Carlos Rodon works for the White Sox even without an extension
The trade deadline arrives at 3 p.m. CT today, and when the smoke clears, I can see a White Sox left-handed reliever being a part of it.
The White Sox have a lot of them — Xavier Cedeno and Luis Avilan as veterans, Jace Fry and Aaron Bummer as rookies, and they’ve recently added Caleb Frare to the pile of prospects. (Kodi Medeiros could also be in this boat, but the White Sox are starting him for now.)
James Shields? I can see him being an August trade candidate because his contract means he won’t be claimed on a whim or, Hollywood Squares-style, for the block.
Avisail Garcia? His trade market didn’t take off after an All-Star season, so I don’t see him being a target when he’s striking out 14 times for every walk, and hitting only 5½ homers for every hamstring injury.
Jose Abreu? He still hasn’t authoritatively emerged from the worst slump of his career (he was doing that off-balanced hop in the batter’s box again on Sunday).
Carlos Rodon? He’s on track to ride out the rest of his team control period in a White Sox uniform.
Rodon has become an increasingly popular figure on the South Side by giving the White Sox the dominant starting pitching performances the rotation has lacked. He has a 3.24 ERA, opponents are hitting just .193/.277/.335 against him, and all of those numbers improved over the course of a dominant July.
He’s also become the subject of mild trade speculation, both locally and nationally.
https://twitter.com/pgammo/status/1022861214739783680
Teams should inquire about Rodon because 1) he’s good, 2) he’s been injured, and 3) he still has three arbitration years remaining. The White Sox couldn’t extract a package anywhere along the lines of what they received for Chris Sale or Jose Quintana because Rodon has only topped 150 innings once in his four MLB seasons, and the team acquiring Rodon has the option to non-tender him should his shoulder problems return to an even more severe degree. The risk is hedged and the payoff could be huge.
While Rodon fell to the White Sox at No. 3 in the 2014 draft, it wasn’t for a lack of respect. I’m reading “Astroball” by Ben Reiter, and he relayed Houston’s pre-draft impression of the North Carolina State lefty.
“He’s been the dude since he stepped on campus,” [area scout Tim] Bittner said. “The big thing for this guy is he has a pitch you don’t see normally. It’s a seventy-grade slider, at eighty-eight to ninety-one miles an hour. It’s a weapon. It’s a weapon now, it’s a weapon on all levels.” [Analytics director Sig Mejdal’s] team revealed that one of the players to whom its metrics suggested Rodon was comparable was Chris Sale, the White Sox’ ace and annual Cy Young candidate.
Rodon shared something else with Sale, and with most number one starters: an authentic desire not just to get every hitter out, but to dominate him. “They’ll come try to take him out, he’ll refuse, and the head coach will retreat with his tail between his legs,” a scout said approvingly. [Scouting director Mike] Elias concurred. “This dude has a fire-breathing, in-your-face, competitive drive,” he said. “That’s what you prize in what you’re getting here. He’s going to bleed out there to win Game Seven — and he’s probably going to win it, too.”
You read that, and then you think of a montage sequence that cuts down the runtime of the movie. If Rodon were on another team — affordable, dominant when on, hasn’t yet put it all together, some flags — he’d be the exact kind of pitcher the White Sox should try to pry away from another team.
Except the White Sox already have him, and he’s on a great timetable. It’d be even better if he were under contract with team options through 2023, but 2021 is plenty of time for him to serve his purpose.
Remember how the Royals were panned for the James Shields trade? They were widely criticized for surrendering Wil Myers and other prospects for two years of Shields and a failed starter in Wade Davis. They were coming off their fourth consecutive 90-loss season, and it was highly unlikely that they’d capitalize on it before Shields hit free agency.
They won the gamble: 86 wins in Shields’ first season, 89 wins and an American League pennant in the second year, and a World Series title the year after he departed (with Johnny Cueto in the Shields role). Shields didn’t post a 14-WAR season, but his performance ensured that the Royals didn’t give up any of the gains from their young core.
Most teams still wouldn’t make that deal, swapping a top prospect for two years of pitching help. I don’t know if even the Royals would press their luck twice. If this 2018 Rodon — this guy who has pitched seven innings or more in three consecutive outings — is a power lefty who has discovered pitchability and a personality, the White Sox might not have to even consider one.
The hangup with Rodon is that White Sox fans are not used to viewing a pitching rotation without cost-controlling contracts atop it. Sale and Quintana cemented the Sox’ one-two punch forever because they signed team-friendly extensions. Rodon, with Scott Boras as his agent, is unlikely to do so.
