6 Years Since Chris Sale Trade

[LittleHurtCG]

Chris Sale was traded on this day 6 years ago for Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Basabe, and Victor Diaz. The trade signaled that the Sox were tired of being "mired in mediocrity" and that a full blown rebuild had begun.  It is pretty clear that this trade was a total failure for the White Sox. Sale helped Boston win a world series in 2018. He has been hurt for the last few years and will likely never be the same stud that he once was. However, flags fly forever and Sale helped Boston accomplish its goal of being world champions. 

As for the Sox, Victor Diaz and Luis Basabe are no longer with the organization and likely out of professional baseball altogether. Moncada's career with the Sox is heading south fast. Sox fans were promised Robinson Cano junior but instead got someone more similiar to Ryan McMahon or Jonathan Schoop. The warning signs with Moncada were 100% present at the time of the trade as well. The Sox are now stuck with an overpaid dude who seems more interested in binge eating twinkies, fast cars, and making lame music videos. 

Things haven't worked out so great with Kopech either. 6 years later and the guy has only made 33 starts in a White Sox uniform. Gone are the days of the young flamethrower wowing Sox fans by throwing 105 mph in his Instagram workout videos. Sox nation thought they were getting a hard nosed Texan fireballer like Nolan Ryan or Kerry Wood. Instead they got a dude with a similiarity score way closer to Keegan Thompson. 

Let this trade be a lesson for all of White Sox nation who cheered on the tank job. Tanking with a front office lead by Rick Hahn and KW, and JR as the owner, was a terrible idea from the start and destined to fail. 6 years since the Sale trade and the Sox still haven't won a single playoff series. Complete and total failure all around. 

[Bob Sacamano]

And still mired in mediocrity.

[Dick Allen]

Still think it was a good trade, but letting the same people lead you out of a hot mess they got you in  usually isn’t a great idea. 

[Baron]

2 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

Still think it was a good trade, but letting the same people lead you out of a hot mess they got you in  usually isn’t a great idea. 

I'm positive they won't get another shot at it if this window fails. Even Jerry's patience runs out. 

[bmags]

9 minutes ago, Baron said:

I'm positive they won't get another shot at it if this window fails. Even Jerry's patience runs out. 

Naw, our best hope is Rick is too embarrassed and resigns a la paxson.

[hi8is]

The headline makes me sad.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

I was not wowed by this trade when it was made.  I thought the 3rd piece was very weak. Has worked for the RedSox given they won the WS right away, though it's been terrible recently for them. 

[NCsoxfan]

28 minutes ago, LittleHurtCG said:

Chris Sale was traded on this day 6 years ago for Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Basabe, and Victor Diaz. The trade signaled that the Sox were tired of being "mired in mediocrity" and that a full blown rebuild had begun.  It is pretty clear that this trade was a total failure for the White Sox. Sale helped Boston win a world series in 2018. He has been hurt for the last few years and will likely never be the same stud that he once was. However, flags fly forever and Sale helped Boston accomplish its goal of being world champions. 

As for the Sox, Victor Diaz and Luis Basabe are no longer with the organization and likely out of professional baseball altogether. Moncada's career with the Sox is heading south fast. Sox fans were promised Robinson Cano junior but instead got someone more similiar to Ryan McMahon or Jonathan Schoop. The warning signs with Moncada were 100% present at the time of the trade as well. The Sox are now stuck with an overpaid dude who seems more interested in binge eating twinkies, fast cars, and making lame music videos. 

Things haven't worked out so great with Kopech either. 6 years later and the guy has only made 33 starts in a White Sox uniform. Gone are the days of the young flamethrower wowing Sox fans by throwing 105 mph in his Instagram workout videos. Sox nation thought they were getting a hard nosed Texan fireballer like Nolan Ryan or Kerry Wood. Instead they got a dude with a similiarity score way closer to Keegan Thompson. 

Let this trade be a lesson for all of White Sox nation who cheered on the tank job. Tanking with a front office lead by Rick Hahn and KW, and JR as the owner, was a terrible idea from the start and destined to fail. 6 years since the Sale trade and the Sox still haven't won a single playoff series. Complete and total failure all around. 

It was still the right decision at the time. You can argue with the players we received but not the decision imo 

[Eminor3rd]

All three of the big trades were fine to me, practically everything that happened afterwards has been botched. 

[LittleHurtCG]

1 hour ago, Bob Sacamano said:

And still mired in mediocrity.

Very true. The more things change the more they stay the same I suppose. 

[LittleHurtCG]

1 hour ago, NCsoxfan said:

It was still the right decision at the time. You can argue with the players we received but not the decision imo 

Disagree. There were other options rather than tanking. Just cause the other "cool" kids at the time were tanking didn't mean that the Sox had to do the same. 

[Snopek]

7 minutes ago, LittleHurtCG said:

Disagree. There were other options rather than tanking. Just cause the other "cool" kids at the time were tanking didn't mean that the Sox had to do the same. 

Curious what you think the other options were. Like actual options that JR would have signed off on.

[The Grinder]

So now knowing the facts would we do it again? Hindsight is 20/20

[southsider2k5]

10 minutes ago, LittleHurtCG said:

Disagree. There were other options rather than tanking. Just cause the other "cool" kids at the time were tanking didn't mean that the Sox had to do the same. 

