Chicago White Sox: 2 reasons letting Tim Anderson go was a bad idea

The Chicago White Sox have parted ways with shortstop Tim Anderson after declining his team option.

It would have cost the club $14 million to bring back a player who has been plagued by injuries and struggled at the plate the past two seasons.

With Anderson’s departure, the #Changethegame era is officially over.

Tim’s swagger and his 2019 AL batting title were a key part of those good old days that were not so long ago.

It was two years ago when Anderson hit the walk-off homer in the Field of Dreams game that felt like just the beginning of bigger and better things.

Instead, it was the last great moment of a contention window that was more like a propped opened screen door.

Tony La Russa’s second tour managing this team and then hiring Pedro Grifol to replace him saw to that. It also did not help that owner Jerry Reinsdorf kept putting a self-imposed salary cap and front office heads Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn kept making one bad decision after another when it came to roster construction.

New general manager Chris Getz must have his reasons for moving on from Anderson. It was not the greatest decision for a couple of reasons.

They are letting Tim Anderson walk away for nothing.

Anderson had a miserable season. There is no doubt about that.

His slash line was .245/.286/.296 with a wRC+ of 60 and -0.5 fWAR. He hit just one home run. Anderson was also inconsistent defensively.

He was the second coming of Ray Durham–an immensely talented infielder who grew to hate playing on Southside.

The thing is the Chicago White Sox got something in return for Durham when he left town. The Sox are letting Anderson walk away for nothing.

Heck, the Milwaukee Brewers managed to pick up a prospect for Mark Canha.

In a weak shortstop free-agent market, you would think some team would want Anderson in exchange for a scratch-off prospect.

Spotrac.com does think Tim will get somewhere around $5 million so maybe a club did not think it was worth it to make him the 10th highest-paid shortstop if they took on his option.

Now who is going to replace Tim Anderson at shortstop?

Kudos to Getz for not trying the same approach Hahn did the last two seasons and hope for a bounce-back season.

However, it does create another hole in the roster that already has plenty of them that need filling.

The shortstop free-agent market is terrible this year. You got Amed Rosario, Donovan Solano, and not much else.

Top prospect Colson Montgomery is waiting in the wings, but he has not played above Double-A. He only played in 64 games last season because of injury.

Exercising a $14 million option to allow Anderson to rebuild his value while Montgomery gets some more experience in the minors would have been the better way to go.