Chicago White Sox: The youth movement is in full effect and fully paid

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With all the investing in their up-and-coming talent, are the Chicago White Sox starting a new trend? Will it pay off when the time comes?

Another piece has been added to the puzzle. Well, maybe that’s not how it should be termed. The puzzle has already been pieced together if you’re in the Southside of Chicago.

If you’re the Chicago White Sox front office, this puzzle has been put together already on how the team is going to look for the next 5-10 years. It was further finished when the deal was made to extend Yoan Moncada for five years and 70 million dollars.

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So now let’s add this up: Between Moncada (five years, $70m), Eloy Jimenez (six years, $43m), Luis Robert (six years, $48m) and Aaron Bummer (five years, $16m), the White Sox have fully invested – at minimum – 177 million dollars in four guys who are now all covered through arbitration.

That doesn’t even include the likely contracts to come for Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease, Nick Madrigal, and Andrew Vaughn.

The White Sox have sent the message this offseason they are going for it with moves including signing Yasmani Grandal, Dallas Keuchel and trading for Nomar Mazara. In addition to locking up their youthful talent, the White Sox are going to win now, and for several years beyond.

There are two different ways to look at the contracts they have given their pre-arbitration players: In terms of what it means for the performance from the team and how it can affect the future of contractual negotiations and the future of arbitration.

(Photo by SPX/Ron Vesely Photography via Getty Images) /

Are the Chicago White Sox really that good now?

In short, no. They aren’t that good now. We don’t how good they are.

The Chicago White Sox are taking a risk that many teams have done in the past. Invest in your young guys and compliment them with veterans that are at their peak performance level or just barely on the way down.

Take Keuchel for example. He has been a consistent gold glove pitcher when he was with the Astros and added a couple of trips to the All-Star game and a Cy Young award in 2015.

Keuchel is unique because while velocity continues to tick upward, he uses movement and location to his advantage much like a Jamie Moyer or Mark Buehrle did in their heydays.

The reason Keuchel is on this team and in this rotation is that their best pitchers are young with little service time. Giolito, Kopech, Reynaldo Lopez, and Cease are all in their early to mid-twenties while Keuchel enters his age 32 season. He has postseason experience and the knowledge of being part of a winning organization.

That’s how younger players get better faster. They get support and advice from the older players and more often than not it makes them better for the long run.

The White Sox have been rebuilding for the past few seasons and last year had a much-improved season finishing 72-89; despite it being 20 games behind the Indians for second place.

The White Sox have an opportunity to get the narrative started early on their rebuild and if it works out, it may even affect player contracts as we know it.

Pay ’em now, don’t worry about it later

By rule, players entering the MLB for the first time get paid the minimum set by the league. After service time is accrued (minimum three years), players have the opportunity to debate for a pay raise and more often than not it leads to a disagreement with the front office.

The pay debate then gets presented to an arbiter who in the end determines how much the player will get paid for the upcoming season. Sometimes, clubs will do this yearly with some players to keep them as long as they can until the player becomes a free agent.