Maybe It’s Time To Blow Up the White Sox
For the last few years, Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams have been steadily rebuilding the White Sox base of talent, and along the way, they’ve acquired a few cornerstone players that are the envy of every other franchise in baseball. Chris Sale continues to get better by the year, and is probably the best pitcher in the American League at this point. Jose Abreu was a monster from the minute he arrived in the big leagues. Jose Quintana went from minor league free agent to rotation stalwart. The team’s struggles allowed them to be in a position to draft Carlos Rodon, who got to the big leagues less than a year after being drafted, and they just selected Carson Fulmer, another polished college pitcher who Kiley McDaniel believes could get to the big leagues very quickly as well. There are the makings of a very good team here.
Unfortunately for the White Sox, having a few star players just isn’t enough, and even with Sale dominating every fifth day, the 2015 season has been a disaster on the south side of Chicago. After pulling within two games of .500 after an early-June sweep of the Astros, the team has now lost nine of their last 11 games, including a 13-2 drubbing at the hand of the Twins yesterday. As they enter play today, they stand at 30-39, the second worst record in the American League, and even that overstates their performance to date; by BaseRuns, their expected record is 24-45.
Six weeks ago, I noted that the White Sox faced a “looming decision”, as the team’s poor start would test their conviction that this really was a roster built to contend in the short-term; since then, the White Sox have played roughly .500 ball by getting some clutch hits and stranding runners, but they haven’t really done anything to show that this is a team capable of running down the legitimate contenders in the American League this year. At this point, it’s pretty clear that the White Sox should probably be sellers in July.
But the more I look at the White Sox roster, the more I think that they probably shouldn’t just stop at moving Jeff Samardzija before he hits free agency. It might really be time for the White Sox to blow up their roster.
Sale, Abreu, and Quintana are a great starting point, and Rodon and Fulmer might join that core sooner than later, but when you look at the rest of the team, there’s almost literally nothing else of long-term value here. Adam Eaton still looks like he could be a league average player if he pulls out of his current funk, but that’s probably the optimistic outcome at this point. David Robertson is still an elite closer, but elite closers don’t move the needle much for non-contending teams, and they have the shelf life of a near-ready avocado. And after those two, pretty much everyone else on the roster needs to be replaced.
Signing Melky Cabrera looks like a disaster at this point, as he’s morphed into end-of-career Ichiro without the speed. Avisail Garcia still stinks, and there’s nothing here to make one think he’s not just Dayan Viciedo 2.0. Alexei Ramirez and Adam LaRoche look old, and even if you bet on second half improvements, both look like below average players going forward. The team doesn’t have a catcher, a second baseman, or a third baseman that should be starting in the big leagues. John Danks remains awful, holding his spot in the rotation solely because of his contract and the team’s lack of pitching depth.
There’s no real way for the White Sox to just tweak this roster and turn it into a contender. Yeah, they could move Jeff Samardzija for something, but as a middle-of-the-rotation guy heading into free agency, he isn’t going to bring back a huge return. The team could trade Robertson in order to clear his contract from the books, but if they make another team take the $40 plus million left on his deal, they’re not going to also get a significant talent return back as well. And if they don’t move Robertson’s contract, it isn’t clear that they’ll have much money to spend to try and fill all the holes that need to be filled this winter.
Right now, the team has roughly $83 million committed in 2016 salary to just nine players: $14 million to Danks, $14 million to Cabrera, $13 million to LaRoche, $11 million to Robertson, $10 million to Abreu, $9 million to Sale, $5 million to Duke, $4 million to Quintana, and $3 million to Eaton. They ran a $120 million payroll this year, so even if that bumps a little bit, that leaves them something like $40 million to fill out the final 16 spots on the roster. That’s doable if you have a lot of young cost-controlled talent who can produce value while making something close to the league minimum, but aside from Rodon, the White Sox don’t have guys like that.
So, realistically, the team will have to somehow find a starting catcher, second baseman, third baseman, shortstop, right fielder, and two starting pitchers, and that’s assuming they keep LaRoche and Cabrera in place, neither of whom should be expected to produce at a particularly high level, so the new guys have to pick up their slack as well. To be a legitimate contender, the White Sox are looking at needing to buy something like +20 WAR from seven positions at an average price of $2 million per win; the market rate for wins was roughly $8 million apiece last winter, so, yeah, good luck with that.
It’s easy to look at Sale, Abreu, Quintana, and Rodon and see a contender, but when that’s all you have, in reality, you have a team that would be lucky to crack .500. And that’s all the White Sox have right now. They have some star players in their prime and a supporting cast incapable of helping get those guys to the postseason, so it’s time to at least consider using those star players to build a more balanced team in the future.
I noted a few weeks ago that this trade deadline had the potential to be an extreme seller’s market, as there just aren’t a lot of teams looking to unload impact talent, and the guys who are available come with either contract or health questions. In Sale, Abreu, and Quintana, the White Sox have three players who are a buyer’s dream; young, effective, healthy, and cheap both now and in the future. If the White Sox decided to make everyone on their roster available, they’d immediately have the three best trade chips of any seller in the marketplace, and that wouldn’t even include Samardzija or Robertson, both of whom will also be of interest to contenders.
Yes, trading the only good players the team has would likely be a huge blow to the team’s revenues, and if you take those guys off this team, you’re left with an unwatchable product in the short-term. But in each case, it’s likely that the White Sox stars are currently at their peak value, and it’s hard to imagine there will ever be another time where the team will have as much leverage as a seller as they would this July. And these are the kinds of pieces that you don’t just have to move for future prospects; if you’re trading Chris Sale or Jose Abreu, you can demand the kinds of young big league talent that the team is desperately lacking.
What could the team ask for Sale, a +5 to +6 WAR player who is only owed about $50 million over the next four seasons? Realistically, those four years are worth something closer to $125 to $150 million — and that’s not including the in-season trade markup that applies to every July trade — so if you’re Rick Hahn, you can tell Andrew Friedman that it’s going to cost them Corey Seager and Julio Urias, plus they have to take John Danks as well. If the Cubs want to move Sale across town, great, all it will cost them is Kyle Schwarber, Javier Baez, and Arismendy Alcantara, plus they have to absorb Melky Cabrera in the deal as well.
You’re not going to get as much for Abreu or Quintana, but you get lower-rent versions of these types of deals, turning one very good player into two or three pieces who could play for the 2016 White Sox. And if Rick Hahn played his cards right, getting talent back for Jeff Samardzija and David Robertson too, the White Sox might enter 2016 with a dozen interesting young players and $75 million to spend to bring in some new veterans this winter. If you’re really against waiting until 2017 to be competitive again, maybe you reinvest the savings in a David Price or a Johnny Cueto, though it’d probably be better to spread it around with short-term deals and save the big splash for when the team is definitely ready to compete.
For the rest of 2015 and likely 2016, the results will be a terrible team that is tough to watch, but this is already a pretty lousy product, only this one is headed in the wrong direction. The White Sox can hang on to Sale, Abreu, and Quintana, hoping that they can pull off a few miracles the next few winters in order to build up a talent base capable of helping those guys compete, but they’ll have to cross their fingers that those guys are still star players in 2017 or 2018, and nothing else goes wrong between now and then.
It’s the plan I expect the White Sox probably will take, but I’m not sure it will get them to contention any faster, and it’s certainly fraught with more risk. The White Sox have three great assets, but baseball teams don’t win because they have a few star players. You won’t be able to replace the star power of Sale or Abreu, but star power isn’t getting the White Sox anywhere; maybe it’s time to try having more than a half dozen Major League players on the roster.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
Now everyone starts thinking about what their team could offer for Sale…
Hoffman, Norris, Pompey, etc.
We can take Melkey back as well!
A Sale trade is unlikely to happen, but it would be damn entertaining to analyze.
White Sox would be nuts to settle for anything less than a package around Stroman
Nuts to not consider the guy with a torn up knee?
Yes, knee not arm..
I think they would be pretty nuts to deal Sale period. Hard to think of a realistic pacakge that would make me do it.