Sure, if Rodon wanted to pull a Jered Weaver or Stephen Strasburg and drop anchor with his original team, I’d be all ears. But given his multiple bouts with shoulder issues, I’m rather comfortable with the status quo. Maybe it’s because John Danks comes to mind. His legacy would be vastly different if the White Sox let him hit free agency rather than extending him before his final year of arbitration. Some things shouldn’t be forced.
However it happens, the Sox can afford to let Rodon’s situation ride out, because the rebuild is past the point where trading quality for quantity makes sense. Maybe Yoan Moncada and Michael Kopech will never have a Sale-type season, but if both are merely above-average, that addressed a particular White Sox problem. The same can be said for the Adam Eaton trade if two of Reynaldo Lopez, Lucas Giolito and Dane Dunning help fill out a rotation.
At this point, though, a similar trade has diminishing returns, which means the Sox would have to nail a Rodon trade for it to work. The rebuild doesn’t need another fourth starter, utility infielder, or some other median outcome from dealing Rodon at this time. It’s hard to like those chances.
Rodon has his own unrealized potential at an affordable rate, and the Sox may as well devote their energies to making the most out of the next three-plus seasons, because it won’t be wasted. Should Rodon hit “great,” it’s one more prospect for whom “good” is plenty good enough.
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He’s the exact type of high-upside, but injury-risk type of player I actually would love to see the Sox try to grab here at the deadline. Maybe another team’s highly rated prospect who has had injury issues but is controllable. It should be interesting to see if the Sox can get much for any of their relievers this year.
I would fully expect Rodon to be the starter in the next White Sox playoff game.
Extension, please.
Well this is interesting. Pham to Rays for a couple prospects.
That’s the kind of deal I wrote about about a couple weeks ago that I’d like to see the Sox try. The Rays farm system is roughly equivalent to the Sox, so it might have been something like Luis Gonzalez and Bernardo Flores for Pham (who’s 30 but controllable through 2021).
Would have been a great bridge to Robert/Basabe even if he’s not a 6 win player again, and an overqualified 4th OF or trade candidate when they’re ready.
I’ll take AJ Pollock as the bridge and keep Gonzalez/Flores.
He was actually a name I was thinking about as well for this offseason. Wouldn’t want to pay a ton for him, but if his market is depressed by all of the injuries, I’d be interested in taking a swing at keeping him healthy.
I’d be fine paying a ton (relatively speaking) if it’s a short-ish term deal. If we can get him for 3 years, I’d happily overpay in dollars.
Even more interesting, this trade made me interested in Cardinals AAA outfield to see where Justin Williams would fit in Memphis.
Did you know our old friend Rangel Ravelo is still kicking around in the Memphis outfield? Having him self an ok season at age 26, .297/.381/.504 with 12 homers in 80 games.
I didn’t realize Ravelo could play outfield. Then again, I didn’t think he could slug .504 either.
Several of our outfielders cant play the outfield.
True enough.
Fewer than 60 post-shoulder surgery innings isn’t enough to extract a worthwhile trade return.
His injury history has also suppressed his Arb earnings enough to make a risky extension an unnecessary gamble.
If you can get two (or three) option years out of it, I’d do it. Something like 3/$25, then two one year/$15m team options. Rodon guarantees himself $25m+, with another $30m if he’s healthy. Then hits FA after his age 30 season.
Sox seem to be eyeing ’20 and ’21 as playoff run years.
Those have a deleterious effect on most arms. Not to mention power pithcers with shoulder issues. If the Sox can get that out of him, I’d count it as a victory.
For me, quality back-fill is the key. I’d be very wary of putting hopes of more than one or two runs on him. Even at a hypothetical $30mil.
I think we’re on the same page.
I guess? I inch closer and closer each day to the belief the Sox actually don’t really know what they’re doing. So I’m not sure they know when/if they want to make a run.
Anyway, let’s assume it’s 2020 and 2021… the option years on Rodon protect the Sox in 2022 (and 2023). The Sox salary sheet should still be pretty clean—even assuming they do sign someone long term this winter, or more likely, next winter—so a $15m “punt” on Rodon might be prudent.
The Sox, if they do compete in 2021, should still be solid in 2022. Their “worst case” is that losing Rodon to FA after 2021 puts a huge dent in their rotation. The hope is/was that they’d have so many arms that they could swap out a high percentage of Rodon’s production… but that looks much less likely today than it did even six months ago. Now the question is less on Rodon and more on Giolito, Lopez, Fulmer, Hansen, Dunning, Adams, and even the likes of Puckett and Clarkin (in retrospect this would have been easier to just say non-Cease/Kopech young arms).
