Losing a 2nd and 3rd rounder for Melky and Robertson hurt but, they were hardly system defining, and neither Melky nor Robertson has been the problem. I’d hardly call a $68 million contract “breaking the bank” re Abreu, and he’s definitely a good player regardless of your opinion on his first base defense.

The pieces traded for Lawrie are not really relevant.

And the fact that the free agents they chose were chosen poorly does NOT negate the premise that free agents would have helped. Fowler would have helped a ton, rather than Austin Jackson, for example.

The 2016 White Sox were sunk by CF, C, DH, and 5th starter. They signed Adam LaRoche and Austin Jackson instead of Fowler or Cespedes. There’s bad evals in here, but doesn’t mean the idea was a bad one. Just poorly and tentatively executed.

as for melky, lawrie and garcia, they could fetch something small at the trade deadline, but i would be surprised to see them moved before then unless some other team has some bad scouting reports they are looking at.

And this is just flat out wrong. They absolutely DID follow your advice. They tried plugging offensive holes and they sacrificed defensive holes for it. The tried plugging bullpen holes and created holes in the farm system for it. Etc. Etc.

They signed Dunn, Cabrera, Robertson – and forfeited high draft picks in the process which is why the farm system sucks. Then they traded away depth pieces to get Samardzija, Frazier and Lawrie. The result was below-expectations performances for all acquired veterans and a useless farm system. They broke the bank to sign Abreu, and he’s a god-awful first baseman. The defense is SO bad that it actually REDUCED Sale’s value, and probably Quintana’s and Rodon’s as well.

Kenny Williams won a World Series by selling the farm for short-term players. Not necessarily a bad idea, but it can only work for a short period of time; then the system has to be rebuilt. Kenny never did that. In his time as GM the Sox have only drafted TWO consistent MLB starting players – Sale & Gio Gonzalez, please don’t try to sell me on Beckham and Semien. Rodon and Anderson may pan out, but I suspect Rodon won’t be around after 2018.

The only bad thing about this rebuild so far is that what little core they have is getting traded while the dreck that needs to be moved to open up playing time for the young players being acquired is still here. Melky, Frazier, Lawrie, Avisail, Abreu, Robertson ALL need to go.

The one good thing about the rebuild so far is that it signifies Kenny Williams’ s.o.p. is finished.

This idea they’ve been selling that they could NEVER do a tear down and rebuild is complete garbage. Much of the fan base has bought it. When all you can hope for is people to show up to the park when your #1 starter pitches, you probably need to move that guy and get better. I’m glad they did and I hope the exodus continues in the weeks ahead.

free agency spending has been a secondary issue. while i get your gist that complementary players could have made *some* difference, the biggest backlash has been about the white sox not signing the big names. i don’t necessarily think that’s a good idea. would you want greinke and his $200M contract? how about gordon and his $18M per year deal for the next 3 years?

free agency is designed to plug holes. if you draft and develop players properly, then there should be a heck of a lot less holes to plug.