Mike Rankin and James Fox reacted to the news of Jose Abreu’s departure to the Houston Astros as well as the Chicago White Sox’s decision to sign right-handed starter Mike Clevinger. How does Clevinger’s addition to the active roster impact the way general manager Rick Hahn maneuvers the remainder of the offseason? Now that Abreu is no longer manning first base on the south side, how will the 26-man roster take shape? Is Jake Burger still a part of the White Sox’s plans?
24 thoughts on “FutureSox Podcast: Goodbye Jose Abreu, hello Mike Clevinger”
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Hahn and the brass thought Rodon off a 5 war season wasn’t worth a QO (18mil) costing themselves a top draft pick but Clevinger off a replacement level season is worth 12 mil ?
That difference of course is the money handed to Leury Garcia on one of the worst deals in sox history
Hahn and co in their infinite wisdom also blow the Abreu QO when they knew they were gonna give him a multi year deal a few years back which meant they couldn’t give him a QO this year costing themselves another top pick….
This stuff is ridiculous, you’d expect this from some amateur hour gm with no clue what they were doing not some decade long tenured mastermind oh wait….
I don’t think offering the QO to Abreu in 2019 was a bad idea. The elimination of the QO was a big target of the union in the CBA negotiations and assuming it would be a part of any new agreement would have been extremely naïve.
Declining offering one to Rodon while picking up Kimbrel’s option was indefensible though. Just a self-inflicted error that derailed the entire offseason.
Whether or not there was going to be a QO after future negotiations, the White Sox should have had Jose locked up before he ever became a free agent to begin with.
“Amateur” is the key word describing White Sox management.
None of this stuff matters. The bottom line is that the White Sox are not serious about winning a championship. They will never compete with teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals, Dodgers, Braves, Padres and Astros for the best players in baseball. And they don’t have the brains to compete with successful smaller market teams like the Rays. It sure would be nice to be able to root for a player like Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper, Juan Soto, Manny Machado, George Springer, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Correa, Justin Verlander, Jacob deGrom, Trea Turner, Marcus Semien, Corey Seager, Kyle Schwarber, Xander Bogaerts, Francisco Lindor, Nolan Arenado and Max Scherzer. All these players have been acquired by other teams during the White Sox supposed “window of contention” or are available right now. I’m sure there are more I didn’t mention. ONE championship in the last 105 years! That says it all.
Your first two sentences says it all.
Your list of players are the caliber they need, probably two of them. If they ever had any true intentions toward winning that were not completely hollow, which is doubtful at best, they blew it by doing nothing the past two winters. This ownership has no balls, no heart, and no soul.
Yanks, Red Sox, Cards, Dodgers, Braves, Padres, Astros… you didnt even mention Phillies or Mets who have spent huge last few seasons and the Cubs who did when they rebuilt the right way or teams who spends big although maybe poorly like the Rangers and Angels.
Its insanely sad that you know every off season that a top tier is never ever a possibility.
You’re right. I should have mentioned the Phillies and Mets.
Take a look at the “star” players the St. Louis Cardinals have managed to draft in the later rounds over the years and develop into impact players.
Then, look at the abysmal failures of the White Sox drafts in the 1st and 2nd rounds. Forget getting anything out of later rounds. They are a complete fail when it comes to drafting and player development.
Then, we wonder why they can’t perform a successful rebuild. It’s a sad joke on us fans.
They caught lightening in a bottle in 2005 when multiple unknown players had career years and reclamation projects like Jermaine Dye turned into superstars. They convinced themselves they were geniuses – so why spend big when you have a proven winning formula. That said, there is talent on this team, so let’s hope for a second lightening strike in the same place even though the odds are known to be quite low.
You just described the Sox front office philosophy. Hope to catch lightning in a bottle. It worked once in 105 tries.
Abreu at his astros presser saying the whitesox made him a good offer… any bets on if it was to be a player manager???
It’s was probably like 1/10. He’s just being his professional self.
If the Sox actually did make him a good offer, that should imply that they could be expected to now make a good offer to some other good free agent. I’ll believe that when I see it, or if they actually sign someone.
My guess is they made him a lowball super team friendly offer that they knew was exceedingly unlikely for him to accept, just so they could say “we made him an offer”. They didn’t offer him close to what the Astros did, I think we all know that much.
On the Score they said it was not a “formal offer”, so who knows. Maybe it was, “if you don’t get any good offers, circle back to us in February.”
That would be so Sox it has to be true.
I’ve read that it was either mistranslated or misheard and he actually said they made him no formal offer.
There is no way Abreu had any interest playing another April/May in a cold weather city. i’ve never seen him worse and old than last April, I thought he would quit then. This was the last time he was getting paid too, so all Sox fans should be happy for him.
Unless there is no market for Conforto, Gallo for less than $10 mil is probably the best we’ll get. Looks like prices are high this year, bad sign for Sox.
Sox announce coaching staff. It’s all pretty reasonable until you see Boston is coming back. It’s like the Sox said to themselves, “come on, we have to do something stupid here.”
Kenny gets his man.
Absolutely sickening that a speck of human excrement like Daryl Boston is a representative of the team I root for.
Why, just why?
Daryl Boston was Kenny Williams teammate in 1986, 1987, and 1988. Probably during their minor league careers also. That should explain it.
Say hello to the latest White Sox yes man, Pedro Grifol.