But it would also open up about 10-12 million in payroll space. So they could trade for a controllable arm or go after another free agent. Essentially the same position the Cubs were in with Arrieta. I take Hahn at his word that going forward they won’t operate exactly the same way, meaning they no longer will avoid negotiating with a player because of his agent.
I think it’s a bit early to get too excited about Rodon – sure his WHIP is way down, but his K/9 is also down and his FIP is nothing to get excited about. I need more than 9 games to decide if he’s truly inducing weak contact or if this is just a BABIP hot streak. We’re excited about Rodon only because there has been little else to get excited about with the major league club this year. Heck, I don’t even think the teardown is complete yet as long as both Avi and Abreu are on the 25-man roster (one is bound to get moved in the next 10 months).
That’s a good point that I neglected to consider.
I think the injury history piles the obstacles too high on both sides. The Sox don’t have a reason to limit their flexibility by guaranteeing his salaries even for a couple discounted free agent option years. Rodon doesn’t need to further cap his arb earnings and give the team control over his first free agent years at a discount.
Rodon and Boras would probably prefer a longer deal with opt-outs. But the Sox probably don’t have a reason to agree to that, either.
Has that ever been done with a player still going through arbitration? Every extension I remember just buys out the remaining arb years for a potential discount on a couple free agent years. I don’t recall any of those early deals having opt outs.
Strasburg. Also a Boras client. Also multiple injuries.
He’s was a few months from FA though.
I think if the White Sox threw $150 million at Carlos Rodon right now he’d take it. Just a guess.
I agree. An extension is unlikely because the Sox would probably like to wait at least another season and if Rodon pitches well, and if he does, then it’s unlikely he’d do it since he should see a good chuck of money in 2020 under this scenario.
I’ll admit that I may be too risk adverse in my thinking for the White Sox. But to say it’s been a bad few months for the prospect arms would be an understatement, and the certainty of having Rodon under contact would give me comfort. The 2020 rotation right now looks like:
Rodon–Kopech–Cease–????–Covey? Stephens?
I know it’s some what silly to project out 20ish months from now with pitchers, but Dunning might have TJ in his future, which would put him out of the running for 2020 most likely, and Hansen might have ‘lost’ it again. Sure they’ll probably sign a vet to offset this, and trades can be made, but I think I’d push for an extension because so much has gone wrong in Chicago/North Carolina/Alabama this spring/summer.
Dunning seems like a decent bet to be at the back end of that rotation if he can stay healthy (no given at this point). Even with a possible TJ surgery, he could be back then (though I guess it depends on when they do the surgery). Tough to guess with Giolito and Lopez right now. I would still put Covey and Stephens behind them on the depth chart.
As to what that 2020 rotation looks like, leaving Giolito and Lopez out of the conversation is a mistake. I’m not especially optimistic about them but it’s not out of the question they figure things out over the rest of this season and next.
But I don’t really see the relevance of a 2020 rotation to a Rodon extension anyway. At least not in a positive way. It saves them a couple million if he’s healthy and costs them a few multiples of that if he’s not. Trading him, which isn’t as appealing an option as it was before the surgery, would have a bigger impact.
Really, the main benefit to extending Rodon is pushing back when they have to make a decision about whether or not to trade him.
I think the only real cost, at this point, would be the third arb year. It’s hard to see the Sox cutting ties with Rodon after 2019, thus I’d fully expect him to be on the team in some shape or form in 2020. So yes, there is a cost to him getting hurt in 2019 (I’m assuming he finishes healthy this year and an extension would be discussed after the season), and then having the 2021 money guaranteed along with an overpay in 2020 (most likely). But then you’re out of the deal. I, like everyone, would want to avoid the Homer Bailey situation, hence the two options ala Sale/Quintana/Archer (obviously the Bailey deal is bad, but it was at the time too, they only bought out one arb year!!!).
Let’s say Boras and Rodon want to do a deal this winter, what would you offer/take? (this goes for anyone who wants to chime in)
You’re forgetting Davidson.
I wouldn’t offer him opt-outs, but I’d offer him guaranteed money for a year beyond arbitration plus two option years. Make the early years of the contract generous enough (since the payroll will be low anyhow) and it might work out for both parties.
AHHHHH WHY AREN’T WE DOING ANYTHING AHHHHHH!!!!!
