The White Sox Load Up, Look Interesting, Remain Nimble
Are the White Sox going For It? A move like signing Adam LaRoche to a two-year deal might have looked like advanced place-holding with a chance of contention, but signing a reliever (Zach Duke) to a long-term deal (three years!) sends a slightly different message, especially when examined together.
Adding Jeff Samaradzija looks entirely different. Trading a solid prospect like Marcus Semien for an upper-middle class rotation stalwart just one year from free agency suggests the White Sox have designs on something greater than just existing in 2015. Signing a high-priced closer like David Robertson to a long term deal? That’s an act of aggression, a shot across the rest of their division’s bow and signal of intent to all Wild card comers. They didn’t just add a closer, they added one of the better relief pitchers in baseball, a valuable strikeout machine who looks like he can survive when his fastballs wanes.
Adding more good players? That’s a recipe for a good team. But is it enough?
In the American League Central, it might be. The White Sox are going to score runs but if the two best players are on your team are DHs and/or first basemen, maybe hold off on the parade planning. If nothing else, the White Sox are interesting. Adding Samardzija puts the Sox rotation into the upper class in baseball, certainly one of the best in the American League. It gives them depth in a hard-throwing right-hander to compliment their two great lefties. Add Carlos Rodon to the mix and you’ve got something. A lot of something, really.
In Jeff Samardzija, they have something very valuable. Seemingly dangled as trade bait for two consecutive winters, a lot of non-Cubs fans spent a lot of time talking themselves into the former Notre Dame wideout. In 2014, Shark put all those fears to rest, putting together his finest season as a starter, topping 200 innings for the second consecutive season. His strikeout rate per nine innings dropped but only because he was so much more efficient, dropping his walk rate below 5%, among the top 20 qualified starters. He increased his ground ball rate while keeping the ball in the park better than ever.
Moving away from his splitter, Samardzija increasingly uses a dastardly sinker fastball, a patently unfair offering for right-handed batters. Keeping the ball on the ground and limiting base runners is an obvious key for a pitcher calling U.S. Cellular his home park. Eligible for the arbitration for the final time before free agency, Samardzija figures to earn in the neighborhood of $10 million for 2015. Steamer projects another strong season, with 21.3%/6.5% K/BB rates and a FIP in the 3.50 range. He grew up a White Sox fan and has been very durable thus far in his career – that’s a good combination.
David Robertson was perhaps the best relief pitcher on the free agent market, in the midst of a terrific five year run out of the Yankees bullpen. Since 2011, he ranks eighth by ERA-, ninth by FIP-, fourth by WAR, third by RA9 WAR, and 19th in innings. He’s a great pitcher who is no stranger to tough pitching environments or the ninth inning.
Robertson is known for his natural cutter and extreme extension off the pitching rubber, allowing his fastball to play up in terms of velocity. With the former Yankee in tow, Chicago’s bullpen is suddenly very expensive and, unsurprisingly, improved. With their new closer and a good lefty setup option like Duke in place, Chicago can better develop and find roles for their vast array of large, hard-throwing relievers.
It isn’t insightful or interesting to say “the White Sox acquired four players and now they’re a better baseball team.” That much we know. The LaRoche signing gave them first base/DH cover, markedly improving one of their biggest holes last season (the South Side will never forget you, Paulie!) Now they have a better bullpen and another good starting pitcher.
What is interesting about the White Sox is the manner in which they’ve gone about this retool. Trading a worthwhile middle infield prospect for one year of Jeff Samardzija says “win now” but it doesn’t overcommit Chicago to this particular season. They are in the best position to negotiate a long-term extension with Samardzija, just as they’re now privy to a year’s worth of information on the value of such a deal.
Red Sox GM Ben Cherington commented this week about the appeal of acquiring a walk-year stud like Shark without the pressure to extend him.
“I think there’s actually some value in a guy who’s not signed long-term if they fit into the rotation because it allows you the chance to get to know them and see if it could be a fit.”
The ChiSox get a good, long look at Samardzija, as well as watching their own up-and-coming arms as they arrive at the big league level. They also deal from a position of “strength” by shipping out Semien. Previous trade target Alexis Ramirez figures to stay put as Chicago pins their hopes on the development of top SS prospect Tim Anderson.
