posted on Wednesday, November 28, 2007 11:51 AM by Jim

Fast animals, slow White Sox (updated)

On a day where the White Sox waived Alex Cintron to make room for Scott Linebrink, the Minnesota Twins pulled off a young-player blockbuster with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, trading Matt Garza, Jason Bartlett and Eduardo Morlan for Delmon Young, Brendan Harris and Jason Pridie.

It's not fair, is it?

There's going to be plenty written about this trade across the blogosphere -- Baseball Think Factory already has a discussion 200+ comments thick -- and considering it doesn't involve the Sox, it's not like I'm an expert.  Here are my three cents:

No. 1: Wow, this seems like an incredibly balanced and sensible trade that addresses the needs of both teams involved.

No. 2: I guess the Twins are tiring of grinders, too.

No. 3: Young, who will take over for Torii Hunter in center at the Metrodome, tied for third in outfield assists with 16.  He'll play alongside Michael Cuddyer, who led the league with 19 assists from right field.

Put those two together against the sloth-like middle of the White Sox's order, and this is the first thing I thought of:



It must be nice to have young players to trade for young players who better suit your needs.

***********************

I'll be getting to Linebrink, but it turned into too much to tack on to this post.  So instead, a brief aside about Cintron, who was the subject of one of the funnier moments during spring training:

After Alex Cintron dropped a second ball on the day, Ozzie said something loudly in Spanish, and the Latin players on both sides started laughing.  Clint Hurdle told him, "Now, I can't say that."  Ozzie asked him if he understood, and Hurdle said, "Yes, and I can't say that."  Ozzie asked again, and Hurdle said, "I can't get away with calling that glove a piece of sh-t!".  Laughter ensued.

Unfortunately, Cintron's miscues weren't nearly as humorous when the regular season began.  Up until September, he had three things working against him: He couldn't hit (.217/.261/.270 through August), couldn't field, and offseason elbow surgery made it hard for him to play two games in a row.  Unfortunately, he had enough company in all three departments that he didn't stand out.  Had the Sox been competitive, I think Ozzie might've torn him a new one in July.

Cintron did finish with a strong September, but evidently he didn't change many minds.  That's a good sign -- up until now, all other moves seem to be taking the "strong" finish a little too seriously.  Since he'd be set to make about $2 million the Sox would be better off spending elsewhere.  On the other hand, Juan Uribe is now the backup shortstop at $4.5 million, so I'm not quite sure what constitutes cost effectiveness at this juncture.

Comments

# re: Fast animals, slow White Sox (updated)

Thursday, November 29, 2007 12:22 PM by MattTheRock
That was a good day. Between that and the massive Jim Thome blasts, followed by the grunt of appreciation we got from him... definitely awesome day.

# re: Fast animals, slow White Sox (updated)

Thursday, November 29, 2007 2:55 PM by Roy Dean Bream
Glad to see Matt Garza go, but Delmon Young could be one of those guys we end up hating passionately as White Sox fans.

A very balanced trade between these two clubs.