White Sox Rumors: Payroll cut expected as team enters a full rebuild

There continues to be praise heaped upon Chicago White Sox general manager Chris Getz when he admitted last week at the General Manager’s meetings that he was not a fan of the team.

Getz seemingly was taking a shot at his predecessors, Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn, in that he did not like the way that the roster was constructed. But considering Getz was the director of player development under Williams and Hahn, he had a large part to play regarding the reason why the White Sox’s previous rebuild will go down in history as being one of the worst in all of professional sports.

The rebuild has resulted in zero series victories in the post-season and another rebuild. To that end, Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that the White Sox are expected to cut payroll this off-season and virtually everyone on the team’s roster is available via trade.

The players that Nightengale mentioned as not being available are starting pitcher Dylan Cease and center fielder Luis Robert Jr.

The impression from the General Manager’s meetings this past week is that the Chicago White Sox will indeed be rebuilding.

It would seem that the White Sox’s approach with Cease is the same approach that they had at the trade deadline this past season. The White Sox are not overtly shopping Cease but he could be available in the right deal. But again, for a White Sox that is cutting payroll and having never signed a player to over a $100MM contract in franchise history, it makes all the sense in the world for the team to trade Cease this off-season as he still has two seasons of team control.

There wouldn’t be too much value for the White Sox in trading Robert as he even with the expected step back this season, the silver slugging award-winning center fielder will be still within his prime, theoretically, when the team can contend again.