You're Hahn, who are you looking to trade first?

[LittleHurt05]

That's surface-level, factual information, but it's useless for any type of decision-making. If you could tell me WHY he was a bust and how you could have known, then it's useful. Otherwise, it's random happenstance. You make a deal for prospects that have a good chance to succeed and a good chance to fail because you HAVE to. It's the only way to acquire affordable talent. You take a risk. Just because Hosmer busted doesn't mean it was LIKELY he'd bust. People thought he was among the safest prospects around. Even if you have an 80% chance to win, you're going to lose 20% of the time.

 

You can cherry-pick busts all you want, but for every horrible trade there's a great one too. The Indians traded Bartolo Colon for Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, and Grady Sizemore. They all had a chance to bust or hit, and it turned out that they all hit. You don't evaluate their decision to trade an aging star player for three lottery tickets based on whether or not the lottery tickets hit. If I buy a f***ing scratch off ticket today and win $50,000, that doesn't make me a financial genius. Judge me on the fact I decided to spend a dollar on a 1 in a million chance to win more.

 

There is a reason why certain teams have more success with prospects than others. It's not blind luck that so many young Royals suck at baseball, while St. Louis can call up anybody from the minors and he seems to produce immediately.

[LittleHurt05]

No. Please read everything I've said. If you can use hindsight to find reliable predictors of future events, you are finding something worthwhile. But if you can deduce nothing, you have no choice but to consider the events to have occurred randomly or by something undetectable. Example: If no one can tell you why Adam Dunn sucks, it's not fair to fault someone for not predicting that Adam Dunn sucks when he didn't suck before.

 

Then how can you hold the FO responsble? If it's random luck that he sucked, it's not their fault.

[Balta1701]

That's surface-level, factual information, but it's useless for any type of decision-making. If you could tell me WHY he was a bust and how you could have known, then it's useful. Otherwise, it's random happenstance. You make a deal for prospects that have a good chance to succeed and a good chance to fail because you HAVE to. It's the only way to acquire affordable talent. You take a risk. Just because Hosmer busted doesn't mean it was LIKELY he'd bust. People thought he was among the safest prospects around. Even if you have an 80% chance to win, you're going to lose 20% of the time.

 

You can cherry-pick busts all you want, but for every horrible trade there's a great one too. The Indians traded Bartolo Colon for Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, and Grady Sizemore. They all had a chance to bust or hit, and it turned out that they all hit. You don't evaluate their decision to trade an aging star player for three lottery tickets based on whether or not the lottery tickets hit. If I buy a f***ing scratch off ticket today and win $50,000, that doesn't make me a financial genius. Judge me on the fact I decided to spend a dollar on a 1 in a million chance to win more.

The problem here is the type of trade we're talking about.

 

When Colon was traded to Montreal, he was a few months from free agency. He was a guy the Indians had to choose between keeping and trying to compete or losing at the end of the year. They were 10 games under .500 or so and were looking at losing the guy soon. That's comparable to a guy like Crain, Thornton, maybe Peavy on this roster...guys who are close to free agency. In that case, the bust rate compares to the virtual certainty of losing those guys for nothing. If you trade crain for a guy who never makes the big leagues, that's a scouting fail, but at least you got something for him.

 

When we talk about Chris Sale on the other hand, he's a guy locked up for the next half a decade. There is nothing forcing us to trade Chris Sale, the only reason we should trade Chris Sale is if there's a high probability it would make the team better in the long run. If you trade Sale for 4 prospects, 2 of whom become average major leaguers and 2 of whom bust, you've cost the team an ace for a couple average major leaguers. In that case, the bust rate needs to be compared with the benefit of having a guy who can be the ace of the staff for the next 5 1/2 seasons.

[witesoxfan]

Worth mentioning, though all of those guys hit, they did not hit for Cleveland, so really that trade should be evaluated as Sizemore and Lee for Colon. Phillips was the main piece in that deal, and he was a monstrosity of a bust for Cleveland before figuring it out in Cincinnati.

 

That's a goofy trade to evaluate and a good look-in to see a trade that really worked out well for a team but never at the right time, which is a problem of rebuilding. Sizemore was great for a couple years and has since fizzled and become a shell of his former self. Lee was decent, really bad, and then really good. Phillips never made it in Cleveland but did later on.

[Eminor3rd]

There is a reason why certain teams have more success with prospects than others. It's not blind luck that so many young Royals suck at baseball, while St. Louis can call up anybody from the minors and he seems to produce immediately.

