With the free agent pool now officially set, the real value for the White Sox isn’t in the rankings themselves. It’s in the contract projections, because those numbers tell you which players might actually fit within the team’s range.
Michael King stands out as the cleanest example. He looks like the kind of pitcher the White Sox would target: the way he pitches, what he’s done, and what he might cost all line up with their lane.
The projected deals for him vary, but they all sit near territory the Sox have already explored before. Zack Wheeler passed on a guaranteed five-year, $125 million offer from Chicago to take a little less from Philadelphia, and King’s estimates land in that same broad neighborhood.
Site Ranking Contract
MLBTR 6 4/$92M
FanGraphs 4 4/$100M
Athletic 10 3/$90M
ESPN 9 3/$79.5M
That same logic applies to the rest of the second tier behind Tarik Skubal. Trevor Rogers, Freddy Peralta and Clay Holmes all appear to be in a range the White Sox have precedent for, whether in years or average annual value.
Of course, the market can always move. Wheeler was initially projected closer to four years and $72 million before bidding changed the picture.
But in an era where front offices are often working from similar models, the wild bidding wars have more guardrails than they used to. For the White Sox, that matters, because any of those deals would reset the franchise record for total guaranteed money.
Elsewhere around the league, the Mariners made a surprising call with Jason Kanzler as their new manager. His major league dugout background is limited to a stint as an assistant hitting coach in Houston years ago, and more recently he was the Cubs’ director of player development. It’s Jerry Dipoto’s third managerial hire, and all three have come without prior major league managing experience.
Kanzler’s path is unusual even by baseball standards. He has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, taught high school science between his playing days and his pro career, and worked on apps with Houston to help track player development.
At 36, he is the second-youngest manager in the league, behind only Washington’s Blake Butera. That kind of setup is a lot easier to navigate in Washington than it is in Seattle, so the learning curve will be worth watching.
Ethan Katz is also back in a familiar place after spending a year in Houston as the assistant pitching coach on a staff that was running out of runway. He’s returned to the organization that drafted him, and he’s working alongside one of his old A-ball teammates in Warren Schaeffer. Katz said he already had a feel for whether the Rockies had made progress.
“I let him know how impressed I was with the turnaround -- just everything I saw from playing the Rockies over the years,” Katz said. “Everything looked and felt different.
That doesn't take away from what’s gone on in the past. I just thought it was a testament to how well he’s was getting things going in the right direction.”
The Astros, meanwhile, opened a new chapter with Randy Flores as GM, though the headline isn’t exactly the kind you want attached to your first day. The hope is that Flores, as a former player, has enough authority to keep any potential meddling from Jeff Bagwell in check, since Bagwell continues to advise owner Jim Crane. It’s also a little odd that Houston spoke with managerial candidates before Flores was hired.
And on the labor front, Major League Baseball put forward another proposal that still includes a salary cap, though this version comes with a higher cap and floor and would not take effect until 2028. The union rejected it again.
Now the question is whether these pre-lockout offers are just a way for both sides to say they tried before things break down, or whether the owners truly don’t have the leverage for a drawn-out fight this time. With a national TV deal coming up after the season, it’s a risky moment to be doing anything that could hurt interest in the sport.
In Other News...
White Sox Could Be Facing A Crucial Outfield Decision Soon
As the White Sox head into an offseason built around trying to contend again, the front office is already sorting through a roster that it wants to keep largely intact for a 2026 push. One of the more immediate questions sits in the outfield, where left-hander Sean Newcomb and Randal Grichuk are both free agents, and Grichuks role is far from settled after arriving in May and giving the club a useful stretch of production.
Chicago may not need a complete overhaul, but it does need to decide whether it wants to bank on internal continuity or look outside for a more dependable fit in the corners. The free-agent market offers a few names who could make sense for different reasons, and the White Sox will have to weigh fit, upside and how much risk they want to carry as they try to build a roster that can actually stay in the race next year. [Read more 🡒]
Noah Schultz Suddenly Faces A White Sox Role Question In 2027
Noah Schultz spent his rookie season in a way the White Sox probably did not envision when they penciled him in as one of the organizations most important arms. The left-hander broke in as a starter in 2026, but inconsistency and a knee issue interrupted the year, and by September the club had shifted him to the bullpen to see whether a different role could help him settle in.
Chicago still sees Schultz as a long-term piece, but the path to 2027 is suddenly less straightforward than it looked a year ago. Whether he opens next season in the rotation or back in relief may hinge on what the White Sox do this winter and how he looks once camp opens, leaving his next step as one of the more interesting questions on the pitching staff. [Read more 🡒]
White Sox Suddenly Face A Coaching Problem Fans Should Watch
The White Sox have another offseason coaching ripple to sort through after Joel McKeithan, who had been serving as the clubs assistant hitting coach, landed a new job with the St. Louis Cardinals. His move comes as Chicago continues to shape the hitting side of its staff under Derek Shomon, and it leaves the organization with a familiar kind of task: replacing a coach who had been part of the day-to-day work with the lineup and the development plan.
Ryan Fuller, the White Sox director of hitting, publicly acknowledged McKeithans contributions and wished him well, which at least signals a clean parting of ways. The bigger question now is how Chicago fills that opening and what kind of voice it wants alongside Shomon as the club keeps trying to build a more consistent offensive identity. [Read more 🡒]