Trade deadline offers no opportunities for White Sox, who could use them
The White Sox indeed found a taker for one of their right-handed relievers boasting a history of high-leverage work at the trade deadline on Wednesday. It just wasn’t the one everybody expected.
Alex Colomé remains a White Sox. Instead, the Sox sent Nate Jones — or more specifically his financial obligations — to the Texas Rangers, along with $1 million in international bonus money. The White Sox received low-minors righties Joe Jarneski and Ray Castro.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan says Texas is on the hook for the $2.75 million owed to Jones, but considering how the Rangers plan to use the bonus money, they’re still probably coming out ahead
“Why couldn’t the White Sox use their own international money toward Lora?” is the logical question, but the answer probably isn’t nearly as straightforward. Given that relationships and agreements start with players as young as 12 or 13, I’d venture to guess that Lora isn’t hanging out there waiting for a latecomer. He’s probably waiting for the Rangers to get the money somehow and only that.
Offloading Jones’ contract for two pitchers — one of them 19 and stateside — would be a neat trick if the White Sox actually needed financial relief, or had proven a willingness to use such flexibility. Alas, this is the White Sox’ third consecutive season carrying a payroll under $100M, so they’re not hard-up for all resources. You can basically apply the money saved to Colome’s coming arbitration raise and think no more of it.
Likewise, keeping Colomé is not a gut punch in isolation. His dud on Wednesday lacked timing from the White Sox’ perspective, but it showed why teams might not be all that inclined to offer something compelling for a guy who doesn’t miss bats like other closers with his save conversion rate (21-for-22). The White Sox will likely need a reliever like him in 2020 — more so than the equivalent of Kodi Medeiros — and it’s one fewer player they have to fight other teams for during the winter. His presence is more or less fine.
Alas, a gloom hung over the proceedings on Wednesday, and not just because the White Sox were 4-14 in the second half before the deadline, and 4-15 after it. The shape of the deadline itself highlighted a couple of fault lines running underneath this portion of the rebuild.
One question is whether Colomé’s continued existence on the White Sox roster is reflective of Rick Hahn’s market-reading abilities. On more than one occasion, James Fegan said the White Sox acquired Colomé in part due to flippability, which he reiterated in his post-deadline piece:
Part of [the trade’s value assessment] was rooted in the belief that Colomé’s value — assuming the typical midseason run on quality relievers rather than the juiced ball turning Narváez into a 25-home run threat — would be a stronger asset going forward.
Omar Narváez’s season fits within his history when accounting for the conditions. He’s flipped last year’s homers and doubles columns while returning to his 2017 brand of below-average defense, as opposed to 2018’s abominable work. The White Sox could use that kind of player. They could, can and are using Colomé, so that itself is not the problem.* It’s just not helping them gain ground in overall talent. Much like getting a 2-3 WAR version of Todd Frazier instead of the near-star he was in Cincinnati, Colomé continues the White Sox’ tradition of working up a sweat while acquiring market-rate players.
(*This assumes Colomé doesn’t spend the rest of the season regressing into mediocrity. Admittedly, it’s not a fun second-half story line to follow.)
And when the Houston Astros pulled the deadline’s landmark deal by acquiring Zack Greinke for four prospects, it reminded me how much the White Sox could be hampered over the next six months by the mudslide in their farm system. The players on the highest ground stand safe and proud, but the prospects after the top five have all dissolved into an indistinguishable mess. That second tier of prospects was supposed to help the White Sox land help like Greinke, who instead figures to make it easier for Houston to watch Gerrit Cole leave after the season.
Arizona received from Houston Seth Beer, J.B. Bukaukas and Corbin Martin. They conveniently ranked third, fourth and fifth on Houston’s top 30 prospect list according to MLB Pipeline. The White Sox’ top five prospects are all better than Beer, but they’re all necessary to the rebuild’s internal components. Meanwhile, nobody outside their top five can hold a candle to Martin, the third player out of four in the prospect package.
The Sox have lost the depth from which to deal, and until that middle class of the farm system is restored, they’re going to have to proceed carefully with the assets they do have. The Narvaez-Colomé trade, which registers as a relative success compared to other recent deals, shows just how hard it is for the White Sox to take a step forward in one area without taking at least one step back in another.
Sox enter the year with Castillo, Jay, Alonso, McCann, Herrera, Colome, Nova and Santana. They exit the trade deadline with expiring contracts, regression candidates and fewer J2 bonus dollars.
Hope the Sox PR machine makes good use of the 3 extra wins they’ll get this year.
