White Sox trade deadline update: No, YOU'RE anxious
/There's a run of half-useful platoon bats and no-hit second basemen* and the Sox are sitting on the sidelines thus far. It feels wrong. If a contending team is willing to trade for Darwin Barney and promise to send a human in return, and pay for most of his salary, what's keeping Gordon Beckham in Chicago? Besides what's likely a higher asking price and millions of dollars more salary for a roster filler-quality player?
And how is Danny Valencia, a right-handed platoon bat, on the move for two--count 'em two!--Triple-A All-Star pitchers, while Dayan Viciedo stays losing games? Well, his recent play has been...
Ed Note: Collin was being coy. He thinks Viciedo has killed his trade value too.
The most obvious Sox trade candidates are some serious post-waiver deadline level talent, which dovetails with the fact that if they were enforcing a hard July 31 deadline on their trade assets, they would be sorta screwed since Beckham and Viciedo are pushing such a strong un-rosterable vibe. With both of them still in arbitration, two more years of control for Alexei Ramirez, mostly all of their relievers pretty much unlovable, and De Aza--even with his hot streak--probably more of stopgap candidate than someone that teams will covet having control of, the Sox could pretend July 31 is just another day and keep scouring for opportunities.
Except for the outgoing Adam Dunn, who--surprise--was not actually as good as his hot start. The seemingly perfect Seattle option dried up when the Mariners brought back Kendrys Morales, who is unlikely to be superior, and shaking off the rust of a late start to the season. In a surprising turn, FOX's Jon Morosi detailed anonymous accounts from GM's accusing Mariners GM Jack Zduriencik of being milquetoast, indecisive and otherwise insufferable to deal with. For a Sox team making a point of not forcing things, the trying nature of dealing with the Mariners might have forced them out.
And there's John Danks, who should get more tradeable as the years of control go down, not up. He has a 90 ERA+ and is owed over $30 million over the next two seasons and change, but....the Yankees would like to go to the playoffs. Designs on the Yankees' minor league catching reserves are natural and understandable, but as Jim Margalus already tackled today, a deal shipping out Danks would so blatantly be a salary dump....that it might as well be a salary dump and get handled as a straight waiver.
It's a logical path for business to take, but man would it be a sad one. Danks isn't worth his deal anymore, but he's worked like hell just to get back to this level of working order. With the physical limitations he's faced, the success he's had is nothing short of a triumph, and plenty of it was done for the sake of trying to live up to what he earned. For the final note of that effort to be "You'd help us most by getting gone," would be unfortunate.
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