Is Hahn going to make any trades? I can’t believe that they will not make a move to clear room for callups.
Like there’s any difficulty clearing space off this roster.
Eloy will be called up mid-August, pretty sure Palka would get optioned. Kopech/Hamilton would require a 40-man move, so someone would have to get waived/claimed (Skole/LaMarre most likely).
I don’t expect the real 40-man roster turnover until after the World Series.
When you’re biggest big-league trade chip is possibly a LOOGY, then it’s understandable why people might not be rushing over to talk business.
WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!!!
Nice job Rick!! Way to keep the status quo!! The fan base is just so excited that we can keep this 100+ loss team intact.
IT’S A NIGHTMARE WE’RE IN HELL!!
Pnoles
You are too young to have the Caps lock on.
Pnoles for President?
HE’S TYPING BILLS OF LADING.
There are a whole bunch of average relievers being moved. They should be able to move Cedeno and/or Avilan.
The bulk of them are rentals. Avilan and Cedeno are under team control through next season.
So what happens going forward? Are there no changes to be made to the roster after the deadline?
Everybody said “Wait til the deadline and then there will be changes”. I see Hahn making no changes to the major league roster now.
It’s been one hour.
Your guess is as good as anyone’s. I’d expect, probably Palka, to be sent to AAA and Eloy called up. Then he’ll probably be called back up in September. Or maybe Avi’s hammy acts up and it makes this easier on everyone.
I don’t know what Kopech’s inning limit is, but I’d guess around 150 this year. So that’s 50 innings or about 8 starts. The good news is the Knights only have 33 games left, so unless the Sox are hilariously trying to squeeze an extra year out of Kopech, he should get two starts in Chicago. Which is so dumb if it plays out that way.
I expect Eloy to be called up around the 10th. Kopech has to wait for 40-man moves, but I expect him in the bullpen when he is called up, just as an innings limiter.
I’ll be disappointed if Avi isn’t moved, there’s honestly no point for him to be on the Sox any more and it’d be best for everyone if he was playing for a team that is competing as he can help a few clubs out there and shouldn’t cost much.
White Sox acquire LHP Hunter Schryver from Tampa in exchange for international signing bonus pool $$.
Schryver will be assigned to Winston-Salem.
Schryver is 23, drafted in the 7th round in 2017 out of Villanova.
He’s appeared in 31 games this year across High-A & Low-A with a 2.40 ERA across 48 2/3 innings pitched.
38 H, 14 BB, 59 SO.
WE HAVE ALL OF YOUR AL EAST MILB LEFTY RELIEVERS
Well, we want them all! Search the hills and dales! Bring us ALL the LHP!!!
Archer to the Pirates. Pitching in the NL and getting to work with their coaching staff. That could be hugely beneficial for him.
Great trade for both teams. Rays got a nice haul, Pirates got 4 cheap years of a very good starter.
This is a fun one. IMO, the Sox got more for Quintana than the Rays did for Archer. Which makes sense Quintana (a year ago) > Archer (now). While control for both players was/is the same (3.5 years); Quintana was/is making $6m more over those three years.
–Eloy (then) > Meadows (now)
–I think I’d say Cease (then) > Glasnow (now)? But I might have too much 2018 bias… it’s hard to say. Glasnow is in MLB though not productive and a most likely a bullpen arm from here on out. He also has less control. So while you get someone in the majors, he lacks the upside (today) that Cease did a year ago even with injury questions and the thinking that he’d end up in the pen. At least starting was (and is) still a possibility with Cease.
Given the way the Rays use pitchers, I’m not sure I’d say Glasnow lacks upside. I’d imagine they’ll likely use him as a multi-inning guy and if he can get things ironed out, he could be super valuable in that role.
The Sox absolutely got more for Quintana. If it was 2016 still, this would’ve been a Sale-like return for Archer. That being said, I still like the return for the Rays.
Remember when I wrote that I wasn’t convinced the Pirates weren’t still trying to win now after their offseason trades? The smallest of windows and they made possibly the biggest deadline deal of anybody to go for it. Division is probably out of reach, but that wild card is there for the taking, and they’re set up with much the same roster for next season.
I know I didn’t buy into that theory before the season. And it certainly didn’t look good for them when they basically pulled a ’16 Sox redux and completely gave away all their wins as fast as they could back in May/June, but they look like nails, right now. Happy to be wrong, and more power to ’em. I’m still not sure if I like their chances in coming seasons, but I don’t really have grounds to evaluate them. I had written them off when they were losing, some of the shine had come off Colin Moran, and Meadows came up and was raking. Now they parted with Meadows to get Archer, and Pirates fans seem okay with it. I don’t know. But I’d like to see them get into the playoffs this year. I like the Pirates.