They have options, in other words. They can continue building for 2015, throw some more money around and try and to out-Royals the Royals. Or they ease into the season, confident their pitching and run prevention will keep them in games that Jose Abreu can then break open. Maybe it doesn’t go to plan and suddenly Samardzija is a tidy trade piece? Maybe he walks and the end of the season and nets a delightful draft pick? Perhaps the commute from South Bend agrees with him and White Sox opt to get his name on a nine-figure contract extension?
Chicago has options. Chicago has depth around the diamond. If they want to truly contend for a playoff spot in the American League, they’re going to need even more better players. They’re going to need a better catcher, a second baseman, and an outfielder capable of quickening pulses on more than his passing resemblance to a superstar.
The one thing the White Sox are not, now, is boring. They can go in a variety of directions with their club, the only one that seems certain is a climb up the standings in the American League Central division.
Drew used to write about baseball and other things at theScore but now he writes here. Follow him on twitter @DrewGROF
It’s a good case, but I am still on the fence about these moves. I would have preferred if they approached this offseason like they did last offseason. If that worked out, then they could make these types of moves next year.
Just a head’s up: Your in-story link goes to the page for a Cleveland minor league pitcher named David Roberts.
I bet David Roberts was a teammate of Johan Santa and Jordan Zimmerman.
Just a head’s up, your link in the second paragraph goes to David Roberts.
As a Jays fan, I’m glad the Yankees lost a valuable BP piece, I just wish he didn’t go to another AL team.
Even with these moves, Steamer has the White Sox pegged for around 28 WAR for next year, which is only better than the Astros in the AL and around 10 wins behind the Tigers.
With needs at Catcher and OF, I wonder if the White Sox would be suitable trade partners for Atlanta as look to trade Gattis and Justin Upton. I don’t think the White Sox have the prospects Atlanta would be looking for, but they might be able to swing something.
I’m not sure it is a good idea, but I wonder if the White Sox would take on BJ’s salary as part of a way to get Gattis. Would BJ and Gattis equal a low-level or a couple low-level prospects?
In my humble opinion, this is the most fair return Beane has gotten in his three recent trades of Donaldson, Moss, and Shark.
For the White Sox, you wonder how much the opportunity to acquire a notable former Cub played into their thinking (i.e., ticket sales, reclaiming some of the spotlight that has recently shown on the Cubs, etc.) because even with this acquisition and corresponding sacrifice of a (probable) future valuable asset with team control of Seimen this doesn’t seem to push them into likely playoff contention.
On the hand, as Dave wrote recently, a wild card team likely doesn’t have to win 90+ games and the White Sox could be hoping for a Royals-type sneak into the playoffs and make some noise type of year.
Semien is a potentially useful player, but was defensively challenged – albeit small sample sizes – at 2B and 3B – and not likely to play SS well. The Sox were considering him to be a platoon left fielder. While he had some timely hits, his contact skills are questionable. Bassitt may be okay, Phegley stinks and Ravelo is at least a few years off at a position where the Sox are set. Samard… makes sense for 2015, is not expensive for his production and will either be dealt if they stink and will get them a draft pick if he leaves. Reinsdorf may not like the Cubs, but to suggest they overpaid because of that is silly.
I think the flurry of moves certainly separates the ChiWhiSox from the Twins and puts them solidly “in it,” but my feeling is that they’re still not in the same tier as the Tigers, Indians, and Royals. That said, they’ve positioned themselves such that it only takes a bit of luck to close said gap, not unlike the 2014 Royals.
I dont see how the whitesox are not vastly superior to the royals. The royals had a bad rotation before the departure of shields and their entire post season was based on horseshoe up the ass performances by below league average mike moutsakis and replacement level eric hosmer along with stars aligning, serendipitous country breakfast baserunning gaffes, etc. Kluber corrasco is great one two. Michael brantley had a fantastic season. Cleavland is a bad baseball team. I dont think im crazy to suggest the al central is a coin toss between detroit and the newly tooled chicago. One more signing might give the whitesox the edge. War predictions might not agree but my gut says sox and detroit will be very close
After writing my comment just above yours, I realized and agree with the sentiment that maybe the Royals aren’t going to be an almost 90 win team in 2015, but my feeling is that the AL Central is slightly stratified with Detroit and Cleveland towards the top, the White Sox and Royals slightly behind, and the Twins still working on the rebuild.