Oh yeah, it’s never going to happen. Sale can still be traded in a year or two, and it’s still going to take a monster package then.
Stromans value is low right now, Jays would be nuts to trade him
White Sox will be demanding the best package. I’m not discussing whether the Jays should trade Stroman or not. I’m arguing that if I were the White Sox and the Jays called about Sale, the discussion would start with Stroman
Woah Dave, the White Sox weren’t the ones to hack into the Astros’ database.
As a white sox fan it’s tough to see a year like this. Hahn saw that he had some pieces in place as mentioned above and tried to plug up holes instead of going through with the complete rebuild as the team across town did. The projections saw a bad team at the beginning of the season but it seemed like even the writers here thought that it was a team that had more potential than others to outperform those predictions. Instead many of the holes in their lineup have been even worse than predicted and now they are staring in the face of another reset as although the system now has a little more depth it’s still really lacking with potential impact position players minus maybe Tim Anderson and he looks more like just an average every day player in the future (which would be fine if they had a few more of those guys)
Which Sox?
Samardzija and Robertson would make a lot of sense for Toronto. Start with Pentecost and add an arm like Sean Reid-Foley.
If Rent-A-Shark costs a lot, then don’t trade for him. If the White Sox understand that he’s not actually all that valuable given the better options out there (Cueto, etc), then trade for him.
Also, AA doesn’t want to pay a lot of money for a closer even if he seems to need it, heh.
Replace “etc.” with “Hammels” and then period. At least according to ZIPS and Steamer ROS projections, Samardzija is the 3rd best option available, worth a smidge under 2 wins for the rest of the year, at about 5.62 million. (prorated for 93 games left to be played)
5.62 million for 2 wins is a steal.
There’s but one ‘m’ in my last name. Why is this so widespread?
Remember, anyone trading for Samardzjia has to give up more whatever the compensatory selection is worth these days.
Not necessarily.
Lets say that pick is worth $10M, the White Sox might take a return worth less because:
(1) they save $4-6M in salary that Samardzija is still due this year
(2) to get that pick they have to offer a QO, probably around $16M. Do they want to risk that he accepts?
Lets say there is a 5-10% chance that he’d accept the QO and that the White Sox would not want him for $16M in 2016 — you can then figure in about $0.8-1.6M to cover the risk, plus $4-6M to cover his 2015 salary and maybe they are then happy to trade all of that off for a prospect worth $8M and come out ahead.
There’s no chance he accepts if he’s healthy. But that’s ok because there’s also no chance that no team offers offers a package worth more than a comp pick.
The issue with factoring in the risk in his accepting the qualifying offer is that even if his acceptance is not an ideal outcome, the 16 million would not be a sunk cost. There is some price that the White Sox would pay to bring him back, and they quite possibly would pay him the 16 million. However, even if the price he is worth to them is substantially less, we’ll say 10 million dollars. That leaves a debt of 6 million dollars. If there is a ten percent chance of acceptance, the true insurance payout is a relatively negligence 600 thousand dollars. And this analysis ignores the fact that he is still tradable mid-season at that price tag in all likelihood, so there might even be consumer profit in the event that he accepts it.
Whoever gets shark will not get a compensation pick when they lose him. The rule changed . A player must be with a team for 1 year before they get a compensation pick
No compensation for players traded mid-season, I believe.
But the White Sox lose the comp pick if they trade him.
I guess it doesn’t make much of a difference, though; the White Sox have little leverage, because they don’t have any incentive to hold onto Smdjz all season as long as the other team’s offer comes in as better than a comp pick, which it will.
That Cub deal is kind of horrible and I’m a big fan of Schwarber.
There’s certainly a bit more risk there than you’d want.
Schwarber is a bat first guy, who probably isn’t ever going to catch more than twice a week, and when he’s not catching he isn’t going to play defense at even an average rate where ever he ends up. He could of course DH in Chicago.
We’re well aware of the risk that is Javier Baez.
Alcantara is what? A utility guy? Maybe a second division starter? He didn’t exactly kill it last year, this year, and is hitting okay in AAA but it’s at a near equal level as his 2014 AAA stint before falling on his face in the MLB last year.
I think I’d want something that included a few of Russell, Soler,Edwards, Almora, and some more upside/lottery-ish guys in Torres, Underwood, Johnson.
I’d imagine if the Cubs only offered Schwarber, Baez, and Alcantara, there’s probably a team that could either match that or come close to the upside with some risk hedge for a little more floor.
Alcantara might be a decent starting SS. He’s just blocked everywhere he could possibly play by better prospects.
22 year olds don’t always kill it in their first stint in the MLB, as another 22 year old SS who put up 0.4 WAR last year and is now on a 4 win pace can attest.
A guy who can stick at SS and has the potential to be a league average or better hitter is extremely valuable.
I like Alcantara in the field right now, but the bat is probably 3-5 years away from being league average or better.
And I question whether or not he can stick at SS. The Cubs didnt feel comfortable with him as their back-up SS to begin this season, opting to carry Jonathan Herrera on the roster instead.
He could be an above average player in a CF/2B role in a few years with the ability to also play 3B and LF. Good speed. But far from *extremely* valuable
You do have to consider the fact that the Cubs almost certainly want Alcantara playing everyday and maintaining his trade value rather than sitting on the bench.
It doesn’t matter if Herrera gets regular PAs. He’s got no trade value, never will have any trade value, and is only on the team for his leather.
Alcantara still has a really high ceiling. Second division starter is selling him short. Above average d in center or second. 20 homer potential. Good speed.
Alcantara can be a super sub that can really thrive under Coach Maddon and seems to be well suited to play in the NL. Prob is Alcantara is not a star and getting Sale requires multi top tier near ML ready talent. Schwarber fits the bill. Baez is the wild card. A SS that has his power potential is really rare. If he plays to his potential you have a superstar in the making. But his contact rate is a major problem and could hold him back bigtime. He is only 22, puts that in perspective with Rizzo career trajectory and it seems normal.
If Yoan Moncada is worth $63 million, Baez and Schwarber combined are probably worth $100+ million. Adding Melky’s remaining $30+ million in worthless contract and you have the $125 million in surplus value Sale represents at this point in time.
It doesn’t seem like a good trade because Baez and Schwarber are risky, but from the Cubs perspective you have the potential for two first division, premium position starters at league minimum. They probably wouldn’t do this deal either.
Surplus value isn’t a good way to grade value since all pre-free agent players (who haven’t signed an extension) generate a huge amount of surplus value even if they aren’t good. A player who averages 1.0 WAR per season is probably going to have at least $25m in “surplus value” but is there is no way that you’d trade 5 players like that for Sale and think that you got equal value.
Baez’s value isn’t nearly as high as most Cub fans realize.
Lol cause 40 homers at 21 is over valued
Yeah, for clubs that really want to see their AA teams wins some games, those 40 minor league homers are going to keep them drooling. For those concerned about the major league club, though, those 229 PA of 51 wRC+ took just a bit of shine off the apple.
It’s actually the opposite. His value is much, much higher than fans think. Fans think 229 bad at bats and suddenly he’s worthless.
He was a top 5 prospect last year and he’ll be the center piece of any trade for a number 1.
They brought him up just for a taste and hes dominated triple a this year after adjustments. Hes 22 this whole year at a premium position dominating the upper minors. If you write him off after 1/3 a season as a 21 y.o you clearly have 0 patience. Rizzo was even worse as a 21 y.o u want to write him off too? Man improvements in technology has made society ridiculously impatient! Did you have ur shit all the way together as a 21 y.o with a million dollars in the bank? O wait….
I have no idea where Baez is valued by anyone.
I see people saying he is anywhere between top 5 prospect and complete total bust.
I tend to think he is somewhere in between. Possibly a young hitter with great tools..potentially league average or better in a few seasons.
Cubs fans have been internet-comment trading Baez for three years now. Consensus among everyone is that he’s incredibly toolsy but probably won’t figure out how to make enough contact. You guys all know he isn’t good enough to be on your next WS contender, why do you think everyone else should?