Steve Stone would remind you that sometimes building a home involves taking risks – like cheaping out on materials. Sometimes those cheaply-assembled house frames collapse during construction and have to be rebuilt with new cheap materials. This process takes 5 (or 6, or 7, or 8…) years. Just enjoy it!
I guess yesterday was their lunch break. And Someone’s mom made a casserole.
Question about the international bonus money: are the White Sox actually giving the Rangers $1m, but that $1m is earmarked for international signings? Or are the White Sox not giving them any actual money, but just some of the pool of $ they would hypothetically be allowed to spend on international prospects without incurring a penalty?
I believe it’s the latter. I’m still looking up to find the exact source.
Yes, it’s just the pool. Teams can trade up to 60% of their International Signing pool.
http://m.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/international-amateur-free-agency-bonus-pool-money
Learned yesterday from Liljimmy that they do not give them money, the Rangers just have the opportunity to spend $1m more.
Narvaez-for-Colome looks like it’s gonna be a pretty bad one. FWIW, DRC+ doesn’t “believe” in Narvaez’ stats, probably because of the homers/doubles flip that Jim mentioned, but man, to give away four years of a usable hitter for two years of a good-not-elite reliever and punt the first year of those two is really something. I don’t know how Hahn can look at the pile of shit he’s received in exchange for his relief pitchers and cite “flippability” as a selling point for Colome.
And the move still looks bad even with McCann replacing Narvaez’s production.
I haven’t looked at Narvaez’s stats for the past 2 months until he was mentioned here. Oh my. I’m trying to find a silver lining- maybe Narvaez will push Seattle past the Sox record wise by the end of season. That 2020 draft pick will be so so important (we will be hearing that line from the organization) to this infinite rebuild. ?
Think about how much different this season looks if they move Narvaez to DH/third catcher and still sign McCann. Would take them a while to sort out their closer situation, but the offense would have been a helluva lot prettier.
They never would have moved Narvaez to third and if they kept him, they wouldn’t have signed McCann.
Yes, a McCann/Narvaez partnership would be pretty great! But it also would never have happened.
I don’t think we need hindsight. It was a bad deal at the time. Catchers who can hit are good no matter what their framing numbers are. Sure it limits them, but it’s a good problem to have.
#MiredInMediocrity
We aspire to mediocrity.
Greinke is 1 thing, @Jim Margalus, but the Astros also sent Derek Fisher for Aaron Sanchez in a sell-low/buy-low move that shouldn’t have been hampered by the state of the Sox farm.
It’s damning that the Sox can’t even find those opportunities.
I hope that’s a sign the Sox realize 2020 is not the year to go all in.
Give our struggling prospects until next July to build some value.
That’s my polished turd take on it.
You and your wait a year hobby horse.
In what way would acquiring Sanchez for say Rutherford at all be like going “all in”?
That move alone wouldn’t be. But selling low on prospects, a finite resource, to acquire a guy who is a FA after next year doesn’t do a lot for an extended run of success. Which, I thought, was the goal.
I apologize if my wait a year record is skipping. I’ll be more cognizant of that.
Time is also a finite resource. And it’s more precious than the plethora of 4th and 5th outfielders who probably aren’t going to become first division starters just because they’re with the Sox for 12 more months.
The problem is that the Astros are in a position to part with a guy like Fisher, an outfielder trying to break past a AAAA label, because they have plenty of other options both for now and later. If the White Sox had a guy like Fisher he’d be getting thrown out there like Tilson and Cordell in the hope that he can somehow stick, and he’s probably better than either of those guys.
The Sox are also loaded with guys who aren’t major league outfielders. That’s not a scarce resource. And certainly not one to be hoarded.
This. The utter lack of creativity makes me think that Rick hangs out with GarPax most days.
Let’s face it, the Sox are going to have to spend in free agency to get difference makers. Their farm system after the top 5 (who are all necessary pieces and shouldn’t be moved) won’t fetch anyone good. Now, how many of you think the Sox will spend big in free agency this winter? Not me.
Not me.
I’m more afraid they’ll spend big on middling free agents like Jose Abreu.
Yep, I see a 2-year $30M deal for Abreu, with a 3rd year option. Nobody else would give him more than 1/$8M, if that.
This will be an interesting storyline. I suspect some of Abreu’s vocal desire to stay with the Sox comes from knowing that his market is limited. He would like to be Konerko’d into a better deal with the Sox.
Hope not.