And (channeling KenWo here), I think it would be pretty awesome if San Francisco dropped out of the hunt and traded McCutchen back to the Pirates for the stretch run.
Meadows tapered off a lot after that hot start, and Glasnow’s stock has fallen dramatically in the last couple years. While Moran hasn’t been a huge get, he’s at least kinda holding down the fort and allowing Freese some rest which seems to be helping his game. If Bell can right the ship and uncork some power from his bat if/when he comes off the DL, that’s a potent lineup.
As for bringing back Cutch, well, I’m not sure he’d be a game-changer for them. Their outfield is pretty potent as-is, and he hasn’t exactly been tearing the cover off the ball this season.
Ah, Spanky…
What, you’ve never heard about his sixth grade basketball team? Bunch of crappy “character” guys.
Adam said,”There nothing wrong here that Drake couldn’t fix.”
Well, it wasn’t one until he came off the DL…
Reminds me of an old Emo Phillips joke: “My mother always says there’s a weirdo on every bus… but I can never find him.”
emo and I go away back. It’s not an act.
That was an unfortunate trade deadline for the Sox.
Meh, I don’t think the Sox have anything particularly interesting to trade at the moment.
Edit – They have plenty of interesting assets to trade that I am glad they didn’t trade.
But they didn’t clear any space. The fan base, or what’s left of it, deserves to see something new. They should not have Avilan, Cedeno and Fry on the roster, nor should they have Palka and Delmonico together. We need some fresh blood up here- and at the very least, the best hitter in the organization should be up.
I have less of an issue with the relievers, they traded the one guy that had the most value and got a decent return for him. The supply of arms out stripped demand in the end… it happens and isn’t the end of the world.
I’m not sure what the plan with Avi is. I doubt he clears waviers. So he’ll be here the rest of the year. He’s entering his 3rd arbitration, and unlikely in the teams long term plans. So he’ll have little trade value in December/January. His bat isn’t good enough to DH, and the Sox should have better outfield options by 2020, and that’s not even factoring a possible move to center for Moncada. Avi could have helped the Rockies or Dbacks (or even the Phillies).
Are you sure Avi doesn’t have a good enough bat to DH? He put up an OPS of nearly .900 last year, and he has been killing it since coming back from his early season injury.
Pre-injury (plus god awful weather): 76 PA’s with a .565 OPS
Post-injury (plus summer weather): 105 PA’s with a 1.004 OPS
*And that comes with only a .318 BABIP
I’m perfectly fine with them giving a 27 year old Avi Garcia more time. He’s not blocking anybody, and he’s finally starting to swing the bat like people expected him to since he was a prospect. Yah, I would’ve liked to trade him for a couple top prospects, but I highly doubt Hahn rejected a legitimately good offer.
Avi’s put together huge stretches like that his whole career. The problem is he then promptly disappears for a month or two on end.
Avi is a completely different hitter this year. He is more of the power hitter we expected him to be. There is no rush to get rid of him. Hopefully, he stays healthy the rest of this year.
He has never put together huge stretches like this following an entire year with an OPS pushing .900. If you think he’s still a ~.700 OPS guy, then yes, I can see why you wouldn’t buy into this stretch and want to get rid of him. If you think he made legitimate improvements to his swing and is capable of hitting similarly to how he did last year, then having stretches like this happen more frequently doesn’t seem too far fetched.
Assuming they didn’t turn down any great offers, I think they owe it to themselves to let him at least play out this year. Again, he’s still young, he’s still under cheap control, and he’s not blocking anybody. There’s absolutely no reason to ship him out just for the sake of getting rid of him.
Also, I’m not 100% positive, but I’d be willing to bet he has never had a stretch like this. He has 10 home runs in his last 105 plate appearances. That’s a pretty decent sample size, and it’d put him on pace for over 50 in a normal year. His career high is 18 in 561 plate appearances. I’m cool with seeing if his new loft-favored approach is legit.
This isn’t at all a continuation or improvement over what he did last year. 2017 he rode what was by far the highest BABIP in recorded history to a career year. Teams didn’t trade for him in the offseason partly because nobody really bought into that being sustainable. Avi then shat the bed early in the season and everybody lost interest.