The tanking part was just fine.  The returns for the players they dealt were about as good as could be.  The problem was execution.  We didn't draft well, and we sure didn't take advantage internationally after Robert.  We also didn't take advantage of all of that savings to lock in players to our weakspots.

Besides, running around in neutral wasn't working. We had done it for years.

[Jack Parkman]

3 minutes ago, The Grinder said:

So now knowing the facts would we do it again? Hindsight is 20/20

Knowing that they were going to trade Sale for Robles, Giolito, Lopez and Dunning otherwise, I'd still take Kopech/Moncada knowing that they got 3 of them for Eaton.

Also Robles is worse than Moncada so that would have been a disaster. 

[EloyJenkins]

2 hours ago, Baron said:

I'm positive they won't get another shot at it if this window fails. Even Jerry's patience runs out. 

87 year old bodies run out soon. 

[LittleHurtCG]

4 minutes ago, Snopek said:

Curious what you think the other options were. Like actual options that JR would have signed off on.

The best option now and back in 2016 is the 2005 lighting in a bottle approach. Make a few veteran player trades ala Carlos Lee and buy some short term contracts to fill in around the edges. The Sox had Sale, Q, and Abreu to build around. Tearing it all down and trying to mimic the Astros and Cubs without bringing in a totally new front office and player development staff was destined to fail. 

[Balta1701]

7 minutes ago, Snopek said:

Curious what you think the other options were. Like actual options that JR would have signed off on.

The reality at the time wasn’t changing. They were a mid 70s win team that was maxed out on its payroll. They had no system, and they were making desperation moves like taking on James Shields for Erik Johnson and some international signing throwin to try to salvage seasons. Their key guys were injury risks and getting to the expensive portions of their contracts, so just holding them made signing help challenging. The only realistic path forward was to have a team that got progressively weaker each of the next 3 seasons until Sale and Eaton hit free agency. They would have been in 3rd or 4th place every year until 2019 when they would have been competing with the Royals and Tigers for 5th.

[LittleHurtCG]

6 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

The tanking part was just fine.  The returns for the players they dealt were about as good as could be.  The problem was execution.  We didn't draft well, and we sure didn't take advantage internationally after Robert.  We also didn't take advantage of all of that savings to lock in players to our weakspots.

Besides, running around in neutral wasn't working. We had done it for years.

Disagree on the tanking part. 6 years later and no playoff victories is not fine. There were other ways. They are back to running around in nuetral. Will there be another tank job thread this time next year when there are rumblings about dealing guys like Cease, TA, and Eloy? 

[4uckOffCommieScum]

I thought the trades set them up to succeed well enough, they simply failed to execute from there

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, LittleHurtCG said:

The best option now and back in 2016 is the 2005 lighting in a bottle approach. Make a few veteran player trades ala Carlos Lee and buy some short term contracts to fill in around the edges. The Sox had Sale, Q, and Abreu to build around. Tearing it all down and trying to mimic the Astros and Cubs without bringing in a totally new front office and player development staff was destined to fail. 

That was literally 100% what they did in 2015 and 2016.

Veteran trades - Samardzija, Frazier, Shields. 

Short term contracts to fill around the edges: Bonifacio, Cabreroids, Beckham, Lawrie, LaRoche, Rollins, Jackson, Latos, Avila and whoever else they had catching in 2016.

That strategy stank. Frankly it made things way worse.

[Balta1701]

Just now, LittleHurtCG said:

Disagree on the tanking part. 6 years later and no playoff victories is not fine. There were other ways. They are back to running around in nuetral. Will there be another tank job thread this time next year when there are rumblings about dealing guys like Cease, TA, and Eloy? 

Yes. Because they left the same GM in place.

[LittleHurtCG]

14 minutes ago, The Grinder said:

So now knowing the facts would we do it again? Hindsight is 20/20

Hell no. Wanted nothing to do with a tank job in the first place. Tanked a whole freaking season for Nick Madrigal. Is it still too early to call that pick a massive bust? 

[southsider2k5]

1 minute ago, LittleHurtCG said:

Disagree on the tanking part. 6 years later and no playoff victories is not fine. There were other ways. They are back to running around in nuetral. Will there be another tank job thread this time next year when there are rumblings about dealing guys like Cease, TA, and Eloy? 

How can you look at what we were doing then and think that WAS the answer?  We did get 2 playoff appearances, which was more than we had seen since 2008.

 

[Dick Allen]

9 minutes ago, southsider2k5 said:

The tanking part was just fine.  The returns for the players they dealt were about as good as could be.  The problem was execution.  We didn't draft well, and we sure didn't take advantage internationally after Robert.  We also didn't take advantage of all of that savings to lock in players to our weakspots.

Besides, running around in neutral wasn't working. We had done it for years.

I looked back at White Sox 2nd round picks. It is amazing. In the last 52 years, their best pick by career WAR is Bob Wickman at 16,9. Second is Jeff Weaver at 15.2. He didn’t sign. Third is Ryan Sweeney at a little over 6.  Fourth is Trace Thompson a little over 3. Fifth is Jeremy Reed. Slightly over 2. The last 3 acumilated most of it with other teams.
 

in the last 52 years, the White Sox 2nd round pick who put up the most WAR in a White Sox uniform is Jake Petricka. Below 2 for his career.