Last offseason, there was a healthy dose of White Sox fans whose offseason plans did not pick up Reynaldo López’s paltry $2.1 million in arbitration. Sure, he had seen two seasons of severely-diminishing returns after his solid debut with the team in 2018, but it was nonetheless surprising. On a team that counted very few certainties in its starting pitching depth, López represented a form of bad that at least provided a bulwark against something worse, and at his price, it would be difficult to find a much better answer.
Perhaps an underappreciated aspect of López’s situation was that the White Sox were able to stash him in the minors for most of the season.