Mired in mediocrity

Thursday afternoon, Rick Hahn got through with the business of drumming out any vestige of hope for the 2016 season early. Alex Avila‘ hamstring is re-aggravated and he’s a month away, leaving the Sox with the worst half of their failed catching platoon, the Austin Jackson knee injury that seemed worthy of a move in response when it was just a six-week timeline, now will taken even longer to heal. Carlos Rodon will need a rehab start while Jacob Turner and his still inexplicable guaranteed contract fills in again.

Zach Putnam mercifully looks headed for surgery, but then again he’s eligible for arbitration for next season, so at least he had better reasons for pushing himself than naive playoff hopes.

Hahn plainly stated there will be no short-term rentals to save this group, which is the right call given how bad things have gotten, but praising him for prudence is like crediting firefighters for not wasting any water after they already watched the building burn down. The Sox didn’t do enough to build a contender; despite a good, inexpensive core, they went bargain hunting for every existing hole on their roster, entered the season with a below median payroll, addressed issues that arose lethargically, and in the case of James Shields, incompetently (he has a 5.13 DRA, and there are bad indicators even in his four-straight quality starts).

So now the White Sox are supposedly open for business, considering sell-off moves as basic as ditching the expensive closer their losing team doesn’t need (David Robertson), tossing aside their 2017 plan by considering the likes of Todd Frazier and Brett Lawrie, beginning a more long-term teardown of their core by dealing Adam Eaton, or being aggressive enough to take one or both of the two best things they’ve done in the last five years–develop Chris Sale and Jose Quintana–and fence them in a market for pitching that is supposedly as desperate as it’s ever been.

That last idea is more proposed than something the Sox are actually considering, as reports have them as obstinate as ever about the most prized pieces of their core. Hahn called the idea of a full teardown “a little extreme,” and another fence-straddling White Sox half-solution seems near, even in the wake of one of the more somber and dissatisfied media sessions in recent franchise history.

Whenever a report bubbles up that the Sox refuse to deal Sale comes up, they get dinged for not have the wisdom to rebuild. But there is no great genius in tearing down everything on the major league roster, parking in the front of the draft for years, stacking prospects and forfeiting seasons until they are all ready at once. If anything it’s crudely simple, and it takes only the most basic consideration on the nature of sports team owners to determine why they have become so popular. What makes the Cubs so exceptional is not the strength of their stomachs to deal with 2011-2014, but their execution of the opportunities that a rebuild creates, and what makes the Sox what they have become will not be fixed just by slashing payroll.

Sale, nor Quintana, nor even Jose Abreu–as bad as he has been this year–are not albatrosses. They are not too expensive to allow for a competent supporting cast to be built around them, they are not doomed to sign elsewhere in the immediate future. They’re cheap, they’re here, and the Sox have just failed to do anything with them. Just three years ago, the Sox were deadline sellers. They had less value to offer, but in exchange for Jake Peavy and Alex Rios, they got two relief prospects they would use in part to get Frazier and Lawrie, a utility man with no bat (even by utility man standards), and sub-replacement outfielder they wrongly identified as a franchise cornerstone and have given over 1200 major league PAs and counting.

They saved money too, as they clearly made a point out of getting the Texas Rangers and Boston Red Sox to eat all of the remaining salary. Those cash savings were credited with enabling the Sox to use all of their draft spending budget, sign Rodon to franchise-record bonus, and funding a pre-2015 spending spree for Robertson, Melky Cabrera and Adam LaRoche which vaulted them all the way up to…the 15th largest payroll in baseball.

If the Sox are going to operate by the standards where this constitutes an exceptional effort to compete, where the flop of a team whose largest free agent move was a one-year, $5 million deal to make the Cubs’ fourth outfielder their everyday center fielder, is enough to make them consider retreating and reloading, then they really are as “mired in mediocrity” as Hahn said, and probably should sell.

Every front office has to operate within their team’s financial reality. If anything the Sox should be aggressive if they’re selling, and at least purge all of the assets that are only useful through 2017. If they can’t spend with the upper half of the league, even in contending years, and their international operation is still only beginning to function in the wake of entrusting it to a feckless criminal over a decade ago, they need to distinguish themselves from their competition in some way; why not ruthlessness and icy pragmatism?

There’s no great groundswell of confidence to be had here. Getting fair value on Quintana and Sale will be as difficult as they are valuable, moving just one creates the question of whether they will cut the same corners as before to become competitive in the time where they still have the other. Moving both would be an unprecedented teardown and put a strong onus on scouting and development personnel that has not covered itself in glory recently, and clinging to their favorite core pieces and only trading what is fungible, means the Sox would need to make a killing on individual deals to boost their overall talent level at all.

That last option would probably be easier to deal with than watching homegrown aces get dealt away, and if Hahn has done anything in his tenure, it’s pile up trades that have looked like steals at first blush. They could trade Cabrera, Lawrie and Frazier for some near-major league ready guys, and offer a view of a team that has a chance at 2018 if everyone hits their 70th percentile result.

But the Sox front office needs to start doing something else, and has surely realized it to some degree, but whether they are capable or will ever be enabled to reshape this franchise in any meaningful way remains a constant source of doubt.

Lead Image Credit: David Banks // USA Today Sports Images