Just one day after they dealt away Chris Sale for an impressive crop of young talent, the White Sox continued their tear-down yesterday by flipping Adam Eaton for another nice haul. This time, they landed three young pitchers (roughly in order of consensus future value): Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning.

Here’s how the minor leaguers headed to Chicago grade out by my KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar a methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings.

*****

Lucas Giolito, RHP (Profile)

KATOH: 5.8 WAR (47th overall)
KATOH+: 10.8 WAR (9th overall)

Giolito is one of those cases where the scouting reports outstrip the on-field performance. Scouts have long raved about Giolito’s fastball-curveball combination, and he parlayed it into dominance at the lower rungs of the minor leagues in 2014 and 2015. He was a consensus top-five prospect at this time last year, but things got a little rough for him in 2016.

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The White Sox continued adding to their suddenly robust farm system yesterday, acquiring a trio of pitching prospects from Washington in exchange for star outfielder Adam Eaton. Below are my scouting reports on the prospects involved. Lucas Giolito (60 Future Value) will slot in behind Yoan Moncada on the next revision of the White Sox prospect list, the completions of which I might delay until Rick Hahn’s purge of the major-league roster appears complete. Reynaldo Lopez will slot between Michael Kopech and Zack Collins as a 55 FV, while Dane Dunning will be the top 45 FV on the list.

The once Prodigious Lucas Giolito has more recently become the Enigmatic Lucas Giolito. While he remains one of baseball’s best pitching prospects after an inconsistent 2016, Giolito is no longer head-and-shoulders the game’s best. The opinions of scouts who saw Giolito this year make for an interesting collage of hope, fear, tempered expectations and patience, but all agree that front-end starter upside is still extant, if a bit less likely.

That kind of upside has been apparent since Giolito’s days at Harvard-Westlake, where, before suffering a season-ending elbow injury that would later require Tommy John surgery, he was generating potential 1-1 buzz and had a legitimate chance to become the first right-handed high-school pitcher ever taken with the draft’s first pick.

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A day after the Nationals failed to send a bunch of talent to Chicago for Chris Sale, the Nationals have reportedly agreed to send a bunch of talent to Chicago for Adam Eaton.

Source confirms: #Nationals, if deal is completed, will send Lucas Giolito, Dane Dunning and Reynaldo Lopez to #WhiteSox for Eaton.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 7, 2016

According to reports yesterday, both Lucas Giolito and Reynoldo Lopez were in the Nationals offer for Sale, so the two teams appeared to have just reworked the rest of the package to get Washington an outfield upgrade instead of a rotation upgrade. And while Eaton is definitely not Chris Sale, this might be just as impactful an upgrade for the Nationals.

First off, Eaton is really good. August Fagerstrom called him “Baseball’s Quietest Superstar” back in May, and he justified the commentary over the rest of the season. Eaton’s put up three straight years with a 115-120 wRC+, and after moving to right field last year, his defensive numbers took off. He’ll have to move back to center field in Washington, but there’s definitely real defensive value here, and he runs the bases too. Eaton is a terrific all around player with an above-average bat, and he fits well at the top of the Nationals line-up.

Whether he’ll be as good back in center field is an open question, and if the defense is just okay, then Eaton won’t put up +6 WAR again. But with his bat and legs at an up-the-middle spot, his floor is probably +2 WAR as long as he’s healthy, and there’s obviously room for value well above that if the defense still plays back in center field.

And, of course, there’s the contract. Eaton is signed for $18 million over the next three years, with club options that could push it up to 5/$38M; that’s a remarkable value. As a free agent, Eaton would have gone well over $100 million, and maybe over $150 million; Jason Heyward got 8/$184M for the same kind of package of skills last winter, though he had a longer track record of success than Eaton. But there’s similarities there, and the market paid big for Heyward last winter, so this is not a player type the Nationals could have acquired cheaply.

For the White Sox, they get what looks like a great return in young pitching, though as Jeff Sullivan wrote yesterday, there are reasons the Nationals are willing to trade Lucas Giolito. But Giolito and Lopez both have a lot of upside, and Dunning was the Nationals first round pick last year, so there’s a lot of options for how this could work for Chicago. Even if you only get one good starter out of the three, that’s still probably more valuable than betting on Eaton to age well enough to still be around the next time the White Sox are good.

With this deal, Eaton’s acquisition means Trea Turner heads back to shortstop, which pushes Danny Espinosa back into a part-time role, where he can spell Daniel Murphy and Anthony Rendon. The upgrade from Espinosa to Eaton is probably worth a couple of wins, plus this gives the team more depth, and adding Sale to the rotation and then dumping Gio Gonzalez to free up a rotation spot wouldn’t have been a dramatically larger improvement.