Sure, there is a premium on reliability. That’s why Jon Lester gets $155 million. Not for his 5 win season but for his consistent 3 win performances, year after year. But on the flip side, Sale is a peak performing pitcher. What if you trade for him and he tears his UCL. Now you lost 1/3 of the time you control him to Tommy John. There is always risk, usually multiple layers.
Baez was rank 4 on Fangraph’s 2014 prospect rankings – the last time he was eligible. He put up a 147 wRC+ as a 22 year old at AAA this year before he got hurt. He’s more valuable than Moncada. Moncada cost $63 million.
He was valuable before there is a reason why Dave wasn’t keen on giving up on Baez now feels they need to get rid of him. He just has too much swing and miss to his game. I don’t think Baez is useless but its likely going to take a long time. Have you seen his swing it has a number of funky things and while he’s got great bat speed he has a number of things to fix. Sale is gonna probably take something really high. Urias and seager don’t equal baez, alacnatara schwarber although schwarber is really good. Schwarber and Russell more likely. But no way that happens. The Cubs don’t need to be so desperate they got plenty of money to take a shot it just depends on how impatient they are. While valuable Dave knows that those players are limited. Not sure why he thinks Friedman would give away Seager and Urias for Sale when he’s said that in the playoffs a third starter is limited. A good SS probably helps them just as much at this point.
Have you seen him bat this year at all? He has changed his approach. Not a new swing but a new approach, feel how you may but i have seen him a lot this year, next time he comes up he will be here to stay. Look at bryant and pedersons k rates before you say he has too much swing and miss. To me yhat will be the next change in evaluating.
It’s actually an underpay for Sale. Talent ways he’s light years ahead of Lester, way ahead of Hamels, and he has a 5th starter’s contract. As a Sox fan, I would trade everyone but him.
As a Cubs fan, I’d do that deal. Don’t really want to trade Schwarber, but it helps solve to log jamb and gives the Cubs that ace they need (Hammel is having an ace year, but he’s not really an ace; in my opinion, Lester and Arrieta are #2s)… I might give up a little more, but I’d prefer to hang onto Bryant & Russell.
A Chris Sale trade would indeed be VERY interesting… The Cubs, Astros, Red Sox would most likely be the teams in on him due to their high level prospects and need of an ace in order to make a run for the playoffs (yes I said Red Sox and playoffs in the same sentence)…
Teams that need pitching aces and have legitimate shots to win with one? Toronto moreso than the Red Sox. The only playoffs the Red Sox will be in will be on the links versus the team mentioned in this article. And the Phillies.
It would indeed be interesting.
Naturally, you would think top, elite talent would get moved…but then you think about it and realize that there is no way in hell that the Dodgers, Cubs or Astros trade Seager, Russell or Correa for a SP. Puig isnt going anywhere. Bryant isnt going anywhere.
I think Soler or Springer could realistically begin the conversations.
Soler, Baez/Castro, and basically whatever minor league guys that the Sox want
Springer, Bregman/Tucker, and Appel, along with whatever other minor league guys the Sox want.
I cant even begin to get my head around Chris Sale to Boston trade discussions….Mookie Betts…Yoan Moncada…what else do they really have? Swihart?
Who else does Boston have?
JBJ, Cechinni, Margot, Devers, Owens, Johnson, Marrero…
If it’s a trade with Boston then the discussions start with Betts and Owens. Add in JBJ/Margot and Cechinni then maybe something happens. I love Sale but I think that’s way too much to give from Boston.
White Sox would have 2/3 of a fantastic defensive outfield with Eaton and Bradley. Betts would move Sanchez off 2B and Cechinni would take over for Gillaspie. Owens would slot in nicely as a 2 or 3 with Quintana and Rodon.
Replace Cecchini with Devers, and you’ll have a conversation.
It would have to be Betts or Bogaerts, and Margot and Devers for the White Sox to consider it.
And that’s too much for the Red Sox to give up, especially considering that they aren’t a contender.
I agree that these player’s are at their all-time high in value, but given the white sox horrible lack of player development, do you think it’s really worth it to trade these guys? Granted the white sox have made very few veteran for prospect swaps in recent history, but none of those trades (Think Nick Swisher, Javier Vazquez, Jake Peavy) have really worked out in the team’s favor. If the sox had shown the smallest semblance of an ability to identify, draft, and develop young talent, maybe the tune would be different, but it’s awfully hard to trust them with any prospects given the track record, and how good players like Sale are now.
I think it’s fair that they still hold out hope for the Eaton-Garcia-Melky-Alexei-LaRoche supporting cast to all be around league-average at their respective positions for the rest of this season and 2016. Of course, even if that happens, you have nothing at C, 2B and 3B, with zero depth behind your top four starters, and not enough prospects to address more than 2 of those holes. I don’t think they’ll move Sale or Abreu because of their respective contracts, but it’s hard to see the team competing before 2018 unless they get a lot of unexpected internal growth in the minors. You’re right. They should move both Sale and Abreu.
Erik Johnson should be the 5th starter right now. Guy was clearly hurt last year, he’s better than ever this year and would easily improve on Danks.
They dont like the idea of a sunk cost in danks.
Cubs had no problem kicking Edwin Jackson and his bloated salary out of the rotation and into the bullpen, time to do the same with Danks.
The cost is sunk whether he starts or not.
lol
Schwarber, Baez, and Alcantara would not be nearly enough to get Sale, that’s a joke of a trade proposal. If the Sox trade Sale, they have to get guys that are already proven major-league talent. Just getting prospects is way too risky (look at the proposed Red Sox trade for Felix a few years ago, that would have been horrible for Seattle), and I think Alcantara and Baez are fairly mediocre anyway. Seager and Urias are not enough by themselves either for Sale. His value is high enough that he’s basically untradeable right now. To get equal value for him would require a package big enough that is likely too much for virtually any team.
He’s not untradeable if Cubs make guys like Russell and/or Bryant available. Same with Joc for the Dodgers
Yeah but Bryant or Russell alone isn’t getting you a top-3 pitcher in baseball with perhaps the most-team friendly contract in the MLB who’s only 26 and left-handed. You’d likely have to throw in someone like Schwarber plus another couple good prospects, at which point it makes zero sense for the Cubs to do the trade.
Bryant is under control until 2021 at arb prices and is on pace to top 5 WAR in his rookie season. Sale is under control through 2019 at something approximating arb prices, on pace for 6 WAR (topping 5 WAR just once before this season). Dock Bryant for not being proven; dock Sale for being a slider-throwing SP who could turn into a pumpkin with one elbow twinge. CHN wouldn’t have to “throw in” a top-20 prospect and then some to make that swap work.
Whether they “should” or not, they absolutely would have to throw in other pieces.
It would be a package centered around Bryant. Sale is worth much, much more right now.
Also, Sale has averaged 6.5 rWAR and 5.8 RA9-WAR over the past 3 seasons.
The cost is high but he’s definitely not untouchable if only due to his contract. If Sale is to earn roughly $50MM over the rest of his contract and puts up $150MM in value, that’s $100MM in value they need to get back. Using a market rate of $8MM/Win, that’s 12.5 WAR they would need in order to move him. Doesn’t seem untouchable to get back several prospects who can be expected to contribute that amount, but they would need to be very good prospects. Even with Javier Baez’s terrible ML line last year, his KATOH projection is still over 5 WAR. Combined with Schwarber and Alcantara, and the players Dave proposed seem perfectly reasonable.
But they’re just prospects, and not great ones at that (besides Schwarber). How reliable are projections for prospects anyway? Baez might be projected at 5 WAR but he still has huge bust potential, I’m not a fan. Alcantara to me seems like a utility player at best. That leaves Schwarber, who if he can’t stay at catcher like many think he won’t that lowers his value considerably. You need at least one guy who has proven it at the major league level, or at least more than one elite prospect. Otherwise there’s too much of a chance of the prospects not living up to projections and you being left with little to show for it.