 

Then how can you hold the FO responsble? If it's random luck that he sucked, it's not their fault.

 

Three times now I've said that if you can learn something to help your talent evaluation, hindsight makes sense. If you believe that the White Sox are bad at evaluating talent or bad at developing talent, we're having a separate discussion. That IS a factor. However, randomness is certainly also a big factor, evidenced by how often players bust for every team.

 

People in this thread have NOT been saying we shouldn't trade for prospects because the Sox suck at prospects, they've been saying we shouldn't trade for prospects because they seem to bust too often. These are very different things.

[Eminor3rd]

The problem here is the type of trade we're talking about.

 

When Colon was traded to Montreal, he was a few months from free agency. He was a guy the Indians had to choose between keeping and trying to compete or losing at the end of the year. They were 10 games under .500 or so and were looking at losing the guy soon. That's comparable to a guy like Crain, Thornton, maybe Peavy on this roster...guys who are close to free agency. In that case, the bust rate compares to the virtual certainty of losing those guys for nothing. If you trade crain for a guy who never makes the big leagues, that's a scouting fail, but at least you got something for him.

 

When we talk about Chris Sale on the other hand, he's a guy locked up for the next half a decade. There is nothing forcing us to trade Chris Sale, the only reason we should trade Chris Sale is if there's a high probability it would make the team better in the long run. If you trade Sale for 4 prospects, 2 of whom become average major leaguers and 2 of whom bust, you've cost the team an ace for a couple average major leaguers. In that case, the bust rate needs to be compared with the benefit of having a guy who can be the ace of the staff for the next 5 1/2 seasons.

 

Certainly. I don't advocate trading Chris Sale at all. I just wanted to point out that it's useless to expect FO to use information from the future to evaluate the present.

[Donny Lucy's Avocado Farm]

In regards to trading De Aza, what can the Sox expect back? Can we look at the Ben Revere and Denard Span trades as good comps?

 

full-time average season WAR:

Ben Revere: 1.1

Denard Span: 2.9

De Aza: 1.4

 

Minnesota sold high on Span, as he was coming off of his best season, in regards to his "WAR".

 

Although, playing full-time for a whole season now for a few years, De Aza is actaually more valuable than I think we give him credit for...

 

[southsider2k5]

Three times now I've said that if you can learn something to help your talent evaluation, hindsight makes sense. If you believe that the White Sox are bad at evaluating talent or bad at developing talent, we're having a separate discussion. That IS a factor. However, randomness is certainly also a big factor, evidenced by how often players bust for every team.

 

People in this thread have NOT been saying we shouldn't trade for prospects because the Sox suck at prospects, they've been saying we shouldn't trade for prospects because they seem to bust too often. These are very different things.

 

You are missing the obvious thing that even though something is a pretty clear pattern, you may have no idea why.

[Balta1701]

Certainly. I don't advocate trading Chris Sale at all. I just wanted to point out that it's useless to expect FO to use information from the future to evaluate the present.

But what the front office needs to do when making these decisions is evaluate the possible downside risk. That's what drives us crazy, people name prospect after prospect, even people who aren't drafted, and salivate over them like they're Bryce Harper. People want the team to lose coming into seasons so that they can draft people, and the day after the draft they say "boy look how great the system of team Cubs is these days, they're going to be unstoppable".

 

Everything in baseball tells us the exact opposite; we don't ever want to be in the boat of trading people away wholesale for prospects because the bust rate means there's a 3/4 chance we're going to lose that deal, maybe worse. Trading away a guy we don't need to trade away, like Sale, has to take that bust rate into account. Even if you list the 5 great Cardinals prospects, I sit here and think "ok, the odds are that 2 of them won't make the bigs, 2 of them won't develop as promised, and maybe we get 1 really good player out of that". For me, that's unacceptable.

 

This is the reason you don't want to have to rebuild like this. It's terrible. It's the person working for minimum wage at McDonalds blowing their rent money on lottery tickets. We're in a position right now where we have left ourselves no choice because of how crappy the team is playing right now. Fine, I can deal with those moves, but every time people salivate over prospect list x from team y, they do so while pretending Eric Hosmer never happened.

[Eminor3rd]

You are missing the obvious thing that even though something is a pretty clear pattern, you may have no idea why.