So the Nationals got better, but at the cost of a couple of good young arms. The White Sox get upside arms to throw at the wall and see what sticks. A good team gets better, a rebuilding team gets younger, and this looks like the kind of deal that might work for both sides.

With the Chicago White Sox’ decision to trade Chris Sale to the Red Sox for an impressive array of prospects, the club has made clear their intentions to begin selling. They are rebuilding, and are going to get younger with an eye on the long-term future. Yoan Moncada — maybe the best prospect in baseball — and Michael Kopech are a very good start. If we start to go down the list of players the White Sox have who might fetch a good deal on the trade market, we begin with Chris Sale. With Sale crossed off the list, the obvious next name belongs to the White Sox other ace, Jose Quintana.

To be clear, Jose Quintana is not Chris Sale. His stuff is not quite as electric, he doesn’t strike as many batters out, and he doesn’t dominate a game in the way that Sale does. But not being as good as Chris Sale isn’t much of an insult. One can be less good than Chris Sale and still really freaking good, and that basically describes Jose Quintana.

Here is a list of the top-10 pitchers in baseball over the last three years, by our version of pitcher WAR.

That’s eight guys generally agreed to be legitimate No. 1 starters, plus Quintana and Cueto, who have performed like aces despite not having classic ace stuff or ace strikeout rates. But by limiting walks and home runs, Quintana has been one of the best pitchers in baseball, in a league with guys who are unquestionably elite arms.

So that’s what he’s done. You can’t buy the past, but the past does help us predict the future to some degree. So, looking forward, we have the Steamer projections. What does Steamer think about Quintana for 2017?

Well, it thinks he’ll be a little worse, because pitchers generally do get worse as they get older. But by “worse,” that means he projects as a +4 WAR pitcher instead of a +5 WAR one, and that forecast calls for him to be as valuable as Cueto, Chris Archer, Jake Arrieta, and Dallas Keuchel. Again, these are great names with which to be associated. Steamer thinks Quintana is a top-15 or -20 starting pitcher in major-league baseball next year. And oh yeah: he’s signed for less money over the next four years than Sale is due over the next three. And that means there’s an argument that the package the White Sox receive for Quintana shouldn’t be wildly different than the one they got for Sale.

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The Red Sox acquired a second pitcher on Tuesday following their trade for reliever Tyler Thornburg — in this case, receiving talented left-handed starter Chris Sale from the White Sox in exchange for an impressive return (roughly in order of consensus future value): Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe and Victor Diaz.

Here’s how the minor leaguers headed to Chicago grade out by my KATOH system. KATOH denotes WAR forecast for first six years of player’s major-league career. KATOH+ uses similar a methodology with consideration also for Baseball America’s rankings.

*****

Yoan Moncada, 2B (Profile)

KATOH: 6.2 WAR (36th overall)
KATOH+: 14.0 WAR (4th overall)

There’s no denying that Yoan Moncada was one of the most productive hitters in the minors this year. In 61 High-A games, he hit .307/.427/.496. In 44 Double-A games, he slashed .285/.388/.547. He 45 stolen bases across both levels. Moncada excels in multiple areas: he hits for power, runs like crazy, and plays a semi-premium position. His tools are top-notch, which is why he was the consensus No. 1 prospect last summer.

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At least as far as recent history goes, Chris Sale might’ve been unprecedentedly valuable as a trade asset. We just haven’t seen trades with pitchers so good, signed for so long, to such affordable salaries. It’s fitting, then, that the White Sox convinced the Red Sox to make the recently unprecedented decision to move baseball’s top prospect. There’s nothing fun or painless about initiating a rebuild. It can get fun pretty quick, though, when you land a player like Yoan Moncada.

In all honesty, it’s not entirely clear the White Sox got more for Sale than the Braves got a year ago for Shelby Miller. There are two ways you could interpret that. One, you could choose to believe the White Sox didn’t get enough. But, two, no, that’s not right. This is the price of an ace-level starter, and this just further goes to show how badly the Diamondbacks screwed up. I guess that’s not what’s important now. What’s important now is the White Sox have officially decided to pivot, and this is a hell of a first step.

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In what will probably be the blockbuster deal of the entire offseason, the White Sox sent LHP Chris Sale to Boston this afternoon in exchange for two of the highest-upside prospects in baseball, Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech, as well as tools-goof outfielder Luis Alexander Basabe and arm-strength lottery ticket Victor Diaz. Below are my scouting reports on the prospects involved. I’ll update the White Sox prospect list with these reports later this evening. Moncada will be No. 1 and Kopech No. 2, with Basabe slotting in toward the back of the org’s top 10 and Diaz falling toward the bottom of the 40 FV section.