The problem becomes floor vs. ceiling. You don’t want prospects because of their potential to be a bust, meaning you want an established player that has a high floor. But it lowers the ceiling of the player you would be able to get back, because the market value of a young cost controlled player, who has an established floor and a high ceiling, is more than Sale is worth right now.
Mookie Betts is projected to be worth >4 WAR this year. If he is actually (roughly) a 4 WAR / year player over the next 6 years, and makes $20 MM in salary over that timeframe, that’s ~$170MM in surplus value, well more than Sale is worth. Is 4 WAR/year likely? Not at all. But it’s more likely to happen now that he’s had success in the majors than it was a year ago, so teams will be less likely to give up on the possibility. Same can be said for any young player that has experienced some success, that bust rate goes down and the ceiling becomes a more real possibility.
So the question becomes, would you take an established, cost controlled player who has a high floor and a low ceiling, or a prospect that has a lower floor but a higher ceiling? You can’t obtain an impact guy without shouldering some risk, which is why it’s prospects that are traded. You need to weigh bust vs. star potential. You can’t have both.
The market isn’t up to $8 million per win yet, but more importantly you’re ignoring both the greater confidence level in Sale’s WAR as well as the lesser value of future WAR compared to present WAR. In order for the White Sox to trade Sale, they would need to be receiving more than 15 expected WAR in prospects.
Sale and Abreu appear to have a good chance of sustaining their value for the next few years, so there’s no compelling need to move them now. The problem is that the team’s other “win now” signings made little sense and have greatly increased the team’s costs without improving their results.
You are right, I oversimplified complicated things. I think the general principle is true though, that will Sale is very valuable, he isn’t untouchable.
Sure, especially given the injury risk present with any starting pitcher.
Not to mention Sale gives you that value in one roster spot. That’s considerably more valuable than a similar raw WAR value but spread over three guys.
“plus they have to absorb Melky Cabrera in the deal as well.”
The only thing keeping the Sox from offering up Sale, Abreu, Quintana and Rodon is that if they traded those players, they’d lose few fans that have stuck around through all the mediocrity after a title 10 years ago.
With those players, the Sox can still sell hope to a dejected fan base.
No they can’t. We know what this is. It’s a steaming turd pile, with a few diamonds buried underneath it.
But some folks still show up specifically for Sale starts, because good god he’s awesome.
I’m one of the few that shows up for Sale starts. Paid $20 for a seat 12 rows behind 3B batter’s box for Sale vs Kluber. Baseball can be amazing sometimes.
You are correct on that. I have missed one Sale start in the last 2 years. There’s just no reason not go when he pitches, he’s got the stuff to do something historic every time out there.
Maybe, but you’re still giving up 100 fans per night by being terrible just to keep 50 the nights Sale starts.
They can probably sell Quintana without too much backlash. He’s underrated, even to Chicagoans. With all the promotion they did for Samardzija, he’d probably be the bigger throwing-in-the-towel trade from a fan-base.
But what good is 2-4 more years of Sale if the team stinks. Trading Zack Greinke made sense for the Royals when he only had a couple years left of team control (though of course, Sale has more) because a 70 win team with an ace pitcher doesn’t really do anything for you.
If Sale can return a package that immensely helps the White Sox future, which it kind of should (as much as you can expect with prospects) then they should.
The future of the A.L. Central doesn’t exactly look daunting, so it’s easy to talk yourself into the possibility of contention if you make smarter moves than signing David Robertson, Melky Cabrera, Adam LaRoche, Zach Duke, and Emilio Bonifacio.
Does the ’16/’17/’18 AL Central look worse than it does now? It’s pretty meh right now and I’m not sure it’s going to necessarily get worse.
If the ’15 White Sox can’t compete in the ’15 AL Central with Sale/Abreu/Quintana/Shark/Rodon/Robertson… do we expect them to compete in future years?
Sure, there’s maybe no impending juggernaut like say how the Cubs could look, but it seems like the White Sox are kind of running at peak-ish right now. They were a miserable 2014 team that added some guys and payroll that didn’t bring them high enough. Now it seems like they can either trade off minor league assets (what few if any they have) or add payroll to get better. Meanwhile, Sale/Abreu/Quintana/Rodon/Robertson are going to get more expensive every year.
The problem with the Grienke comparison is that the Royals couldn’t afford to resgin him and Grienke refused to play for them anymore. Not really the Case with Sale at all.
There are White Sox fans, who’da thunk it?
They arent white sox fans. They are anti cubs fans.
not playing trying to further bullshit narratives much are we…
I live in chicago Atm, if the socks fans truly cared they would welcome a rebuild like the cubs. But they care about winning tonights game.
No, nobody has any problem with a rebuild, or at least I don’t, but to some extent, I think it’s premature to do so. I am not ready to assume that Melky Cabrera went from a good player last year to a replacement level player in one off-season. Eaton can be a fairly decent player. If Sanchez or Johnson can be 1-2 War players at 2B, then the amount of actual holes on the team has shrunk dramatically.
I think we’ve seen with what the Giants have been able to do over the last 5 seasons that having a few star players and patching around those guys can help you win games. They’ve also gotten extraordinarily lucky to do so, but it has happened. If you completely tear down the team and sell the stars, there is 0 chance of that happening.
Easily the Pirates can pull this one: Tyler Glasnow, Josh Bell, Alen Hanson, Gregory Polanco plus other pieces for Sale and Abreu.
If you want both you have to add meadows and tallion lol
I think you are right. I forgot about Meadows. I would do it if I was the Pirates GM.
lol
If it’s easy, it’s not enough.
Oh that would be enough, but the Bucs could never afford Sale/Abreu even at their current contracts.
Nor can they afford to pull much from their prospect pile.
Throw in Starling Marte and they won’t laugh before hanging up.
They’ll still hang up, though.
I’m sure White Sox fans would disagree, but trading Sale sounds like so much fun. He’s a no-question ace; a young, big strikeout arm with years of control remaining. He’s one of those guys nobody gets to be untouchable for.
Beyond the pure spectator value of the trade, though, it seems like an argument could be made that cashing in at his peak would be very smart. He’s a slider guy and we know they are at the top of the injury risk spectrum. Beyond that, well…just, pitchers man. They blow up.
Anyway, I wouldn’t wish a rebuild on any fan base, but that trade has the potential to be awesome.
A big market team like Chicago should be building around Sale and Abreu. Not trading them for prospect platters.
Agreed. They should build around them. How?
You have to hope Melky and Eaton bounceback. Garcia’s ceiling is league average. He’ll likely improve defensively but his BABIP will fall a bit, too.
They need to fill C, 3B, and 2B to be relevant. A tall order, certainly, but plausible enough that you don’t trade you 26/27 year old stars who are already on below-market deals. I mean, those types of guys are who you NEED if you rebuild.
That’s a bunch of stuff that needs to go right there. Yes, a bunch of stuff has gone wrong – I don’t know if anyone thought the Melky contract would be this bad – but it has happened, and it makes a bounceback less likely. If these things do happen, where is the team then? Is that an 81-win team? And if it is an 81-win team with three obvious positions of need, how do they fill those positions? Trade Rodon? Hawkins? Free agent deals?
I’ll grant that probably came off as an interrogation – but I’m interrogating less you as much as the possibility of White Sox contention. It’s possible there are answers to these questions, but I can’t find them.
lol the only thing the White Sox are capable of building around Sale and Abreu is a tomb.
Sell two 26 year old starters, who does that? However, I’d flip Abreu in a heartbeat.
The Royals “sold” Zack Greinke when he was basically 26 when they knew his value was ultra high (he won the Cy Young the year previously) and they were going to be bad.
Little different, they couldnt afford him, only 2 years left of control.
Greinke also demanded a trade; said he wouldn’t show up for spring training the following year if he didn’t get it. Now, granted, players do things like this, but Greinke generally doesn’t say things he doesn’t mean.
