors that they could trade for Salvador Perez which is a disaster of an idea.
Another bad idea is the thought of them signing Whit Merrifield. He was a member of the Kansas City Royals from 2016-2022. During the middle of the 2022 season, he was traded to the Toronto Blue Jays. He finished that year with them and spent all of 2023 there as well.
Merrifield would be a bad idea for the White Sox because they don't need to bring in former Kansas City Royals players who are aging. The Royals are the opposite of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, or Houston Astros in terms of winning so you don't need to be mimicing them.
In 2023, Merrifield slashed .272/.318/.382 for a .700 OPS. He made the All-Star Game for the third time in his career, but that was a very curious selection to say the least. He was far from the prime version of himself which is why he only had a 0.7 WAR.
There is no reason for the White Sox to be bringing in a player like this. He is not needed because this team is far from turning the corner. If he had better stats in 2023, it might be something worth considering but it would just look like too much loyalty to the Royals at this point in time.