Detroit never seems to run away with the division even though the sentiment is that they ought to; they aren’t without weaknesses, certainly. Cleveland has a pretty exciting pitching staff and several good hitters; still have a pretty bad defense, RF? The White Sox have a good top of their rotation, better pen, a few good hitters, but still seem to have a lot of legitimate question marks: 2nd base, catcher, corner OF, 3B.
For whatever reason, my first thought about reading the phrase “remain nimble” was that it was somebody’s name. A Cajun-sounding name. “The name’s Nimble. Remain Nimble.”
Start at 73 wins.
Samardijia is a 6 WAR swing over Rienzo/Carroll. Now you’re at 79 wins.
LaRoche is a 3 WAR swing over Konerko/Dunn. Now you’re at 82 wins.
The question, then, is how much better the bullpen is. Is it a league average bullpen? That’s probably 5-6 wins. Is it a top third bullpen? 6-7 wins. A top five bullpen? 7-8 wins.
Let’s say 6 wins. Now you’re at 88 wins. Does Sale pitch the whole year? 89. Does Rodon give you half a season of starts in place of Danks? 91. Can you find a replacement level LFer? 92.
Point is, the White Sox are a high 80s team RIGHT NOW with maybe a 95 win upside if everything breaks their way.
I’ll respectfully say your bullpen projections are optimistic
Look at WPA. Hell, just look at save conversion percentage relative to the league average. They all point to pretty much the same thing.
How is LaRoche at 35 a 3 win swing? Were Konerko/Dunn THAT bad last year? I think 6 wins is aggressive for Shark too.
You’re basically saying best case scenario it sounds like. What if Abreu regresses? What if Shark starts to age a bit?
I don’t see the ChiSox making up that many wins. Then again, like others have said, the Royals and Tigers will likely be worse. Hell, maybe 87 wins will get you the division.
Agreed with Antonio that Bridgeport Joe’s projections are optimistic, but let’s see.
Konerko and Dunn combined for -1.2 wins last year. Laroche projects for 1.6 next year, though I’m not sure that takes into account that most of his at bats will come as a DH (where his hitting will likely suffer from the DH penalty, also). But optimistically, that’s almost a 3-win swing right there.
Rienzo’s page here is messed up right now, but bWAR put him at -1.4 and Carroll fWAR was 0.3 (though some came in relief). So Samardzija is really only a 4-win swing instead of 6, assuming he completely replaces what these guys did last year.
I know WAR isn’t perfect with bullpens, and I don’t know how to account for chaining, but here’s an estimate. It was worth 0.7 last year. The Royals were worth 5.9, and league average was 3.0, so a 6-win projection IS wildly optimistic. Zach Duke and David Robertson combined for 3 WAR last year but only project at 1.5 next year (which is criminally low based on Robertson alone). Optimistically, I think 2.5 wins from them is an ok guess. So add that to last year, without taking into account anything else changing for better or for worse, and you wind up with roughly 3-3.5 wins this year (2-3 more than last year, let’s say additional 2.5). That’s an average bullpen, with a bit of upside potentially.
Sale projects for fewer wins next year in more time than he really had, so I don’t see how you can assume he’ll be worth more. Let’s assume he ends up with similar WAR to last year (5.4).
Projecting Rodon to have immediate success after 21 IP in the minors is silly in my mind, especially since his control was not good. If he gives you anything above Danks last year, that’ll be lucky. So no extra there.
Some small tweaks in the OF could easily add another 1 win. That’s 10.5 more, getting them up to 84.5. That sounds about right to me.
That doesn’t account for the loss of Semien or any free agents (coming or going), or the potential upside of Sale/Rodon/etc. But I’d be comfortable projecting them for 84 wins, with a floor of 78 and a ceiling of 90ish.
Samardzija isn’t going to improve the team by six wins, and neither is the Duke/Robertson duo. Instead of a 12-win bump, let’s call it six or seven. So, without figuring on any contribution from Carlos Rodon this year, the Sox look like a 82-84 win squad to me.
But I do agree that there’s real upside, perhaps as much as 88-91 wins if Eaton blossoms in CF and Rodon provides either 20-25 league average starts or 50-60 dazzling bullpen frames.