One thing the deadline showed is that signing elite free agents – even overpaying for them – does not hamstring you that much. Unless the player is an absolute bust like Chris Davis, you can move the player and purchase multiple good prospects by eating some of the contract. You can’t do that with middling free agents, you get one at best which makes it more of a gamble.
If the elite guys want tons of years, then front-load the contracts so that the later years of reduced production are at a reasonable cost and still moveable. For example, offer Cole 7 years: 38/36/34/32/28/24/16 with the intent of shopping him after 4 years if not contending (give him a limited no-trade clause) and eating 30M or more to buy a few A-grade prospects from the contender that is interested.
Cole is represented by Boras. He isn’t coming to the White Sox. No conceivable way with Jerry as owner. We got to get that idea out of heads. I want Cole here but I already explained to my 11 year old why it’s not happening. The kid was already disappointed by the Machado affair. He doesn’t need to be subject to anymore White Sox delusions by his middle age homer father.
The best we can hope for is Ozorizzi, Gibson or Wheeler. But hey, Ivan Nova will be a free agent!! Rick’s probably got his sights on extending him.
Odorizzi et al all have more years under 2 WAR than above it. The epitome of “middling free agents”.
You’re right. I’m just preparing myself for what the Sox will do this winter. Though I don’t think they’ll even go as high as those 3. They’ll probably sign someone like Nova or Cahill and think they did a great job.
This is where WAR and resume leave something to be desired, @zerobs.
Wheeler’s got a checkered resume because of injury. That’s one particular kind of risk.
Gibson and Odorizzi, like Giolito, are progressive player development stories. The question with them is how to weight the changes they made over the last couple seasons compared to the overall resume. Gibson’s probably a better fit because he’s got a much better groundball rate without sacrificing Ks.
I’ll keep an eye on Gibson then.
I know he’s not coming, it was just for illustrative purposes.
Cordell replaces Moncada’s spot on the roster. WHY?????
Because the White Sox FO sucks.
I guess they like Goins.
They’d rather evaluate Goins than Mendick.
Idiots. Bob Pulford-level stupidity.
While I understand the wish to have a promising young player to dream on over Goins, Mendick is hardly banging down the door. His overall offense is pretty good in AAA (.813 OPS for the year), but he’s got a serious home/away split bolstering his numbers. His OPS for the year away from Charlotte is just .721. I don’t mean to seem pessimistic on Mendick, but I’d be shocked if he can prove to be more than another Yolmer or Saladino. Those guys are important depth, but I’ve got far bigger concerns in the rebuild than if Goins is up over Mendick.
Cordell over Mendick for a roster spot, however, is just odd. Cordell hasn’t shown any signs of life. At least Goins crushed it all year (home and away) in AAA and you could argue he’s earned the playing time – even if he’s not a prospect long-term.
Goins is worth looking at. If the Sox want to compete next yr, he would be a veteran and LH batter on the bench
if there is room for Goins on the starting 25 man next year, I might slit my wrists.
Not to seem too pessimistic, but I have a hunch that barring a ton of offseason moves this roster will still have room for a Ryan Goins coming off the bench next year. Honestly, having Goins as a veteran utility infielder coming off our bench is pretty low on the list of things would bother me about this rebuild.
Goins does bother me at all.
He’s a symptom of what’s wrong, not the answer to what’s right.
It certainly has me hoping Rocky Wirtz will take over another team soon.
Wirtz family certainly has the money to do so & the real estate development capability to put a new mlb stadium near the United Center post 2028. Hell better connected politically in IL (because of the liquor business) than JR has ever been.
It’s cute that everyone thinks Mendick won’t be the infield version of Charlie Tillson.
I feel like I’m beating a dead horse but this highlights, yet again, what a complete unmitigated disaster the off-season was. Part of the logic in signing someone like Machado or Harper, aside from the production and star power, was that it improves the depth or your minor league system. If you’ve got RF and LF locked down for the next 7-8 years with Jiménez and Harper (Potentially CF with Robert) you can trade someone like Gonzalez, Rutherford, Walker to fill a whole somewhere else. Instead they have to hold onto those guys to potentially fill holes, while they hit the AA wall and destroy their value.
By relying on only prospects to fill long term holes they’re falling into the same problem they had before where they have some stars and no depth. I see this playing out now in two ways. The best case scenario at this point seems to be getting 1-2 competitive years before Giolito and Moncada are free agents, and the worst case is they fall into a perpetual rebuild ala the Bulls because they can never line up enough prospects to open a competitive window.
Does anyone really expect them to sign Cole this winter? Does anyone really expect Hahn to suddenly be able piece a complete roster together? The aggressive off-season that Hahn is talking about is more of Keppinger, LaRoche, Alonso, Colomé etc.