 

No, I'm not. I said that in a different post, I think. My point is that if you don't know something, you can't use it to make a decision, so it's useless to consider it a factor. Whether it is random or not, it ACTS as randomness. Again, two separate points are being made here: (1) if FO CAN know more about futures but doesn't, FO is incompetent and should be fired, (2) if randomness in the outcome is unavoidable, a decision can only be judged based on the information available at the time. That doesn't mean it isn't the FO's responsibility -- they made a decision that had a chance of going either way. To say they are accountable is different than to say their decision was a bad one.

 

If I lose a bet that I have a 99% chance to win, did I make a bad decision taking the bet? No, it was a good bet, I just got beat on it, and I have to deal with the consequences.

[Eminor3rd]

But what the front office needs to do when making these decisions is evaluate the possible downside risk. That's what drives us crazy, people name prospect after prospect, even people who aren't drafted, and salivate over them like they're Bryce Harper. People want the team to lose coming into seasons so that they can draft people, and the day after the draft they say "boy look how great the system of team Cubs is these days, they're going to be unstoppable".

 

Everything in baseball tells us the exact opposite; we don't ever want to be in the boat of trading people away wholesale for prospects because the bust rate means there's a 3/4 chance we're going to lose that deal, maybe worse. Trading away a guy we don't need to trade away, like Sale, has to take that bust rate into account. Even if you list the 5 great Cardinals prospects, I sit here and think "ok, the odds are that 2 of them won't make the bigs, 2 of them won't develop as promised, and maybe we get 1 really good player out of that". For me, that's unacceptable.

 

This is the reason you don't want to have to rebuild like this. It's terrible. It's the person working for minimum wage at McDonalds blowing their rent money on lottery tickets. We're in a position right now where we have left ourselves no choice because of how crappy the team is playing right now. Fine, I can deal with those moves, but every time people salivate over prospect list x from team y, they do so while pretending Eric Hosmer never happened.

 

I agree with you. When you compare rebuilding to winning, no one wants to rebuild. But that's not the situation we have here. We have to compare rebuilding to losing, because we have a losing team with not nearly enough upside to expect substantial improvement.

 

IMO, if you are arguing against rebuilding this current team, you are arguing that there is a quicker path to contention, meaning that our current players will play substantially better in the future. Do you think this team can win next year if we don't trade anyone? Are we a free agent signing or two away? I just don't see it.

 

It's not fun, but it's the only way.

[Balta1701]

I agree with you. When you compare rebuilding to winning, no one wants to rebuild. But that's not the situation we have here. We have to compare rebuilding to losing, because we have a losing team with not nearly enough upside to expect substantial improvement.

 

IMO, if you are arguing against rebuilding this current team, you are arguing that there is a quicker path to contention, meaning that our current players will play substantially better in the future. Do you think this team can win next year if we don't trade anyone? Are we a free agent signing or two away? I just don't see it.

 

It's not fun, but it's the only way.

I think we're at a point where we have to trade some of these guys. Obviously Crain and Thornton must be moved, they're free agents at the end of the year assuming Matt's option isn't picked up, so the Sox can weigh the prospect received for them against "absolutely nothing". IMO, the fact that the Sox are sitting on six starters (successful alliteration) suggests that they should seriously think of selling someone like Peavy as well, as although he's not a FA at the end of this year, if they move any of their starters to the bullpen they will lose some value on that starter, which counts as an additional negative if no move is made.

 

A guy like De Aza, Rios, Ramirez, guys we have no replacement for...those are the guys you need to really take into account the bust rate. You might get a guy back that the whole website really likes and then be screwed because he needs longer than Hosmer/Viciedo to develop, if he ever does.

[Eminor3rd]

I think we're at a point where we have to trade some of these guys. Obviously Crain and Thornton must be moved, they're free agents at the end of the year assuming Matt's option isn't picked up, so the Sox can weigh the prospect received for them against "absolutely nothing". IMO, the fact that the Sox are sitting on six starters (successful alliteration) suggests that they should seriously think of selling someone like Peavy as well, as although he's not a FA at the end of this year, if they move any of their starters to the bullpen they will lose some value on that starter, which counts as an additional negative if no move is made.

 

A guy like De Aza, Rios, Ramirez, guys we have no replacement for...those are the guys you need to really take into account the bust rate. You might get a guy back that the whole website really likes and then be screwed because he needs longer than Hosmer/Viciedo to develop, if he ever does.

 

I agree with most of this. However, I think you have to consider window of contention. It doesn't look like there's anyway 2014 will be good for us, so if a guy is going to be gone or less useful by 2015, I'd move him now while his value is high.