I could see Quintana being a target of a ton of teams if he was made available. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was able to snag a decent prospect in a haul. Not like a Corey Seager, but I could see a top 100 guy easily.
Try at least 2 top 100 guys. He was a 5 war starter last year signed thru 2020 and you dont pay for any of his down years. His deal is basically just as good as sales. Melky and danks contracts are the only reason this team cant contend next year.
& Laroche. Plus the fact that the defense stinks.
Call me crazy, but I think the Mets are buyers at the deadline. They have plenty to offer for a Quintana, and I think he slots in well in their rotation and would be solid 3rd in the NL.
If they give up Sale, you can’t do it for prospects only. Need a young talent currently in the bigs.
You’re crazy, but not for thinking the Mets are buyers — for thinking they’re buyers of *pitching*. Abreu is the interesting piece from the Mets’ perspective, a rare player who’d make a package built around one of their elite young arms arguably worth it.
Unless Abreu can play 3rd, I don’t think the Mets are interested.
Maybe I’m nitpicking, but I think he’s a lot better than a “solid number 3 in the NL.” He’s 13th in pitcher fWAR over the last calendar year and 10th over the last two calendar years. I’d say he’s a solid to very good number 2 in either league.
Yeah, he’s a good number two, and he’s only 26 to boot.
He’s the guy Billy Beane thought Samardzija was when he traded Russell for him.
Lol, i actually think he thought shark was better when he made that trade. The stuff can look so good any given night.
I think the Reds should do the same. They should obviously trade Cueto and Chapman who should bring back nice pieces. Then I would trade Phillips, Leake and Bruce offering to pick up a good chunk of their salaries to improve my return. Finally I would trade Frazier. He has two years left after this year at very reasonable salaries. Those two years wouldn’t help the Reds because those would be rebuild years but would offer huge value to contending teams. He would immediately become the best trade chip on the market. The Reds could dramatically jump start their rebuild if they made all these moves.
The Reds won’t be able to get as much though since their duo has considerably less control left.
The further I got in this article, the more obvious it seemed to me that the White Sox should not ‘blow up’ any core. Even if they are sellers this year, the pieces they should be selling are Scrabble, Alexei, Danks, Cabrera, LaRoche. They won’t get much but this really doesn’t look like a team that needs to rebuild from scratch.
Further, selling guys like Sale/Abreu/Quintana smacks of selling the future in order to buy a different future – ie clickbait trade rumours rather than anything real
Scrabble? The Sox don’t have him.
I know a lot of guys are called Scrabble, but jfree’s referring to Samardzija here
Ahh, I figured he was referring to Rzepcynski
Danks, cabrera, laroche are immovable contracts unless you eat a ton of money. In the case of danks that wouldnt even help.
So…they should be selling the least valuable players? How do you sell Danks? At a bake sale maybe? Leave him on the front yard until somebody loads him into the pickup truck and takes him to their company softball game?
The absolute best you can hope for is a bad contract swap.
Show up on another team’s door with Carlos Rodon, and have John Danks stand very still behind him. They won’t say no.
Hahahahahahaa, excellent.
I think you flip shark, quintana, ramirez (idk if there is any market). Honestly quintana to the cubs makes a ton of sense. If im the sox id ask for baez, wilson contreras, christian villanueva and mendy. I would throw in zach duke and i think you can get it done. Cubs want someone to slot behind arrieta and lester thats controllable and need bullpen help. Sox need infield guys. I think baez is a stud and one of the other 3 emerge as an every day guy with contreras having back up catcher floor and mendy utility guy.
First post!
Cubs Fan, though I do watch every Chris Sale start, ever.
Chris Sale is likely honest when he says he wants to remain in one uniform for the entirety of his career. I’d value his future worth to the struggling White Sox franchise at $700m.
They do make an ugly wife.
Maybe it’s time for the White Sox to trade for a better General Manager.
/thread.
Nobody should have believed this Sox team was competing for anything, which made all the win-now moves utterly mystifying.
Rick Hahn is the GM. Rumors have it that he did NOT want to go sign guys like Cabrera or LaRoche; instead he wanted to wait until next year to pull that trigger. He also wanted to overhaul the minor league development team, some of them being there for decades now with nothing to show for it.
He was overridden by his boss, Kenny Williams.
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/its-time-for-the-royals-to-trade-james-shields/
I proposed this offer yesterday and thought it was a very good offer for both the White Sox and Dodgers.
Sale to LAD
for
Urias, Seager, Turner & Guerrero
Turner is not needed because of Hector Oliver would move right into 3B, which also alleviates a current issue for the Dodgers.
Guerrero can opt out if traded. He only has real value to the dodgers.
That trade is god awful, those are 2 top 10 prospects just to start the year, let alone 2 of the top 3 NOW, then JT who is one of the few best hitters in baseball the last 2 seasons 450+ PA, and a good bench bat.
As much as it would kick ass to have Sale inbetween Kershaw and Greinke in the rotation, it makes absolutely no sense to trade for him.
It’s not near enough value for Sale. But no team wants to pay the value..or per this trade scenario, 2/3 of his value.
I think that is enough value. Not all prospects are created equal. You could already write a book of fun fact accomplishments for Urias.
Why would they want turner back in a rebuilding scenario? Hes a free agent after next year when they would suck.
Unfortunately, that list of accomplishments doesn’t include “pitched 100 innings in a season” or “completed 7 innings in a professional start.”
I love Urias. I think he’s going to be a superstud. I’d also want at least one more significant piece in that deal to move Sale, or to pawn off Melky or Danks.
I can’t reply to replies so I’ll do it here. The Dodgers package is as good as will be offered (and probably better). The thing is, there are 3 pieces for Sale:
Elite starter- everyone wants that; 4+ years on deal -not everybody really wants that; Cheap – to a team like the Dodgers, that’s really not a big concern, so they probably don’t want to pay the premium in prospects for it.
Frankly, in a July trade, I think teams would pay basically double of what they would for a 3 month rent. And that’s not enough.
Dodgers should target Shark. He slots in as the 3 or 4. Trade Kiki Hernandez, Carlos Frias and another prospect like Zach Lee or Chris Reed.
I wouldn’t trade Sale because no one will pay the price equal to his value.
Also, I disagree that this is the time of the year to trade those 3. this is the time for rents and bullpen pitchers.
And if you put all of those guys on the market, the Sox will have affected the market and reduced the price of all 3.
Cubs seemed to do OK trading at this time last year.
“What could the team ask for Sale, a +5 to +6 WAR player who is only owed about $50 million over the next four seasons?”
That is what he is. The decay rate for pitchers is pretty high. I ran a Play Index for comparable pitchers to Sale (age 23-25, IP between 525 and 625, ERA+ between 125 and 165). I ended up with the following post-war pitchers: Ewell Blackwell, Tommy John, Mark Mussina, Wilson Alvarez, Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder, Jake Peavy, Tim Lincecum, and Zack Greinke. The average performance from age 27-30 was way below what they achieved between 23 and 25. It might be the fact that they had not shown extraordinary durability selected for pitchers who were at greater risk of injury, or it might just be ordinary pitcher variability issues.
On the other hand, potential trading partners might disproportionately weight the next year or two. There’s a lot of merit to the White Sox considering offers.
That’s not what he is. I’d compare him more to koufax or kershaw.
If I had to describe the value Frank Thomas brought the White Sox franchise I would probably talk less about “WAR” and more about how he’s in the Hall of Fame with their logo.
hyperbole much?
You’re comparing him to pitchers of which he is superior and most of whom vastly superior.
you must be a sox fan
Yes I am, and as such I’ve probably seen him pitch 700+ Innings so far.
Dude is Randy Johnson if Randy Johnson was Randy Johnson in his twenties.
There is some merit in the comments, so I changed the search a bit. ERA+ greater than 140 and 500-700 IP between age 23 and 25. It gave some names who were obviously a lot better- Pedro and Kershaw, and then Oswalt (who was better), Appier (who was better), Lincecum, Johnny Antonelli and Carlos Zambrano. These guys did do better than the first crew, but there was a lot of drop-off.
