SAN DIEGO — It’s hard to say that the White Sox were less in on the top of the free agent market this offseason than last, when they met with Bryce Harper and made an offer to Manny Machado, because it was less than a month ago that they signed the best catcher on the market to a four-year contract.



And if anyone briefly forgot Yasmani Grandal’s existence, he showed up to winter meetings Tuesday, where he was being officially recognized by Major League Baseball for being an elite player (if that’s what making All-MLB second team means). But, as slightly younger fellow elite players Gerrit Cole, Anthony Rendon and Stephen Strasburg all came off the board this week for deals of seven years and longer, the absence of the White Sox in connection with those pursuits seemed notable. And there were no reports of them unsuccessfully bidding more than those players accepted from other teams.



As a team that regularly touts the value of moving in silence,...