The Chicago White Sox have made a few decent moves this off-season. They haven't made any huge splash for one of the two or three biggest free agents on the market but they got some pretty good new players coming in. They needed that after what was a very disappointing 2022 season.
One player that they had a deal with was Andrew Benintendi. It came out from various baseball insiders all throughout December ahead of Christmas. The team didn't announce it right away which happens sometimes as teams wait for physicals to be completed amongst other things.
With the way that the Carlos Correa drama has played out this off-season so far, some White Sox fans were getting a little bit anxious when it came to the fact that they weren't announcing this one. The White Sox haven't had the best luck of all time in recent years so that would have been tough.
Fear not though. On Tuesday evening, the Chicago White Sox made it officially official. It has been announced on all of their social media. Benintendi is coming to the Chicago White Sox which is really going to help them improve their roster.
The #WhiteSox have agreed to terms on a five-year, $75-million contract with free agent All-Star outfielder Andrew Benintendi. MORE: https://t.co/G5tMODsfSh
— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) January 3, 2023
The White Sox finally made the Andrew Benintendi signing official.
Benintendi is signing for five years and 75 million dollars. The former All-Star and Gold Glove Award winner is now the highest-paid player in the history of the Chicago White Sox.
He has broken the contract total record set by Yasmani Grandal a few years ago. We can only hope that he does a bit better of a job at living up to the contract. It is easy to have faith that he will do that as he has everything he needs to succeed right now.
Benintendi will be the new full-time left fielder. He will join Luis Robert and Oscar Colas as their projected outfield trio as of right now. Having Benintendi (and Colas) out there will certainly be better than seeing first basemen play the corner outfield positions.
He will also help this team hit better. He isn't a powerhouse or anything like that but he will make the perfect number two hitter with some of the big boys that will come up to bat behind him.
Again, this isn't the signing that people expect to get them over the hump and into the World Series but it is a great move when you are building toward that. Now that it is officially official, people can feel better about it.