The White Sox want to help your team improve this offseason
The cardinal sin in sports is not to be bad, it’s to be directionless.
Bad teams might want to be bad and sometimes, teams luck into a good year, but there’s never been a consistently successful team that didn’t have a plan.
For the last five years, the Chicago White Sox have not had a plan -- that’s what made Tuesday’s trade that sent starting pitcher Chris Sale to the Red Sox for four Boston prospects so shocking.
The White Sox did something bold -- they picked a direction.
The Red Sox went all-in to land Sale -- they gave up four solid prospects, including two of the best prospects in all of baseball, to land the perennial Cy Young Award candidate.
The White Sox need to follow suit and go all-in on a rebuild.
Moving Sale was just the first part of what should be a slew of deals for White Sox general manager Rick Hahn, who should put an “Everything Must Go!” banner outside of his suite at the MLB Winter Meetings outside of Washington D.C.
By the start of Spring Training, the White Sox should have gutted what was once one of the better cores in the American League.
Why? Because they weren’t winning with that core, and the only difference between the White Sox winning 75 games next season or 65 is that the latter option could set the team up to win 95 down the line.
Still, it’s truly amazing that the White Sox are in a situation where the most prudent thing to do is sell off every asset that can land a B-level prospect in a trade.
The White Sox’ core was solid -- it should have been contending for the playoffs year in and year out.
Think about the top-flight talent the White Sox had for all of last year. Chicago boasted:
• Sale, one of the best pitchers in baseball year in, year out
• Jose Quintana, who was acquired for next to nothing and wasn’t far behind Sale
• Jose Abreu, one of the great free-agent signings of this decade by any team
• Adam Eaton, another well above league-average player who was acquired on the cheap
• Todd Frazier, who hit 40 homers last year
• Carlos Rodon, a young starter whose stuff could turn him into the next Corey Kluber.
With the right pieces around those six players, the White Sox could have been a playoff team -- a squad that even pushed for the pennant.
But the White Sox never acquired even half of the complementary players necessary to put the team in that kind of position, so Chicago won 78 games and finished in fourth place.
They didn’t have the prospects and they didn’t want to spend the money. They were stuck in baseball purgatory.
It’s been a little more than 11 years since the White Sox won their first World Series in 88 seasons, but as of last month, they carry the longest World Series drought in the city of Chicago.
And yet, despite all the pressure the Cubs’ championship run has placed on South Siders, the White Sox did the prudent thing Tuesday and sold their best player for prospects.
But as White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson would say: “Don’t stop now, boys.”
The White Sox are in a position to control the trade market for all of baseball -- if they want to be, they could well be the only bonafide seller this offseason with Major League talent to push.
The White Sox should trade Eaton to a team that’s looking for a centerfielder -- there’s half a dozen out there, and he might be able to pull a return more significant than his numbers might suggest.
They should move Quintana, who was a worthy All-Star last year and could net almost as much as Sale, especially considering how weak the market for starting pitching is this winter. Atlanta, Washington, or the Dodgers would certainly be interested, though any team that isn’t at least partially interested needs to be seized by the league.
They should move Frazier amid one of the most arid years for third basemen in recent memory. Whatever team that’s interested in signing Justin Turner but doesn’t land him would be a terrific trade partner.
They should move closer David Robertson to one of the teams that misses out on the top-flight closers on the free-agent market.
They should even move Abreu, who opted out of his first Major League contract and will play for an arbitration-determined salary for the next three years. The Rockies have already expressed interest, but Abreu could be a fit for the Mets, Blue Jays, Indians (though that might be too much), and Mariners.
Move them all -- Nate Jones, Melky Cabrera, Brett Lawrie, even James Shields (if you can find a buyer).
The White Sox should sell everyone over the age of 25 and load up one of the worst farm systems in Major League Baseball with top-of-the-line talent.
The market for the White Sox’ players will never be better -- again, should they choose to go all-in, they’d be the only bonafide sellers of Major League impact players on the market.
After all, what are the White Sox playing for next year?
Without Sale, the White Sox have no hope of winning the AL Central in 2017, which is only a minor downtick from their slim-to-none margin of the last few years.
The 2017 season is a lost one no matter what the White Sox do in the coming days and weeks. The 2018 season isn’t looking too positive, either.
And outside of a dramatic and imprudent uptick in spending, the only way for the White Sox to make the 2019 and 2020 campaigns worthwhile is to totally torpedo the next year or two.
Consciously or not, on Tuesday, the White Sox have picked a direction to move. It’s been a long-time coming. And if they make the right moves this winter, the benefits might last just as long.