If you expect him to deliver an average of 5 WAR from age 27 to 30, you are likely to be disappointed.
If you expect anyone not named Mike Trout or Clayton Kershaw to produce 20 WAR over a 4 year period, you’re likely to be disappointed.
True that. Not even Presidents can deliver that much WAR in a 4 year period
Right but run the same type of analysis on type of prospects they’d be giving up.
If I’m trading Sale, I don’t want Seager or Urias, I want Puig.
I’d honestly want all three if I’m seriously going to part ways with the crazy surplus value Sale provides.
Good grief.
Puig is literally the same surplus value. And you dont have to worry about his arm falling off
Puig’s MLB Career has had much more of a checkered injury history than Sale’s. & if you want to compare the two players between the ears I would liken the difference to that of a power plant and a battery.
I find the injury risk factor with Sale to be completely overblown. With Don Cooper and Herm Schneider the kid is in very good hands.
Ruben, is that you?
I’d want Puig and one of Seager and Urias, and then be satisfied with Puig and Holmes.
Lester i would do the same. Except i would add tim anderson and try get seager instead of holmes. See if they go for that instead.
Yeah, that’s fair. I do love Anderson, though, even with my pathological fear of hitters with bad K/BBs.
I have a man crush on anderson but even now hes still so raw. Seager is as much of a sure thing as you will get. I will say right now i dont think you have to worry as much with andersons k/bb rate as say next year, i think the k rate will drop. This trade would be really good for both teams except it makes that melky signing look even worse which is hard to do. Seager over anderson makes their rebuild quicker and u hope rondon can turn in to a sale lite.
I just don’t think it is possible to get appropriate value for Sale. A year and a half of Samardzija was established to be worth basically Addison Russell who was a top ten in all of baseball prospect. By my back of the envelope math, the excess value on 4 years of Chris Sale is maybe three times what it was on 1.5 years of Samardzija. How do you get back 3 top ten in all of baseball prospects?
The only way you can possibly get value is to get some team to take on Danks or some other garbage which lowers the overall value of what you are giving up in exchange for salary relief, but that doesn’t help them. Contrary to popular narrative, the White Sox are not cheap. They won’t spend $200M, but they have never let a self imposed budget stand in the way of doing something when they thought it would help. They need good ball players more than they need financial flexibility and they have shown an inability to find anybody beyond Abreu who has any talent for hitting a baseball in forever. The last hitter they drafted who put up 10 WAR for his career was Chris Young in 2001!
That was Billy Beane experiencing momentary insanity. It’s unreasonable to use one outlier deal as a representation of general value.
Perhaps, but trading one of the three best pitchers in baseball with 4.5 years left on his deal at well below market salaries requires an insane offer.
Hence the proposed trade. Schwarber and baez have legit mvp potential and alcantara has zobrist potential. And u eat a dumb contract in melky. If one of those guys hits his ceiling, one busts, and one turns in to a solud regular its a win.
Melky’s contract was and is dumb. Never trust a drug cheat.
Schwarber in no way has legit MVP potential. Could at his best split the difference between Pat Burrell and Lance Berkman, though. What’s that, 4-5 WAR?
Baez is barely a top 40 prospect right now, and you can’t spell Alcantara without “can’t.” Made me laugh with the Zobrist reference, however. Gotta give ya that.
If he catches hes an mvp candidate, by most accounts hes a good framer, which in the analytical world is more valuable than the rest of catching.
Read the first sentence of the schwarber part, had i read the rest of your response i wouldnt have responded. Just very ignorant. Baez would be a top 5 prospect again if you take away his mlb time and only count his minors stats.
“Baez would be a top 5 prospect again if you take away his mlb time and only count his minors stats.”
Lol, so would Delmon Young.
Delmon Young isn’t a 22 year old middle infielder with the most bat speed anyone’s seen since Gary Sheffield.
“if you take away his mlb time and only count his minors stats.”
I believe this line right here is what we define as “AAAA Player”
They are a mess – they need a blow up, but then do you trust their scouts? Also, fan won’t be patient with Cubs rebuild. If you hold off for double aa prospects, you do better. Garza got them Grimm, Ramirez, olt and Edwards.
I ENJOYED THIS HOT SPORTS TAKE DO YOU HAVE A NEWSLETTER
More to the point, with Hahn facing little-to-no pressure to trade Sale now, there’s precisely zero chance that any team out there would be willing to meet the White Sox’s price for Sale — probably along the lines of “we get to pick any three players in your system under the age of 25, including those on the big league roster, plus you take Danks and Cabrera” — in 2015. Hahn can just wait until mid 2018 and get almost as much.
Is there a benefit to waiting until 2018?
You get to see whether Erik Johnson comes up and becomes what everyone thought he would be (solid 3/4).
Carlos Rodon gets time to become a true ace.
Tim Anderson arrives.
The Danks and LaRoche contracts expire after 2016, so they might be able to get good FAs this time.
The 2017 season might well be dramatically different for the Sox than 2015 has been. It’s probably not a good idea to trade away the core pieces of that team 2 years before you have to.
You get to see whether Erik Johnson comes up and becomes what everyone thought he would be (solid 3/4).
Carlos Rodon gets time to become a true ace.
Tim Anderson arrives.
The Danks and LaRoche contracts expire after 2016, so they might be able to get good FAs this time.
The 2017 season might well be dramatically different for the Sox than 2015 has been. It’s probably not a good idea to trade away the core pieces of a team that may be competitive in 2 years 3 years before you have to.
Not everyone. Prior to the 2014 season I wrote that he was “a back of the rotation starter at best,” and I assume I wasn’t the only one down on him. He received attention because he stood out in what was then an incredibly weak farm system. I’ve seen him in person and I would be very surprised if he was ever considered a #3 starter. He’s always going to struggle with left-handed batters, his stuff doesn’t stand out, and his command is average.
I’m also out on Tim Anderson. The guy simply has no feel for the strike zone.
Your assessment of Erik Johnson is totally fair.
Tim Anderson, though, started playing organized baseball in 2010. If he has the same feel for the strike zone as, say, a high school senior, that’s insane progress on his part.
The kid’s raw talent is unreal and, unlike most guys who you can say that about, he actually has a reason to be raw.
(I say this as someone with a pathological fear of bad K/BB rates in prospects).
He hasn’t been making progress, though. He’s been getting worse. The odds are strongly against him ever becoming a competent hitter at the major league level, and he’s not the type of elite defender who could compensate for that.
The k rate is dropping while being promoted like a seasoned prospect. So i would say it is improving. And he definitely has elite defender potential. Great range.
The Benefit to waiting ’til 2018 would be:
You have Chris Sale.
Just can’t support this. At all. I think there’s a tendency for a lot of us in the sabermetrics community to jump on the “sell everything” bandwagon with teams all the time, but there’s just way too much random variance and accessibility to the playoffs now to have teams blow it up as frequently as suggested. If you look at the past 3 years of Fangraphs, almost every single AL team, for example, has had a “time to blow it up” post, and eh. Look at the Twins this year, or the Astros, all it takes is some fluky performance and you’re in the race, and the loss in fan interest and support in a sell off is hardly worth it. And I don’t see how Chicago could even come close to getting fair value for Sale. It’s just not happening. Sell of the short term pieces, the older pieces, see what you get, and retool with the core.
How does what the Astros have done with their entire system compare to the Sox? It’s really easy to say “Trade the bad contracts, keep the good ones” like its a video game.
“all it takes is some fluky performance and you’re in the race” that’s what the Sox sold to their fans before the season. You want that to occur the next 4 years? Or trade Sale and get better for the future.
Trading Sale does not make them better for the future, though.
Really would depend on the return right. Ill use the example mentioned but schwarber and baez turn into 30 homer guys and mendy a 4 wim guy in center or at second it does. While unlikely thats really not a shocking outcome.
Get over this proposal. If you focus on any prospect’s ceiling you can make any trade look good.
