White Sox Made The Right Move to Wait on Trades
The amount of complaining coming from bloggers and the White Sox fan base about them waiting until the off-season to make moves borders on ignorance. These are the same group of people that would have complained about a trade that would not have brought enough back.
There were many rumors out there about Chris Sale and less about Jose Quintana. We oddly didn’t hear much about David Robertson or anyone else. If we read between the lines from General Manager Rick Hahn’s recent statement, the White Sox plan to change their course of action.
Fans and some media have called for the White Sox to clean house. They have already made some infracsture changes. Nick Hostetler took over as the Director of Amateur Scouting almost a year ago. Hosteler has already made significant changes about the direction of the draft.
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The White Sox drafted a position player, catcher Zack Collins from Miami, with their first pick for the first time in three years. Their last position player drafted in the first round was current shortstop Tim Anderson.
Many fans and bloggers intimate that Reinsdorf and the White Sox don’t care about the team and/or are cheap. These statements are not based much on fact. The last two years, the White Sox have been 16th in payroll. They were in the top ten as recently as 2011 and 2012.
When Hahn met with media on July 21, he said:
“We’re mired in mediocrity. That’s not the goal. That’s not acceptable. … The goal was to put ourselves in a situation to win a championship, and (being) stuck at .500 or around .500 doesn’t do that.
“We may well have to adjust and take a longer-term view and take a different approach going forward.”
The White Sox have done a good job developing and getting pitchers to the team as quickly as possible. Chris Sale, Carlos Rodon and Carson Fulmer all quickly advance through the White Sox farm system. Sale was promoted in his draft year of 2010 and Rodon and Fulmer were called up a season after being drafted.
Fans and the much of the media were seemingly demanding a trade. The fans generally just look for the team to make a move without taking into consideration what it takes to get done and who the team would be getting in return. If they would have traded Sale and/or Jose Quintana and not gotten a return that would have been expected some talk shows and a large part of the fan base would have complained about that.
Rumors from many reputable sources reported the White Sox were listening to offers as of the day before the deadline. The White Sox might be able to get more in return for their two aces in the off-season than now.
"When asked about making a deal now versus the offseason, Hahn said:“In terms of getting fair value at this point in time, you are dealing with a limited supply of potential players coming back, in that it’s primarily teams in contention that are looking to add at this point … and they don’t want to touch their big-league clubs so you’re dealing with just their prospect… But we know how special some of the players we have under control are and we have in our mind what arguably is appropriate coming back. And the fact is, no one may meet that price at this point in time.”"
In his four years of being the General Manager, Hahn has not shown he’s afraid to pull the trigger on a big trade. The White Sox acquied James Shields in June. If he had been acquired at the trade deadline, that likely would have placated the fan base and some talk show hosts. Making moves to make the team better is what is important. not when they are made.
The White Sox have been one of the busiest teams the last two off-seasons. The Todd Frazier trade came after last season’s winter meetings. They would have been considered one of the “winners” of the winter meetings if the trade went through at the winter meetings. In 2014, the White Sox were considered one of the “winners” of those meetings.
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Trading for Adam Eaton three seasons ago was a good deal. The White Sox are likely to be busy this off-season as well. They have done what they can to make the team competitive. They might decide to take a step back and move some assets this off-season. The argument against them standing still doesn’t deservce criticsm, the players they acquired haven’t performed. The criticism should be directed more towards talent evaulation then not making enough moves.