Forced to bet, I’d feel comfortable taking the over on 82 wins, and equally at ease betting the under on 87. The key (as if there’s ever one key) will likely be whether or not Don Cooper can make a silk purse out of the pitching staff flotsam of 2014.
Keep in mind that Samardzija is replacing a -2 WAR combo starter.
As for the bullpen, last year the Sox bullpen had a -5.25 WPA. MLB average is about a 1.7 WPA. The math is easy from there.
(Or alternatively, the Sox had a 63% save conversion percentage in 57 opportunities. That was about 10% below the MLB average. Ditto on the easy math.)
Maybe Robertson and Duke (and probably Rodon at some point) don’t make this an average bullpen. But if they do, it’s pretty clearly in the six win range. They were really, really bad last year.
My fault for not fully clarifying my point, Bridgeport. I should’ve specifically said that I don’t expect the trio of Shark, Duke, and Robertson to be as effective in 2015 as they were in 2014.
Hence the gap between my forecasted upgrade and your own. (But I do appreciate very much your detailed response. And immediately upon hearing the Samardzija news I did take the Sox at 50-1 to win the Series next year, so I’ll be 100% pulling for them. As will my landlord.)
Here’s where you are making a math mistake, though. Average bullpens last year were worth 3.0 wins, not 6. And the Royals had the best bullpen in the league and were at 5.9. So there is no way the White Sox are a 6.0 next year.
WAR is a really crappy way to evaluate bullpens because so many of their innings are super high leverage or super low leverage. WPA is much better. Heck, just look at blown saves — teams vary from 8 to 25. I’m just not buying that a bullpen that blew 8 saves is only a couple of wins better than one that blew 25 saves.
Not every blown save is a loss, though. And many “saves” are of the 3-run lead variety that every team wins. Is there a way to see their record when leading after 7th inning vs other teams? Or after 8th inning? They were 28-24 in 1 run games and 6-8 in extra innings, neither of which seems dramatically higher or lower than average.
This presupposes that the 2014 White Sox didn’t outstrip their third order pythagorean by a couple wins.
Basically, short of using their remaining, limited cash to sign one or more of Headley, Rasmus, and McCarthy, everything would need to break the White Sox’ way in order for them to be in WC contention. Detroit is still a good 10 projected WAR ahead of them even after these moves, and they may well re-sign Scherzer. Last season proved that all you have to do is have a mediocre team with a shot at the WC, but I’d rather not mortgage the future when the team was so well positioned for 2016 and beyond.
I suppose Hahn could still pull off a few more moves, but it seems like they’re making a run a year too prematurely, and I’m not loving the LaRoche signing or Shark trade without those additional steps. I’ve been following Semien since the low minors, and he absolutely has the makings of a league average or better 2B, and the raw tools to even stick at short, if they’d ever keep him at the same position for more than three starts. That’s a bit rich for a sandwich pick consolation prize.
So dazzle me, Hahn. Go out and get Headley and a LF not named Melky Cabrera, and I’ll revise my opinion.
Yeah, but is Semien really that much more promising than Micah Johnson or even Tim Anderson at this point?
You are right though. They need a LFer, a 3B or at least the short half of a 3B platoon, and a 2B. Hahn really needs to try to land two of those.
On the contrary, Anderson has a much higher ceiling, and if he performs well in the high minors should be ready to step in as soon as Alexei is out. Hell, before the hot stove I was one of the only Sox fans I know who thought they should trade Alexei for good picks and rent someone like Stephen Drew, as if the club lucks out Anderson may well be ready for the Show as early as 2016.
But yes, I’d take Semien all day, every day over Johnson, who is largely a one-tool burner, or bat-less Sanchez. Semien could stick as an everyday starter, while the other MI options profile (per my admittedly layperson’s understanding) more as role players.
I would agree that the white sox are probably in the 80-84 win range with these moves. As a sox fan who sees a lot of games I think there is reason for optimism that both avisail Garcia and eaton could beat their projections as both showed promis last year.
The problem is you still have flowers and Gillespie starting at C and 3B who are both below average starters, viciedo who is a black hole in left and you don’t know what you have at second with Micah Johnson or carlos Sanchez (probably nothing good at least next year). The pitching staff should be much improved as everything that could go wrong for the bullpen last year did, but I think the team needs to find a few even one war players at second and left before they become contenders