The end of the playoffs doesn’t just mark the opening of major league free agency; hundreds of minor league players, often with lengthy service time to a club or actual cups of coffee in the bigs, are freed as well.
The White Sox lost 16 players to free agency, which seems at first like quite a bit. But while some clubs lost far fewer (Houston two, St. Louis three), there were some MLB teams who lost an entire roster’s worth of young players (the Dodgers 25, Washington 27, Texas 28, Cincinnati 31! ... thanks, Baseball America).