Chicago White Sox: Chris Sale Trade Talks Cooling Off?
The Chicago White Sox avoid arbitration with a pair of players that were largely expected to be non-tendered on Friday, and the Chris Sale trade talks are seemingly losing steam heading into the MLB Winter Meetings this week, here’s the latest rumblings surrounding the White Sox.
White Sox Avoid Arbitration with a Pair of Players
The Chicago White Sox have entered the MLB Winter Meetings with the idea that a rebuild is necessary for creating “long-term sustainable success” in the words of General Manager Rick Hahn last month at the MLB GM Meetings in Scottsdale, AZ.
Since that time, the White Sox have stood pat while the other 29 clubs make their free-agent signings and their trades. Yesterday, on the deadline to non-tender arbitration eligible players, the White Sox re-signed both right-fielder Avisail Garcia and second-baseman Brett Lawrie to new one year deals.
The White Sox announced that they reached a one year agreement with right-fielder Avisail Garcia on Friday afternoon worth a reported $3 million dollars. Garcia, 25, was the center-piece in the White Sox return from the Jake Peavy trade on July 30, 2013. A three way trade that saw the White Sox send Peavy to Boston, while the White Sox received Avisail Garcia from the Detroit Tigers, Cleuluis Rondon, Frankie Montas, and J.B. Wendelken.
Just over three years later, Rondon, a middle-infielder has a career .210 batting average through his six seasons in the minor leagues, never reaching higher than Single-A Winston-Salem for the Sox. Montas and Wendelken were both traded by the White Sox. That leaves Avisail Garcia as the lone standing return piece in the Peavy trade, another highlight in the “Best of Kenny Williams” mix-tape.
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Garcia hit .245 in 2016, with 12 home runs and 51 RBI over the course of 120 games for the White Sox. Over parts of five seasons Garcia has a career .258 batting average to go along with 39 home runs and 173 RBI. Garcia has 369 strike outs over that same time span, compared to only 96 walks. Garcia has severely under-performed his original expectations, as well as what some still beleive is his true talent level. When the White Sox acquired Garcia he was seen as the next coming of Tigers’ slugger Miguel Cabrera.
It was largely speculated that Garcia would be non-tendered on Friday’s deadline, marking the end of his White Sox career. Instead the club decided to bring him back for one more shot at a mere $3 million dollars. Another surprise move on Friday was Brett Lawrie signing a very team-friendly one year deal with the White Sox worth a reported $3.5 million dollars.
The 26-year-old second-baseman played in just 94 games for the White Sox in 2016, after missing much of the second half of the year with some vaguely described lower body issues, that Brett since has attributed to orthopedic shoes that were recommended for him.
Lawrie was originally expected to make nearly twice the amount that he ended up coming to terms with on Friday, via arbitration, and for that reason was expected to be non-tendered. Especially after Lawrie wiped all White Sox related references off of his Twitter account one evening last month, and posted some cryptic sounding tweets that same evening, that led many White Sox fans to speculate that he had played his last game with the club.
Lawrie hit .248 with 12 home runs, 36 RBI, 109 strike outs and only 30 walks over the course of 94 games for the White Sox in 2016. After striking out a career high 144 times in 2015 with the Oakland Athletics, Lawrie was on pace to eclipse that number had his season not ended early due to injury. Over those 94 games, 93 came at second base, where he posted a .954 fielding percentage, .40 points lower than Tyler Saladino at second base last season.
Chris Sale Trade Talks Cooling Off?
Last week rumblings surfaced of an imminent Edwin Encarnacion signing in Houston, just hours after the Astros were rumored to be loading up on big bats in order to feel secure in moving young prospects, namely Alex Bregman or George Springer in a deal to bring a front-line starting pitcher to Houston.
Naturally Chris Sale was the first name that seemed like a potential target in the Astros plans, for an afternoon last week it truly looked as though the starts were beginning to align for a Astros and White Sox blockbuster trade. Alas, the excitement and speculations soon came crashing down late Wednesday evening, after a series of bizarre conflicting reports from some reputable sources across the board, the potential deal seemingly fell apart for the time being.
This morning the deal may have died for good after the Astros reached a deal with free-agent Carlos Beltran, likely ending the clubs pursuit of Edwin Encarnacion. Then there was the Ken Rosenthal report that the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers were out on Chris Sale at the current asking price, which seems to be the clubs number one prospect in addition to 3-4 other top-10 prospects.
Rosenthal also reported that the Washington Nationals are still having discussions with the White Sox in regards to Chris Sale, with the Red Sox and Braves in the mix as well, so long as the asking price comes down slightly.
Next: Astros Stay Busy with Beltran Signing
Rosenthal reiterated what is largely known, that trade talks are very fluid at this point and the potential suitors interest could shift at any moment.