It’s strange that one of the hardest-throwing pitchers in the minor leagues is involved in this deal and yet somehow not its headliner. Such is the prodigious talent of Cuban infielder Yoan Moncada, who I believe to be the best prospect in all of baseball despite his swing-and-miss issues. A generational talent who possesses one of the most robust collections of tools I’ve seen, Moncada has an SEC running back’s body at an athletic and strong 6-foot-2, 205 pounds. There are very few, if any, comparable physiques across baseball.

He’s also a plus-plus runner, both from home to first and on the bases, scattering large swaths of dirt behind him as he traverses the bases. I think Moncada is going to retain that speed for quite a while despite already appearing to have maxed out physically. Even if he does lose a step with age (and it will probably happen at some point), I expect Moncada to retain impact plus speed into his late 20s or early 30s, even if he’s no longer an elite runner at peak.

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After years of rumors and speculation, Chris Sale has finally been traded.

BREAKING: Sale to #RedSox. Moncada, Kopech and two other prospects to #WhiteSox.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 6, 2016

Even with David Price and Rick Porcello, the Red Sox always seemed like a potential fit. Dave Dombrowski was brought in to win in the short-term, and he’s always done that by turning prospects into star players; this is exactly the kind of deal that he’s made his name on. He loves frontline starting pitchers. He had a loaded farm system; at least, he did a year ago before he started trading it for veterans.

So, yeah, we shouldn’t be too surprised that Dombrowski was the guy who eventually agreed to pay the price that got Sale out of Chicago. And the price was definitely steep. As of right now, we only know the Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech names, but there will be a couple other guys in the deal as well. When discussing potential packages for Sale this summer, I wrote the following.

Boston Red SoxThis one’s pretty easy; the team could start the bidding with either Yoan Moncada (#1 BA/#2 MLB) or Andrew Benintendi (#9 BA/#7 MLB) and go from there. Top 10 hitting prospects are highly valuable assets because they usually combine upside and proximity to the big leagues, and thus are worth something like $75 million; Moncada may be worth closer to $100 million, since he’s the guy who might be the top overall prospect in the game right now.

So the White Sox would be right to demand either in a deal, but even Sale isn’t worth both, so the Red Sox would have to pick which of the two they wanted to keep around, and then add some additional value beyond giving up a terrific young hitter. If Benintendi was the main piece, Rafael Devers (#41 BA/#25 MLB) would be a reasonable piece to add, putting the Red Sox package on part with a Urias/Bellinger or Urias/Verdugo offer from Los Angeles.

If Moncada is the guy they’re sending to Chicago, though, Devers’ value probably pushes the deal past what Sale is worth; his value gets you most of the way to Sale, so the second piece could be a higher risk guy like hard-throwing righty Michael Kopech (#93 BA/#83 MLB), since back-end Top 100 pitching prospects are worth about $15 million. Toss in some sweeteners on top of that, and the White Sox would at least have to think about it, as Moncada and Kopech could give them a pretty great return.

Hey, look, Moncada and Kopech, plus some “sweeteners”. Sometimes, the things we write don’t end up being too crazy.

But yeah, this is more what we thought Sale would command. He’s worth so much. We’re talking about a guy who would probably get something between $35-$40 million a year on a six or seven year deal as a free agent this winter; instead, he’s going to make $38 million over the next three years combined. If Sale hit the open market right now and said he’d only sign a three year deal to mitigate a team’s long-term risk, the bidding would probably start at $125 million, and I wouldn’t be shocked if someone ended up at $140 or $150 million. Sale has something like $100 million in surplus value, and if you weight present value over long-term value, it’s easy to argue that he’s worth more than any prospect in baseball.

And realistically, Moncada is exactly the kind of prospect that made sense as the headliner in a Sale deal. Quoting myself again, from my piece on trading a stud for Chris Sale last week.

That’s why a Red Sox deal makes more sense centered around Yoan Moncada, who probably isn’t quite ready to help the Red Sox win in 2017. You swap out Moncada for Sale, and all of the sudden, the Red Sox are probably three or four wins better than they are right now. That’s a huge change in expected outcomes, and starts to be worth the long-term value being surrendered.

Moncada is a terrific prospect, but he was probably not ready to help the Red Sox win in 2017. Maybe he could have helped down the stretch, maybe, but it wasn’t anything the team could really count on, so by building a deal around a guy who is entirely future value, the Red Sox maximize their upgrade for 2017. And it’s a big upgrade.

At the back of their rotation, they have Drew Pomeranz and Clay Buchholz, both who project as something like league average starters next year. Both have been better than that recently, but both have also had injury problems and have pitched more effectively in relief, so the team certainly has options. Pomeranz could move to the bullpen and give them a high quality lefty, in which case they’d get roughly a three win upgrade in the rotation, plus whatever value Pomeranz adds in relief over the team’s other lefty relief options. Or they could keep Pomeranz in the rotation and trade Buchholz, freeing up $13 million in salary to spend elsewhere, maybe on an upgrade at 3B or DH.