 

I think Rios should go. His value won't ever be higher and all of our high-ish upside close-to-the-majors reinforcements are OF. If we're going to win 2015 and later, our homegrown talent will have to develop regardless, and that's where we're positioned to have it develop the most. If all those guys bust, we weren't going to pull it off anyway. Alexei is harder to replace unless you really believe in Sanchez.

[witesoxfan]

De Aza is a retread and a butcher on the field. While his stats are even/arguable to those two, I don't see his worth in a trade equating to the two. That's just me though.

 

Span is a legit CFer. He's having a tough year at the plate but he is something else in CF.

 

I think you can get a pretty good prospect for De Aza for sure. He's better in a corner but he can play a passable CF. And, frankly, there's no reason he shouldn't be traded.

[Balta1701]

I think you can get a pretty good prospect for De Aza for sure. He's better in a corner but he can play a passable CF. And, frankly, there's no reason he shouldn't be traded.

I can give several. He's under team control for a couple more years (although arb years), the Sox have no one anywhere close to ready to take over CF next year, he started out the year poorly so its plausible he could improve his numbers and value significantly by the time the offseason rolls around if a team does want to trade for him, and if someone actually gets on him and coaches him on how to stay focused, particularly working on defensive drills, that could also improve him significantly.

 

Again, I won't say no if he's traded for a reasonable return, but there's plenty of reason to hold on him and wait for someone to meet the price.

[ShandyMan]

I can give several. He's under team control for a couple more years (although arb years), the Sox have no one anywhere close to ready to take over CF next year, he started out the year poorly so its plausible he could improve his numbers and value significantly by the time the offseason rolls around if a team does want to trade for him, and if someone actually gets on him and coaches him on how to stay focused, particularly working on defensive drills, that could also improve him significantly.

 

Again, I won't say no if he's traded for a reasonable return, but there's plenty of reason to hold on him and wait for someone to meet the price.

 

If we decide to completely rebuild and forfeit contending next year, Trayce could be in CF if he continues to hit and bring up his average.

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

I think we're at a point where we have to trade some of these guys. Obviously Crain and Thornton must be moved, they're free agents at the end of the year assuming Matt's option isn't picked up, so the Sox can weigh the prospect received for them against "absolutely nothing". IMO, the fact that the Sox are sitting on six starters (successful alliteration) suggests that they should seriously think of selling someone like Peavy as well, as although he's not a FA at the end of this year, if they move any of their starters to the bullpen they will lose some value on that starter, which counts as an additional negative if no move is made.

 

A guy like De Aza, Rios, Ramirez, guys we have no replacement for...those are the guys you need to really take into account the bust rate. You might get a guy back that the whole website really likes and then be screwed because he needs longer than Hosmer/Viciedo to develop, if he ever does.

Agreed which is why I have been advocating Sending Peavy/Rios and getting Leonys Martin ( and others) from the Rangers. But Cruz has to be suspended 1st and Peavy pitch well post injury for that to have a chance to play out.

[Balta1701]

If we decide to completely rebuild and forfeit contending next year, Trayce could be in CF if he continues to hit and bring up his average.

IMO, there is zero reason to do this. The Sox have a ton of money coming off the books this offseason and a loaded pitching staff even if Peavy is dealt including a legit #1 starter.

 

They need help to get there. They have hard decisions to make, but they can be competitive next year.

 

And really, Trayce is still young, still raw, and I'm going to be furious when they call him up to AAA in a couple weeks. I think the team needs to be patient with him, let him have a full year in AA, then start next year in AAA and either earn a callup or come up if someone gets hurt.

 

If Rios isn't dealt, there will be a need for an OF after 2014. Maybe more than 1, depending on De Aza's arb schedule and if/when they give up on Viciedo.

[Eminor3rd]

IMO, there is zero reason to do this. The Sox have a ton of money coming off the books this offseason and a loaded pitching staff even if Peavy is dealt including a legit #1 starter.

 

They need help to get there. They have hard decisions to make, but they can be competitive next year.

 

And really, Trayce is still young, still raw, and I'm going to be furious when they call him up to AAA in a couple weeks. I think the team needs to be patient with him, let him have a full year in AA, then start next year in AAA and either earn a callup or come up if someone gets hurt.

 

If Rios isn't dealt, there will be a need for an OF after 2014. Maybe more than 1, depending on De Aza's arb schedule and if/when they give up on Viciedo.

 

I still think 2015 looks better. There's way more money off the books then, and some of our prospects should be useful.