Sale is a young cost controlled player, an ace really, and in a best case scenario, literally a very, very best, it’s what they’d get back. So are Abreu and Quintana. In the, what, 3 years it would take to develop prospects they’d get back, we’re saying they couldn’t finagle some team improvements? Plus, are we that confident that a trade would make them better in the future? Everyone sounds like it’s a given that trading for prospects = better in the future, but that has even more uncertainty to it than Sale’s health. The Sox have 3 of what all teams hope to turn prospects into. Why get rid of them? Makes no sense. I swear these “blow up” articles come up all the time. There’s a reason it’s not done all the time by teams in baseball right now.
As for my Astros example, I more meant as they were projected at the beginning of the season.
Wait and see, at the very least. They’ve played .500 ball since their start, and even projections aren’t as down on them as their current BaseRuns performance has been.
I agree with this. Concluding that the Sox are toast in 2015 should not lead one to conclude that trading Sale would be reasonable.
Dave sure is always eager for every team of which he is not a fan to sell. I wonder when he will advocate that the Mariners trade King Felix?
Why would the Mariners trade Felix? Judging by all the empty yammering on about Chris Sale’s “surplus value” and how it could/should only net Kyle Schwarber and a pair of free-swinging ciphers, I’d say that the King & Kershaw both have no trade value whatsoever.
Somebody else said it: Seager, Urias, and Justin Turner, plus the Dodgers take on Melky or Danks. Or both. Hell, they can afford it.
LOL this does not make sense at all but privately I am sure Dave would admit it.
He is paid by the click so his role is not to write meaningful article but to write trolls to generate traffic
And it works – 165 comments and counting
Been quite the trolling for clicks and comments week here at Fangraphs.
It makes a lot of sense. While they are a big market team they are the second team. Sale is the most valuable asset. They have 100 mil committed next year to 10 players, 4 of which are melky, laroche, robertson and bonafocio. They are probably almost max payroll this year. Im not confident they can fill out 15 spots with the remaining payroll and really only have 1 sp out of all their minors who will be ready next year.
As a Cubs fan I would make that deal today and twice on Sunday. Sale is a special talent. So is Schwarber, but a top 5 starting pitcher for 3 prospects is a steal.
Schwarber is only as special as his catching abilities though, right?
He’s not a catcher.
He’s got the bat to be an impact RF, though.
Agreed. But he is significantly less special as a RF than as a catcher…
One small qualm. It would be lf not right. Doesnt have the arm.
I’d be surprised if Kyle Schwarber plays anywhere other than LF regularly if he stays in the NL & I doubt he’d be better than slightly below average there.
Watching the defensive errors, the number of runners LOB, and the ineffective starting from all but Sale and Quintana (Rodon yet to be determined) has been very frustrating to watch.
Players that I would like to see moved:
1. Ramirez I love ya, but the errors have got to stop.
2. Danks…
3. Flowers: too many strikeouts after well placed hits by the 4 5 and 6 hitters.
4. Shark
5. Becham or Gillespie…move becham to short or find a consistant 3rd baseman..something we havnt had arguably since Ventura.
Don’t touch: Abreu Sale Quintana Garcia Sanchez Jennings (really all bullpen except perhaps carrol and Putnam)
The rest id be sad to see go but if need be.
Garcia has been bad. Sanchez has been worse. Both are young at least and may improve. Or may not. Bullpen arms are fungible. You can have anybody you want. Abreu is older than most people realize. Really, you can have anybody off this team for the right offer. They are years away from respectability and don’t have enough in the minors to change that without substantial additions. I just don’t think that anybody offers enough value to make moving Sale worth it.
So YOU think they should get rid of the bad guys, and keep the good guys, huh? Crazytalk.
The two most meathead lines of thinking in this town are:
White Sox:
Trade the bad players, the expensive players, and Samardzija for prospects.
Cubs:
Acquire any of the following: an impact bat, a frontline starter, or an elite Closer- but don’t mess with “the future” in doing so.
The plans are so sound! It’s amazing why more people aren’t GM’s…
Keep in mind that Dave actually UNDERSTATES the team-friendly nature of Sale’s deal. 2018 and 2019 are team options, so if (heaven forbid) he gets injured in the next 2.5 years, they can always opt out.
Arguably best pitcher in baseball? Check.
Right side of 27? Check.
Most team-friendly contract imaginable? Check.
Good clubhouse guy? Check.
Yeah, I’d shop him too.
(Seriously, the people suggesting packages built around a system’s three top prospects are probably starting low. I’d imagine in a good system, the Sox would probably start with “we pick any three players under 25 at any level, then you get to pick two to protect, then we pick three more.” Sale is just that good, that young and that cheap.)
Great point, about the team options. It’s a shame the author of the piece didn’t check into the contract particulars.
Given his talent, track record, age and contract, Sale is EASILY the most valuable pitching commodity in the sport.
He’s the Goldschmidt of pitchers, is what he is.
There is no argument that Sale is the best pitcher in the game. None.
xFIP, FIP-, xFIP-, K/9
He strikes out more than anyone else in baseball, and he allows very few runs in a run-friendly environment. I’d probably go with Scherzer this year, and for sure Kershaw and maybe a couple of others last year, but there’s certainly an argument to be made, especially given that he’s only 26 and very easily could have some improvement in him.
Why are you listing xFIP *and* xFIP-? Why would you break out K/9 when it’s already a component of FIP and xFIP? Do you know what these numbers are?
’13-Present
xFIP-
1. Kershaw (65)
2. Felix
3. Kluber
4. Sale (72)
FIP-
1. Kershaw (60)
2. Scherzer
3. Sale (70)
K/9 (lol)
1. Darvish (11.67
2. Sale (10.43)
K%
1. Darvish (31.7)
2. Kershaw
3. Sale (29.7)
WAR
1. Kershaw (17.2)
2. Scherzer
3. Price
4. Felix
5. Sale (12.9)
And no, it doesn’t get better if you look at ’14-Present or ’12-Present.
Based on your arbitrary use of some of these numbers, I will assume maybe you think Sale is the best because he’s having the best year this (half of a) season? But not only is that not what best pitcher in baseball means, he’s not even having the best season.
He trails Kershaw in xFIP- and Scherzer in FIP-. He also trails 13 players in ERA-, 2 pitchers in WAR, and 9 pitchers in RA9-WAR.
The only thing he leads this season is K%.
Great pitcher, but there is no argument whatsoever that he’s the best pitcher in baseball.
Yeah, but Kershaw doesn’t play on the White Sox, and Joe is from Bridgeport. Did you ever take THAT into account?
When we need a break from work, and we’re looking for a chuckle, we like to read the latest from Dave Cameron.
Never disappoints.
Hi kenny williams
I’ll just leave this here . . .
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/its-time-for-the-royals-to-trade-james-shields/
Hilarious. What a clown.
Melky Cabrera has been on six MLB teams in the last seven years–without an intra-season trade. Three near star quality years, one mediocre one, and three replacement value. I wonder if there’s ever been a career like his before
Let’s play Guess The Drug Cheat Years!
About time you wrote something good Dave.
Whats a realisic asking price for Quintana? A top 100 + a top 200 prospect?
Not nearly enough, given Quintana’s very, very team-friendly contract.
Since the start of 2013, Quintana is 14th in fWAR, ahead of Lance Lynn, Sonny Gray, Strasburg, Shields, Archer, and numerous other notables. He is, in a word, underrated.
And that contract? One million dollars this year. Then $4M, $6M, $9M, and two club options at just $10.5M per annum.
I wouldn’t take less than one of Seager or Urias if dealing with the Dodgers — and they’d have to throw in a sweetener, plus take Danks or Melky in the bargain.
You’re…. Not serious are you? Quintana has a career 3.6 ERA and a 115 ERA+, making him a #2/3 but closer to a #3. You’re not getting a top 10 prospect + a salary dump for him.
A top 40-100 prospect plus a few mid tier’s is right around his trade value.
…he’s significantly better than Samardzija (he actually has 3 more RA9-WAR in 250 fewer IP), and Samardzija netted a Top 10 prospect for 1.5 seasons of team control at $12.5m.