The Red Sox roster isn’t done yet, but it’s already quite good. With this trade accounted for, here are our current projected standings for 2017.

We have the Red Sox as almost the equal of the Cubs, and that’s without a DH, and with maybe an upgradeable hole at third base. Sure, they’ll lose some value if they dump Buccholz in order to free up money to add one of those guys, but the point is clear; the Red Sox have made themselves the class of the American League, at this point.

The door isn’t closed on the rest of the league. The Indians could get a real boost if they signed Edwin Encarnacion or some other quality 1B/DH. The Astros could still get a rotation upgrade that pushes them up another few more wins. Nothing is set in stone in December.

But the Red Sox just got a lot better in a hurry. They paid a very high price to do so, and if Moncada turns into what people think he might turn into, there could be some long-term pains watching him play for the White Sox. And Michael Kopech has the kind of velocity that makes it easy to dream on his upside. Long-term, the Red Sox may now be on the Tigers path.

But the Red Sox already had the best young core of position players in the American League. They have a star young right fielder, a star young shortstop, and really good pieces around those guys. And now they have maybe the two best left-handed pitchers in the American League. This roster is beastly.

By getting Sale without moving anything off their big league roster, the Red Sox have made themselves the team to beat in the American League. They paid an elite price to get an elite player, and now, the 2016 AL Cy Young winner is their #3 starter. Good luck to the rest of the AL East; this is not going to be an easy team to take down for the next few years.

Well, the last 48 hours made it sound like Chris Sale to Washington was the deal we should expect, but today’s winter meetings fun; never count on Dave Dombrowski!

Multiple sources now saying that #RedSox have built momentum toward a deal with #WhiteSox for Sale.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 6, 2016

Want to make this clear: #Nationals are not out on Sale. But #RedSox appear stronger at moment.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 6, 2016

The Red Sox are apparently making a late charge to land the White Sox ace, which would be a significant upgrade for a team that was a bit weak in rotation depth last year. And certainly, the Red Sox have the kind of talent Chicago would want; this summer, I speculated that perhaps a combination of Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech could entice the White Sox to move their ace. From that piece.

Boston Red SoxThis one’s pretty easy; the team could start the bidding with either Yoan Moncada (#1 BA/#2 MLB) or Andrew Benintendi (#9 BA/#7 MLB) and go from there. Top 10 hitting prospects are highly valuable assets because they usually combine upside and proximity to the big leagues, and thus are worth something like $75 million; Moncada may be worth closer to $100 million, since he’s the guy who might be the top overall prospect in the game right now.

So the White Sox would be right to demand either in a deal, but even Sale isn’t worth both, so the Red Sox would have to pick which of the two they wanted to keep around, and then add some additional value beyond giving up a terrific young hitter. If Benintendi was the main piece, Rafael Devers (#41 BA/#25 MLB) would be a reasonable piece to add, putting the Red Sox package on part with a Urias/Bellinger or Urias/Verdugo offer from Los Angeles.

If Moncada is the guy they’re sending to Chicago, though, Devers’ value probably pushes the deal past what Sale is worth; his value gets you most of the way to Sale, so the second piece could be a higher risk guy like hard-throwing righty Michael Kopech (#93 BA/#83 MLB), since back-end Top 100 pitching prospects are worth about $15 million. Toss in some sweeteners on top of that, and the White Sox would at least have to think about it, as Moncada and Kopech could give them a pretty great return.

As Rosenthal notes, nothing is done, so this could change again, but the Red Sox with Sale, Price, and Eduardo Rodriguez would be a brutal opponent for teams with left-leaning line-ups. Stay tuned!

As I write this, Chris Sale is still a member of the White Sox organization. Based on the rumors from the last 24 hours, though, that might not be true much longer.

Sources: Legitimate chance of Sale trade to #Nationals. Robles, Giolito would go to #WhiteSox. Teams haggling over final pieces in deal.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 6, 2016

The #Whitesox did not come close to trading Chris Sale tonight but acknowledge the #Nats were very aggressive in proposals

— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 6, 2016

At this point, signs seem to be pointing towards Sale ending up in Washington, joining Max Scherzer and Stephen Strasburg to form a remarkable group of starting pitchers. There doesn’t seem to be a deal in place, but the White Sox asking price seems to have scared off most other interested buyers, with the Astros choosing to hang on to Alex Bregman and the Braves declining to put Dansby Swanson in a deal. The Nationals aren’t willing to include Trea Turner, but they have enough other highly valued assets to get the White Sox interested, and right now, it seems like the smart money is on the two teams completing a deal for Sale that would net Chicago Lucas Giolito, Victor Robles, and some other stuff.

I have to say, though, from my perspective, this feels like a bit of an underwhelming return for Chicago. Depending on what the other stuff is, it seems possible that Sale is going to command not that much more now than Shelby Miller did a year ago.

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