 

Plus, I think Konerko is done. That's production we've been taking for granted that must be replaced before this team can win, IMO.

[Balta1701]

I still think 2015 looks better. There's way more money off the books then, and some of our prospects should be useful.

 

Plus, I think Konerko is done. That's production we've been taking for granted that must be replaced before this team can win, IMO.

Really there's actually not that much more money coming off the books for 2015 if the Sox make some of the basic moves. If Rios is still here, his option now looks likely to be picked up if he hits like this for another year. Guys like Alexei, Sale, Beckham, De Aza (if still around again) will be moving up to more expensive years or later arb years, so each of them will add a couple million a year. And guys like Viciedo, Reed, Jones, Santiago will be hitting their first arb years and suddenly will be making a couple million each.

 

Yes, Dunn's dead money comes off the books, but that sorta offsets the guys who increase if they're still here.

[The Ultimate Champion]

The problem here is the type of trade we're talking about.

 

When Colon was traded to Montreal, he was a few months from free agency. He was a guy the Indians had to choose between keeping and trying to compete or losing at the end of the year. They were 10 games under .500 or so and were looking at losing the guy soon. That's comparable to a guy like Crain, Thornton, maybe Peavy on this roster...guys who are close to free agency. In that case, the bust rate compares to the virtual certainty of losing those guys for nothing. If you trade crain for a guy who never makes the big leagues, that's a scouting fail, but at least you got something for him.

 

When we talk about Chris Sale on the other hand, he's a guy locked up for the next half a decade. There is nothing forcing us to trade Chris Sale, the only reason we should trade Chris Sale is if there's a high probability it would make the team better in the long run. If you trade Sale for 4 prospects, 2 of whom become average major leaguers and 2 of whom bust, you've cost the team an ace for a couple average major leaguers. In that case, the bust rate needs to be compared with the benefit of having a guy who can be the ace of the staff for the next 5 1/2 seasons.

 

This exactly.

 

It's absolutely fallacy to act like prospect trades can be evaluated in hindsight. You're trading for probabilities. You're trading for guys who do NOT have the skills to be successful and hoping that they develop those skills. It's the FO job to pick guys that they have reason to believe will flourish in its own system, but sometimes guys just bust for no good reason. If a FO gets them wrong too much, the FO gets fired. If you traded Sale for all those guys at the time it would have been a haul, and looking back it would still be a haul. Eric Hosmer in 2010 is NOT the same thing as Eric Hosmer in 2013.

If you traded Sale, right this second, for a package of 4 equally highly rated prospects/young players as those 4 were, and you made that trade because you did *not* already have him locked into an extension, and because you *did* OTOH get signals from his agent that they were planning on hitting the FA market no matter what, then you wouldn't necessarily be making a bad decision. You'd be taking what you'd see as an unavoidable gamble, and you'd be doing it at any earlier stage than normal in hopes of a greater return in talent and before the player had a chance to get hurt and lose value. In the end you'd probably lose that deal on the talent side, but you were also being proactive trying to improve the team. You were doing what you had to do, because the player & his agent had you by the balls & you didn't have a Rays-like situation where you had enough talent around you to play the waiting game.

 

If OTOH you have Sale, at his current rate & length of deal, and someone offers you all their top prospects for him right this second, then you're making a totally unnecessary trade where you're taking the best building block you have and using it to gamble on the futures of a bunch of unproven players. That's what people with gambling problems do, they gamble at the highest stakes possible, put everything on the line because there's a slim chance everything goes right. That's not a sound decision, it's a desperate move. Sale isn't Dan Hudson or Chris Young. You actually miss him if he's gone.

 

When you are dealing with prospects you should absolutely expect failure. You follow the trend of talented "can't miss" prospects busting out for no reason just as you'd look to age/performance trends to keep you from, say, paying a speedster currently in his prime to still steal 30+ bags when he's 35. You were arguing in another thread about how it would basically be suicide to sign Crain who is 34. Okay, so you're viewing a general baseball-wide trend as being more important than a specific player's specific situation. It's only fair to then apply the same treatment to your great prospect, because no matter what you think or how much you like him, the chances are he's a bust, or if not, he's going to be a whole let less of a player than you think right now. And you don't even need a reason either, s*** just happens, it's baseball. As it is, a player doesn't become a Major Leaguer & stay a Major Leaguer until he fails, adjust, learns, and rebounds all while staying healthy & remaining on the field - and some of the obstacles he will face, like freak accidents/injuries, organizational depth putting a player on the bench or out of position, the wrong coaching staff/manager, etc. which can affect performance is completely out of the player's control. So you know there will be downs & you're betting the player can make it through them. That's the reason why you generally see 3-4 players in deals for bigger names, and it's why you only trade a player like Sale if you believe you have to. There's absolutely no reason to believe you have to. If Coop thinks he's worth keeping, then he's definitely worth keeping.

