WHAT GOES DOWN MIGHT COME UP
Sox trade Sale to start demolition, but rebuilding won’t be an easy project
The wrecking ball took a mighty swing Tuesday.
The White Sox firmly announced their intention of a teardown and a rebuild by trading ace Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox for second baseman Yoan Moncada, one of the top prospects in baseball, and 20- year- old pitcher Michael Kopech, whose fastball has been clocked at 105 mph. Two other Red Sox prospects are included in the deal.
Good for the Sox. Now let’s see if they know anything about new construction.
And good for Sale, who goes to a franchise that has figured out how to win regularly and not, say, once every 88 years. Now let’s see if the Red Sox’ uniforms are up to his keen fashion sense.
The Sale trade should be the first of many swings for the Sox, who need to remove all rubble and build from the ground up. They went the veteran route after winning aWorld Series in 2005, and they went nowhere. If Sale— who finished in the top six in American League Cy Young Award voting each of the last five seasons— can be traded, anybody can be traded. And should be traded. Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier, Jose Abreu, Adam Eaton — anybody and everybody. The Sox are open for business.
“We’re definitely open- minded on ways to continue the process that we started [ Tuesday],” general manager Rick Hahn said. “It’s conceivable more comes together here [ at the winter meetings], or it may take a few more weeks on some fronts and conceivably into the season, as well. We don’t view this as a quick fix.”
Moncada is so talented that the Red Sox promoted him from Class AA to the big leagues last season, but he struggled upon arrival, striking out 12 times in 20 plate appearances. That included nine straight whiffs to end the season. But he’s only 21, and he signed with the Red Sox out of Cuba in 2015. Starting in Class AAA next season would be the prudent way to go.
This is going to take time, if done properly. And it’s going to hurt. There might be three years of pain before anyone knows if the prospects can play and if the plan, lower case, works. Stock up on Advil, Sox fans.
The initial reaction is to say Hahn just bought himself at least three more years of job security, but anyone who has watched the way Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf does business knows that job security comes with walking through the door for your first day of work.
We still don’t have a firm grasp on who’s running the show — Hahn or vice president Ken Williams— but whoever it is had better have a sharp eye for talent during the rebuilding process. It helps that the Red Sox, one of the best organizations in baseball, have already done some of the work for the Sox. Just because Moncada won Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year Award last season doesn’t mean he’s a sure thing. But it turned out to be the case with the Cubs and Kris Bryant, the 2014 winner.
Sox fans probably are sick of hearing about the Cubs, but their team is being judged by their crosstown rivals’World Series success. And now that the Sox are going through what appears to be a Cubs- like rebuild, the judging will be even more intense. Hahn talked Tuesday about building for sustained success. Sound familiar?
The Cubs have looked to the Red Sox for almost everything they’ve done the last five years, from hiring president Theo Epstein to renovating an old ballpark. So maybe the White Sox simply were following form. And perhaps the Red Sox’ acquisition of Sale is a response to the Cubs’ success under Epstein, their former employee. Oh, it’s a tangled web.
Sale is a package deal: He’s great, and he’s a few degrees off center. A jerky delivery from a stick- figure physique and a 95 mph fastball make him very difficult to hit. But he also made headlines last season by cutting up teammates’ throwback jerseys before a game because he found them uncomfortable. And an irate Sale chose to plant his flag in the ground over the Sox’ decision to cut back on the bizarre presence of Adam LaRoche’s 14- year- old son in the clubhouse. The Red Sox best handle him with care.
Sale gets a chance to win now, and the White Sox, their fingers crossed, hope to win in a few years. It’s no fun watching a team tank to get a higher draft position, but this is how business is done now. For White Sox fans, it’s their penance for watching mediocre baseball for so long. In turn, the Sox have to understand that all the empty seats of past seasons will now have company.
The Sale trade is just the beginning. There’s more work to do. Let’s hope Hahn and Williams don’t look at a hammer and say, “What’s this thing?”