As the deals flew in ahead of the 3 p.m. CT trade deadline Tuesday, the White Sox stayed mostly quiet, making a lone deal with the Tampa Bay Rays for minor-league lefty Hunter Schryver in exchange for international bonus money. James Shields, Jose Abreu, Luis Avilan, Xavier Cedeno, and everyone else remain. It was, as expected, a much quieter deadline for the White Sox than a year ago.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re done. The White Sox collection of trade assets is bereft of impact names, so it’s not exactly surprising that teams weren’t clamoring for their services And the names mentioned above (with the exception of Abreu) shouldn’t have a lot of trouble clearing waivers, which would allow an August deal to go through.
Likewise, Rick Hahn has been a fairly active dealer even after the July 31 deadline passes. Since taking over as general manager before the 2013 season, he’s made 18 “deadline deals” (I’m defining that as trades made in June, July, or August) including last week’s deal that sent Joakim Soria to the Brewers. Of those 18, seven came in August.
- 2013: Traded Alex Rios to the Texas Rangers for Leury Garcia
- 2014: Traded Gordon Beckham to the Los Angeles Angels for PTBNL (Yency Almonte)
- 2014: Traded Alejandro De Aza to the Baltimore Orioles for Mark Blackmar and Miguel Chalas
- 2014: Traded Adam Dunn to the Oakland Athletics for Nolan Sanburn
- 2016: Traded Dioner Navarro to the Toronto Blue Jays for Colton Turner
- 2017: Traded Tyler Clippard to the Houston Astros for cash considerations
- 2017: Trade Miguel Gonzalez to the Texas Rangers for Ti’Quan Forbes
These are hardly impact deals, of course. Rios for Garcia has worked out in the long run, but at the time was considered a deal where the White Sox look a lighter return in exchange for saving approximately $3 million for the rest of that season, plus $12.5 million or a $1 million buyout the year after. Almonte kind of came out of nowhere to become an interesting prospect and was later traded to the Rockies for Tommy Kahnle. Forbes has been playable at High-A Winston-Salem this year and could maybe top out as a utility infielder at the major league level.
Other than that, not a lot to be excited about, but from the standpoint of rebuilding teams cashing in on assets that aren’t in the long-term plans in exchange for lottery tickets is a fine strategy and one would expect Hahn to keep busy in August looking for those sort of deals.
As for Schryver, he’s a 23-year-old lefty the Rays drafted in the seventh round a year ago. In 48 2/3 innings between Low-A and High-A this season, he’s struck out 59, walked 14, and has a 2.40 ERA. He’s a reliever and will likely report to Winston-Salem.
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