In the past 4 seasons: he's won 3 silver sluggers, been an All Star 3 times*, and placed in the Top 3 of the AL MVP 3 times. He's in the prime of his career making $35m in his age 28, 29, and 30 seasons
If you trade him, it needs to be for a package that surpasses what the White Sox got in return for Chris Sale
*Would've been in 2020 had there been a game
And herein lies the rub.
The Sale trade was generally viewed as a huge get for the White Sox....while Boston got their man in Sale.
Did Chicago get a huge, difference making return? Hardly.
Two of the prospects were busts. Kopech, four years later, finally got a cup of coffee last year, and is now headed for the pen.
Moncada is the only positive addition to Chicago...and he didn't do much until 2019.
Overall combined, the return for Sale has been worth 10.3 fWAR.
Meanwhile, over in Boston, Sale put up three years of 17.4 fWAR, been an all star twice, and received both CY and MVP votes twice.
Four years later there is no way to label this a good deal for Chicago.
You can make a case that down the road this becomes a good deal for the Chisox, but if we are talking about five years from now in Cleveland, who gives a rats a**?
In fact, we should be MAKING the same kind of trade that Boston made.
Get guaranteed major production NOW for the maybe of the future.
I would be thrilled to make that kind of trade, even if one of the prospects we trade becomes Moncada three years from now. I will trade 10 WAR over four years for 17 WAR every freaking year.
Moncada was a concensus top 5 prospect. Kopech was ranked as high as 16, but generally lower.
Only three teams have a package similar today.
SD has Gore and CJ Abrams.
Detroit have Torkelson and Mize.
Seattle has Kelenic and Julio Rodriguez.
But for Jose we would need more...and no team has both the need and the realistic prospect capital to acquire Jose.
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Some folks seem to want to shrug off our 40 man situation. Its far worse than just losing a Zimmer or a Chang.
After all the moves that will be needed to made for pitchers ( weve used less than 27 only twice since Tito arrived, not counting 2020), those kind of easy cuts will be more than used up. We are gonna lose some really good prospects, if we don't cash in some of our prospect capital.
Trading Jose would make things exponentially worse.
