Chicago White Sox: Top Five Priorities for the 2016-17 Offseason

1. Pick a Side

It’s been a season-to-season quandary for the White Sox with how much they should go all-in to making a playoff run. We’ve seen teams go all-in with much success like the Blue Jays did by trading for David Price and Troy Tulowitzki in 2015. However, we’ve also seen clubs like the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks set their organizations back years because of a false sense of going all-in.

Chicago is in the exact territory right now. Do they decide to ship off one or both of their top starting pitchers? Do they hold onto Todd Frazier, who will be a free agent after next season? What about David Robertson‘s fate? He was frequently mentioned in trade rumors over the summer.

One thing is for certain, Rick Hahn and his front office must choose a concrete direction. Over the past few seasons the White Sox have managed to stay in the middle by acquiring a few veterans, but not deciding to trade key pieces when they had the opportunity to. Not trading Jeff Samardzija comes to mind as a move that perfectly describes what the White Sox have been over the past few years.

Obviously, figuring out what to do with Chris Sale and Jose Quintana is priority number one. But how they handle those trade discussions is going to be an overall signal about what approach the White Sox will take this winter. Sale is under team control for three more seasons and Quintana has about four years left on his contract when factoring team options. These two would bring back immense value if the White Sox decided to go in that direction. However, without them, it’s tough to imagine any world where the club would be competitive over the next three years.

Chicago must choose whether to retool or rebuild, but they certainly can’t continue to just tread water.