Belated Trade Analysis: White Sox Acquire Blake Rutherford & Co.

Several trades occurred while I was on vacation. I’m profiling the prospects involved in those deals in a belated nature. This post analyzes the prospects involved swap between the White Sox and Yankees, centered around the Yankees new bullpen weapons and prospect Blake Rutherford. A reminder of those involved.

Yankees get

• 3B Todd Frazier
• RHP Tommy Kahnle
• RHP David Robertson

White Sox get

• OF Blake Rutherford
• OF Tito Polo
• LHP Ian Clarkin
• RHP Tyler Clippard

There’s a lot to unpack with this deal because, while his pro career is infantile, the prospect spotlight has shone on Rutherford for longer than most of his peers and, until this year, he had always hit for power. This season hasn’t yielded any of it, as Rutherford is slugging .391, struggling to turn on pitches and drive the ball in the air with authority.

Rutherford was identified as a top amateur prospect when he was a sophomore at Chaminade Prep in California, in part because he was a bit old for his graduating class and had matured, physically, a bit earlier than others in the class of 2016. He showed in-game power to all fields, as well as feel to hit both during the regular season and in showcase environments against elite pitching. While scouts long anticipated Rutherford to move away from center field and over the left (he’s still seeing time in center as a pro but is a 45 runner) most thought Rutherford was going to hit enough to profile there. He was targeted as an over-slot signee by teams picking in the late-30s, early-40s in last year’s draft, but the Yankees scooped him up as he fell toward a large payday with one of those teams and found a way to fit him into their class, financially.

There’s not much non-Yankees overlap of scouts who saw Rutherford have success in high school in Southern California and have also seen him struggle in his first pro season in South Carolina, so it’s hard to find a single person with proper context to try to decipher what’s going on. Scouts who have seen him as a pro have seen a player with good barrel feel, but who is either very heavily prioritizing opposite field contact or just unable to turn on pitches because of swing length and/or weakness in his hands.

While it’s certainly not good that Rutherford is having trouble hitting for power, it’s not his career’s death rattle. It could just be a developmental hiccup, something the White Sox can identify and solve with coaching. If it persists, it’s damning, but for now it’s just something to continue to monitor.

Tito Polo is a compact and heady Colombian outfielder with good baseball instincts and modest, but effective, physical tools. He’s an above-average runner with a short, simple swing that produces punchy, low-lying contact. He’s a good baserunner and hard to strike out. The Yankees acquired him as part of the return from Pittsburgh for Ivan Nova and he projects as a bench outfielder.

The third prospect acquired by Chicago was left-handed pitcher Ian Clarkin. Once in possession of a potential plus curveball, injuries have taken their toll on Clarkin, who is now a sinker/change-up guy. He has had injuries each of the last three seasons (including one in 2015 that caused him to miss the entire year) and now sits 88-92. He’s a potential back-end starter.