The Sox motto for 2020: We’re aggressively mediocre!!!
Again, Rick Hahn already coined the motto: #MiredInMediocrity.
Hahn effed that up because the Sox under Hahn haven’t ever been mediocre.
It’s unbelievable to me that they wasted an entire offseason knowing they wouldn’t pay Machado what he was asking for, yet still proceeded throughout the offseason as if they were going to sign him… the level of incompetence is staggering.
When will this misery end?
How is it possible that in Year 3 of being in full tank mode we lack true prospect depth while also having one of the worst run differentials in the majors? Replace the entire front office now!!
This might be the worst organization in professional sports. We haven’t had a winning season in seven years, and we haven’t made the playoffs since 2008. How many other organizations have that type of pathetic combination? Maybe the Cleveland Browns, but now they’re seen as definite playoff contenders. In other words, they’re making clear progress. We are not.
Are we actually better off now than we were at, say, midseason 2016? At least then we had a few years left of team control for Sale, Quintana, Eaton, etc., and there was reason to believe it was going to take a few key free-agent signings to get us to be a playoff contender. We didn’t want to go that route then, but isn’t that where we’re at right now?
At the very least, other team owners don’t settle for ongoing failure. That’s what makes the White Sox so special. The Browns keep firing coaches and FO staff (perhaps too often), hoping to magically find a formula for success. With Reinsdorf, he doesn’t mind the losing as long it’s done cheaply. He knows Kenny and Rick won’t spend too much of his money which is his top priority. He’s not against winning – just against spending to achieve it.
Thus we’re left hoping that our player drafting and development can resemble small market teams that are actually competitive. If you want to be a small market team, fine. Then go get the people that can actually bring the smarts of Oakland or Tampa to our team.
You can’t really compete if your ownership/front office is both cheap and stupid. We have the best of both worlds.
To paraphrase Dean Wormer, “Cheap and stupid is no way to go through life, son.”
I’d be okay not spending 30 mil a year on Cole if we poached the entire Tampa Bay FO instead….
It’s going to be hard to pry Cole away from the Stros after they win the Series again. Still the Sox’s path to contention is clear — a corner outfielder and front line starter.
The professional progress of Fulmer, Collins, and Burger have not helped the 2nd tier of Sox prospects – relatively high 1st round picks that are ?? MLB players.
All the more reason the Hostetler promotion is mind boggling.
A J Reed send him down today. One of the best organizations in baseball saw enough. This cruddy FO is going to mine gold from a former high draft pick who bluntly is an out of shape slow bat bust. ? Someone else can rant about Costillo still being in this organization.
The only good thing I can think of is that there should be a bloodbath of cuts from the 40-man once the World series is over. 12 no-brainer cuts and a few near-no-brainer cuts. There’s only about 6 clear additions talent-wise, and maybe a couple of rule V protection additions. Even with arb cases like McCann and Colome, payroll will be under 60 million (I wouldn’t bother tendering Yolmer) and there will plenty of roster room. A competent front office would salivate over all that payroll and roster room and Robert + Madrigal nearly ready.
3 years into a rebuild and the 40 man roster will have 5 open slots. Gross. This should be the point where we’re agonizing over the guys we’re going to have to let walk, not talking about the guys we can’t wait to let walk.
I’m here to provide some sunshine to your day. Would you rather be (A) a Yankee fan and watch that Dumb ass GM hold onto every prospect for years while the core loses a chance for a series; (B) A Dodger fan who watches the team consistently make the playoffs while refusing to give up prospects or (C) a White Sox fan, content in the knowledge that the House that Rick Built is a house of cards that will be blown away?
I would not be happy if I were a Yankee fan right now. That starting pitchiing is atrocious. But they still have all of their prospects who are blocked at the major league level.
If I was a Yankees fan, that would mean I could not hate the Yankees. That’s one of my most favorite things about baseball!
If you were a Yankee fan I’d have to hate you.
This premise is bunk.
A) Years? Did they not trade for Stanton, Frazier, Robertson, Britton, Happ, and Lynn?
B) The Dodgers didn’t trade for Darvish and Machado over the last 2 seasons?
Are you seriously asking if we’d rather be fans of one of two teams that have each been to the postseason seven times since our last playoff appearance and have three World Series appearances between them in that time, including one win? The teams currently winning their divisions by 7.5 and 15 games? The teams running payrolls over $200 million?
Yes, I would absolutely trade for their problems any day.