Since he entered the league, the three closest comparables in terms of ERA- and FIP- are Madison Bumgarner, Jon Lester and Alex Cobb (excluding Verlander, since he’s pretty much cooked at this point).
5.5 years of team control (with the last two being team options) for Quintana is insanely valuable. A top 10 prospect would be a starting point in a prospective deal. You’d probably have to include a good, young MLB player (Starling Marte-caliber) as well.
He is far more valuable to the White Sox at present than any package that a team could possibly give up for him.
His deal is slightly less valuable than sale’s. Sale has the advantage as a true ace, but quintana has an extra year as a true 2 or best 3rd starter thats even cheaper. The best player is more valuable in this scenario but i have a feeling 1 war will be worth 10 mil in 2020 in which case quintana will be crazy good value option.
Stupidest thing I read all day is the mere thought of trading the best pitcher in baseball. Lay off the tonic water Dave Cameron, you’re drunk.
Has the Perrier gone straight to (his) head?
Beane is most likely the only GM in the entire league that would trade Sale right now. With his contract it would take one of the biggest returns we’ve ever seen.
If only trading and general managing were as easy as it sounds in literally every article Dave Cameron writes.
… and as easy as it sounds from pretty much every article written by all other sports writers, and pretty much every post written by fans…
I think the White Sox are just in too big of a market to move someone like Sale/Abreu without grossly deteriorating their fan relations for a decade or so. In the event that you wanted to sell Abreu you’d likely be best to wait for him to be 31-32 and have had a few stellar seasons behind that as the market always overpays for the declining 31-99 years of premier first basemen.
A lot of this debate sounds familiar to me from the time leading up to the Erik Bedard to Seattle trade. A lot of O’s fans made arguments against the very idea, but in hindsight I’d say that trade was the moment that shifted the Orioles’ fortunes for the better. Remember, the Orioles received their franchise player (Adam Jones) and former All-Star Chris Tillman (as well as three other players) for a guy who almost immediately turned into a pumpkin.
The difference is that Bedard was 3 years older, had established durability issues, and only had two years of team control left.
So a Bedard deal for, say, Quintana in three years, would totally make sense if the Sox haven’t improved during that time.
It makes no sense today, however.
This is true, of course. But consider the flip side of your argument. The Orioles got such a haul for a pitcher three years older than Sale with durability issues. Sale is at maximum value now, but pitchers with abnormal deliveries like Sale’s scare some people into distrusting their durability moving forward. Obviously there’s no guarantee he’ll ever need Tommy John or the like, but all it takes is one arm injury to create “established durability issues” which can severely harm a player’s trade value. I’m not saying they NEED to unload Sale, but I certainly think they should seriously consider offers.
Now I’m not saying GM’s should adopt a paranoid approach and trade everybody with value before they get hurt like it’s an inevitability. All I’m saying is, there’s almost no way Chris Sale’s value can reach a higher plateau than it currently presides.
But his current value to the White Sox is more than any team will possibly be willing to pay, especially considering that every team (except for the D-Backs) likes its own prospects more than anyone else does.
If Sale is on the block, I want the Cardinals in on him. It seems like a great time for the Birds to make that type of deal as their top farm players have graduated. If they want the top players on the farm now, it won’t be as expensive for the Cards in terms of true talent.
I understand the White Sox would not come to them first because of it, but it makes sense in STL. No shame in talking.
They won’t be taking “the top players off the farm.”
They’ll be taking the top young players.
That means Wong, Wacha, Reyes…and Grichuk as a throw-in.
If Sale is on the block, every fans wants their team in on him. There are 29 teams that want Chris Sale. Actually, there are 30 teams that want Chris Sale, which is why the other 29 teams are almost certainly out of luck.
Regardless, the idea that the White Sox would just want the other teams’ best young talent regardless of how talented makes no sense. They would not shortchange themselves just because a potential trade partner had less to offer, rather they would ignore that potential trade partner unless they involve another team who can provide adequate talent.
I would love to see Sale on the North-side but comments from the Cubs brass seems to indicate a willingness to trade for a rental arm (Shark) over a multi top prospect costing star like Sale. In a bubble this article makes sense but the White Sox understand their fan base, hence the reluctance to even mention the word rebuild. Sox prefer to rebuild even though efforts have been disastrous. MLB has evolved into a young mans game and the White Sox doubled down last off-season to add and rely on veterans.
There will be a large quantity of elite pitchers that will be available after the season and I feel that the Cubs would rather spend money over prospect. This way they keep their positional depth in the event that one of their young players falter. Now, if Sale is still with the Sox next season and the Cubs are major contenders with young players settled into their roles, then yeah you look to make that move.
Why was this article heavily edited from its original published status? There’s no reference to prospect values, bust rates, or anything anymore. Now its more of a HOT TAKE instead of backing it up with numbers.
Maybe he decided to stop pretending it was ever anything other than a hot take, haha?
That tonic water is hitting Cameron a little too hard. Switch to regular ol tap water Davey boy. Writing drunk is a federal offense.
I didn’t see the edits in this case but I have noticed FanGraphs doing this in the past — heavily editing posts after publication without disclosure — and I think it’s quite surprisingly unethical and unprofessional to see, from a site that wants to be taken seriously.
What did he edit? Somebody asked him about it on twitter too and he said he didn’t change anything? Weird.
Oy, is this just a commenter making stuff up? That’s exactly why it’s better just to have a policy never to do things like that, so all your readers can be sure.
Referenced a prospect value study by guys named Creagh/Dimicili, talked about prospect bust rates by a guy on Royals Review.
The whole article’s tone was changed. Someone smarter than me can probably find the cached version of the original.
The Sox are weak in hitting talent but their strength is starting pitching. . They might trade Samardzija and DFA or trade away Danks at a loss. Otherwise, Sale and the other Sox starters will stay on the South side as a foundation to build upon.
Abreu is not going anywhere either.
The Sox should keep young talent like Carlos Sanchez, Avi Garcia, Courtney Hawkins and Micah Johnson who are still developing but have showed potential.
The biggest trading chips who should and probably will be offered are Robertson, Zack Duke, Samardzija, Melky and LaRoche.
There are severe flaws with every member of the “young talent” you mention, and the term for players like LaRoche and Melky would be “burden” not “chip”.
Before I would consider a trade for Sale,Hahn-Williams would have to be sent packing first. I’m going trust a major rebuild with the management that’s the reason FOR the rebuild? I think not.
The premise of the article makes some sense, but it seems to me that there is a much stronger argument to be made keeping these assets because they are young and have such team friendly contracts. To build a winning team and contender, you need an bonafide (Sale), 2 other decent pitcher in the rotation(Quintana & Rodon), a proven power hitter who also hits for average to build your lineup around(Abreu), and reliable closer. Obviously, other components are needed, but those are the core things I would want at build around. Why get rid of those guys who are price great to find need compliment players to play around them? If they were expensive then it would make sense, but why put yourself in a position to have to find new core players as well as complimentary players, when all you need to do is retool and find new role players? Trade guys like Samardzijah first or Melky even if you have to absorb some of his contract, which doesn’t hurt as much cause guys like Sale & Abrue are cheap for their production and value to the team. It’s so much easier to plug in and rotate role players till you get the right fit, than it is to replace young core players in their prime. Plus, they have a few young guys they still want to bring up along with players or prospects they will get from trading Samar, so in my opinion it makes no sense to trade those players right now, esp Abrue or Sale. Lol, I would try a few managerial changes and coaching changes before trading those guys at their cost. Again, understand the whole idea of the article, but think Sox’s management is a little bit smarter at this point and knows how close they really could be to creating a playoff team. A few tweaks can do a lot in baseball and can change the whole dynamic of a team quickly, but rebuilding takes years, and finding the type of talent they have with their contracts virtually impossible.
I agree with everything you wrote but think it’s a pretty severe omission when you fail to mention “up the middle” when talking about what it takes to build a winner.