What he’s doing now is completely different than anything he’s ever done before, but I’m kind of at a loss to think it’s a whole lot better. He’s completely selling out for power, which can kinda work for him given his raw power, but as stated elsewhere, his OBP has taken a nose dive and he’s become a more exploitable hitter. I’d like to think there’s some kind of happy medium, but after all this time I still have no idea what to really make of him as a player. There are always caveats to what he’s doing well, it seems.
And yes, Avi’s had incredible runs in the past. He’s gone whole months posting an OPS over 1.000, only to follow it up with a sub-.600 showing. He’s never had a power showing like this, but he’s had stretches of similar or greater overall production.
Not a whole lot better than what he’s ever done before? Seriously? He has been a sub-.700 OPS guy every time he’s played a “full” season. Even when his power eventually drops down to more realistic levels (no, I don’t think he’s a 50+ homer guy), it’ll still be a pretty significant improvement over what he has been in the past. Until he’s blocking a legitimate option, there’s no reason to move on. He’s not blocking Eloy – that duty belongs to Delmonico and Palka – and nobody else is ready for a shot at the big leagues.
I do agree that teams didn’t want to pay a hefty price for him in the offseason because they wanted him to use the first half of this year to prove that he made legitimate improvements. That being said, I don’t think the grand total of 18 games he played prior to injuring himself this year outweigh what he did last year and what he has done since coming back from injury. Not being able to play the majority of the season pre-trade deadline had a lot more to do with teams not being interested than his first 18 games of the season did. Let’s also not forget how unbelievably bad the weather was at the beginning of the year for the Sox. I’d like to think that played a pretty significant role in the early season struggles for most of our guys.
And no, Avi has not had sustained runs like this in the past. Prior to 2017, he had 1 month in his entire career with an OPS over 1.000, and that was from a whopping 50 plate appearances in August 2016. The only other months he has ever approached the kind of numbers he’s putting up now/last year in a reasonable sample size were August 2013 (.879 OPS in 83 plate appearances) and May 2015 (.852 OPS in 92 plate appearances). I’m not going to take the time to go through every game log over the last 6 years to go deeper than month-by-month, but I’d be willing to bet he’s never had a 100+ plate appearance stretch that comes even remotely close to the 1.004 OPS he has in this current stretch.
His OBP is under .300, below his usual/career average. Last year was a BABIP mirage.
Avi’s probably better off selling out for power which he might be doing this year. But a DH with a wRC+ of 115-120 and doesn’t get on base isn’t all that interesting. And I doubt Avi will age all that well on top of all this.
He’s a major leaguer, but he’s in no man’s land on this Sox team. Too good to be here, but not good enough to create much demand, and at the point in his cost control where he doesn’t make sense for the Sox down the road.
What’s wrong with Fry?
Yah, I’m not sure why Fry shouldn’t be on this team…
Think roke is saying they don’t need 3 lefties. Not that Fry sucks.
Right. Fry is fine. They have to be the only team in the league with 4 lefties in the pen.
I like all the lefties in their pen. the problem is they don’t need four of them and all are major league caliber. I’m surprised no one wanted Avilan or Cedeno.
Not having anything particularly interesting to trade is what I find unfortunate.
Pretty sure 1 prospect for Soria was not the pre-season vision of today.
It was always going to be like this… best case was Jones pitched well along with Soria. One of the two ain’t bad.
IMO-saying Hahn had pinned all his trade hopes on Jones and Soria is either a cop-out or carrying some really low expectations. Going into the season, MiGo, Rondon, Shields, Castillo, Avi, Yolmer, Leury, Nicky D, Cedeno, Avilan, Gomez, Soria and Jones all had varying probabilitites of being traded.
You just listed a bunch of bad baseball players that contending teams wouldn’t want other than, Soria, who was moved. Jones got hurt/was bad. Shields is good to eat innings but probably shouldn’t be on a playoff roster, Avi is pretty much an average player but only two maybe three teams might have any use for him, and everyone else is either a bench player or worse. The Sox didn’t have much talent to start the year, have proven this to be true, and that’s why they didn’t have many guys to trade.
We didn’t have Rondon coming into the season. Or were you referring to Jose Rondon? In which case, I don’t think anybody envisioned him as a trade asset. Nor was Castillo really a trade asset given his three year deal.
I believe he’s referring to Bruce Rondon.
Twins trade Dozier for Forsythe and two unremarkable prospects. This makes me happy.
You say that now. Let’s see how happy you are when Forsythe is posting a 1.100 OPS against White Sox pitchers.