 

Re: hindsight, I agree, you can't judge everything in hindsight. All you can judge for fairly is the rationale behind the move made. The Teahen deal wasn't logical, the Molina deal was rushed. OTOH the Dunn signing was based on good information & was the type of move any GM could have made in that situation. You can rightfully crap on the first 2 moves, but not the last. f you trade Sale now for a bunch of minor leaguers & they all turn into busts, you can use hindsight fairly to say that that was a bad decision that didn't need to be made. If you trade Sale now for a bunch of minor leaguers & they all turn into studs, and you win the WS because of it, then great, you beat the odds, you won the lottery. But still, in hindsight, you made a totally unnecessary move & now people call you a genius for it. But you're not a genius, that's totally unsustainable, you're just a ballsy gambler, and you're probably going to lose real big real soon & be run out of town.

[The Ultimate Champion]

De Aza is a retread and a butcher on the field. While his stats are even/arguable to those two, I don't see his worth in a trade equating to the two. That's just me though.

 

Span is a legit CFer. He's having a tough year at the plate but he is something else in CF.

Agree, also DeAza doesn't fit any real mold. He's not your prototypical lead-off guy, not really a CF, has some pop but not really a corner guy, his game has looked very different during the 2 seasons he's been a starter and so it's kind of hard to tell what his game actually is... he's really more of the rich man's 4th OF/poor man's starter. I think he helps you fill a hole if you're trying to win but he's not a player you build around. I'd like to extend him to a cheap deal if we can, full of team options, just to have a guy to plug in where ever who provides some cost certainty but who you can cut if he totally falls off, but I imagine that if the Sox were thinking along those lines they'd have tried something by now. I don't think he fetches us a ton in trade, but maybe we'd get something packaging him. Not worth giving away though.

[ShandyMan]

IMO, there is zero reason to do this. The Sox have a ton of money coming off the books this offseason and a loaded pitching staff even if Peavy is dealt including a legit #1 starter.

 

They need help to get there. They have hard decisions to make, but they can be competitive next year.

 

And really, Trayce is still young, still raw, and I'm going to be furious when they call him up to AAA in a couple weeks. I think the team needs to be patient with him, let him have a full year in AA, then start next year in AAA and either earn a callup or come up if someone gets hurt.

 

If Rios isn't dealt, there will be a need for an OF after 2014. Maybe more than 1, depending on De Aza's arb schedule and if/when they give up on Viciedo.

 

Agree. While I think that the sox need to trade some of our players, I believe there is a way to do it AND be competitive next year. Trayce being in CF means we are the Astros.

[caulfield12]

http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/sbnati...the_block_.html

 

 

Hahn starting to make some comments about fielding phone calls...

 

 

Trayce Thompson in CF next year for the White Sox is another version of Brian Anderson all over again, with the exception he wasn't a pretty high first round draft choice is "seemingly" more expendable from an organizational standpoint of resources invested in/ROI.

[caulfield12]

I can give several. He's under team control for a couple more years (although arb years), the Sox have no one anywhere close to ready to take over CF next year, he started out the year poorly so its plausible he could improve his numbers and value significantly by the time the offseason rolls around if a team does want to trade for him, and if someone actually gets on him and coaches him on how to stay focused, particularly working on defensive drills, that could also improve him significantly.

 

Again, I won't say no if he's traded for a reasonable return, but there's plenty of reason to hold on him and wait for someone to meet the price.

 

If it's THAT easy, then there are TWO conclusions.

 

1) Our coaching staff is failing at their job/s.

2) DeAza's doomed to be an inconsistent/erratic player who doesn't listen to coaching and just does his own thing...meaning he's going to end up being traded for less than the underlying talent value because of the fatal flaw in his make-up.

 

You could say the same thing about Ramirez during his time here. How much of it is "he is who he is," and how much is correctable/coachable?

 

 

 

http://www.csnchicago.com/white-sox-talk/w...ed-trade-rumors

Didn't realize Lindstrom was only making $500K this season. That's going to make him really attractive to some contending teams out there. We'll definitely get more for him than Thornton, because of Matt's contract.

Edited June 22, 2013 by caulfield12