1.  Michael Kopech has generally continued to force the issue, although he hit a stumbling block on Sunday.  While he won’t be mistaken for Carlos Silva any time soon, 2018 has seen the retention of his second half 2017 progress in terms of limiting walks while pitching against Triple-A competition.  He’s done so while deliberately throwing his change-up as much as he possibly can.  For the hyper-competitive Kopech, it is probably difficult to maximize the use of your third best pitch, but he and the organization are clearly on the same page that this is the limiting reagent for him taking the next step to ace-dom.  If he had shoved again on Sunday, it may have been difficult to keep him down in Charlotte, but even with the poor outing, he is still definitely knocking on the door.  Whenever he is called up, he will still have work to do, as fully harnessing this arsenal will be a career-long endeavor.  However, as he still has high-90s with life to get out of any jam he’s in, he may need to be facing major league hitters to make further progress.

2. Dylan Cease has generally sat behind Alec Hansen and Kopech on prospect lists as the furthest away and most volatile of the three top pitching prospects.  The second piece in the Jose Quintana deal is fairly straightforward: insane fastball, hammer curve, crazy fragile.  To wit, he has struck out 12 batters per nine in his minor league career, which, due to injuries, has only been 162 innings over three seasons of pro ball.  So far, 2018 has been a huge success, as he is now pitching at Winston-Salem, his most advanced assignment yet, and dominating to the tune of a 1.95 ERA over 32 1/3 innings with 42 strikeouts against only 14 walks.  The indication is he hasn’t had any of his stuff eroded by injury to date, and if he can make it to ~120-150 innings without injury he could put himself on the radar for a late 2019 call up and increase the odds he actually leverages his massive potential into a major league career.

3. Luis Alexander Basabe has continued his hot start, which he attributes to simply being healthy as contrasted to last year.  With a .299/.419/.598 triple slash so far in High-A, Basabe is making the case for a promotion to Birmingham sooner rather than later.  Such a promotion could be paired with a corresponding bumping of Eloy Jimenez to Triple-A.  The uber prospect has clearly knocked all the rust off after an injury-delayed start to the year, as a .481/.500/.852 line over the last week has raised him to .319/.347/.652 on the season.  There’s no real rush for either of these guys, but at a certain point with Jimenez, as with Kopech, one wonders if minor league pitchers at any level can provide him with sufficient challenge.

4.  Dane Dunning continues his ho-hum, clockwork excellence even after his promotion to Double-A.  The White Sox have taken it slowly with the relief-to-starter convert, as he was allowed to annihilate Winston-Salem in a second look for four outings to start the year.  One suspects they aren’t going to be in any rush with him either, but as a plus-pitch-ability/command prospect, he too may take his timetable into his own hands.  And, once you’re at Birmingham, you’re certainly within shouting distance of the South Side, and if he doesn’t hit an innings limit, may even wind up getting some relief appearances in September.

5.  Zack Collins is still getting rough reviews for his work behind the plate, but at least he is showing signs that his new swing may be paying dividends in terms of bat-to-ball.  His last seven games have seen him hit .381/.567/.524 with more walks than strikeouts.  It’s a small sample, but Collins really needs to rake in order to support what looks like a weak glove at catcher or the immense pressure which would be on his bat at first base.  The walks and power certainly look like a permanent feature of his profile, and if he has eliminated a flaw in his swing, a .260-.270 average could mean a potential plus bat at the major league level.

All of the above are small samples, but — Collins aside — they are largely consistent with what we know of these players in tandem with good health.  We all know in the abstract that a brighter future is ahead, but sometimes it helps to get some concrete examples of what that might be.

Photo credit: Joe Camporeale- USA Today

But no longer.  Despite graduating three players off the Midseason Top 50, the White Sox still lead all teams with eight players on the list.  Although the sequence of names was not a surprise, given that we’ve had the White Sox Top 10 list for weeks now, it was far from obvious as to how many on the back half of the org ranking would make it onto the global one.  Jake Burger, Dane Dunning, and Blake Rutherford all appear between 80-90, as Burger survived our prospect team’s (justified) skepticism of likely R/R 1B prospects and Rutherford’s underlying skills and draft pedigree overcame his poor results in 2017.

Jeff Paternostro will be doing a chat to answer any 101 questions you might have (or you can read the transcript there once it is over).

Still, I take the opportunity to remind you that, as fun as it is to see “White Sox” next to as many names as possible in the 101, the further down the list you go, the gaps between prospects shrink. The prospect team likely has a list of anywhere from 20-50 more names you could try to argue on to the 101, and the gap between, say, 50 and 75, or 75 and 90 could very well be within the error bars.

Given the bust rate on prospects overall, even the very highly regarded ones, volume is the exciting thing here.  Dylan Cease on his own is a risky proposition.  Alec Hansen on his own is a risky proposition.  Michael Kopech might not work.  Dane Dunning might not work.  Then again, all four of them could wind up being major league contributors, and a few of them could be of the impact variety.

It is a different world for White Sox fans than even a few years ago, but now the game becomes watching and waiting, seeing what becomes of this collection of talent.  And the season is rapidly approaching.

Photo credit Matt Marton

• The overall state of the White Sox farm system.
• The upside of Eloy Jimenez and Michael Kopech, what sets them apart from the rest of the system, and what went into picking between the two for the No. 1 spot.
• The high upside but risk of a prospect like Dylan Cease.
• Alec Hansen’s roller coaster ride from potential No. 1 draft pick to terrible college performance to top prospect.
• How the hell you rank Luis Robert.
• The next group of guys, what to like and dislike from Jake Burger, Dane Dunning, Blake Rutherford, and Zack Collins.
• Thoughts on guys outside the Top 10, including Micker Adolfo, Spencer Adams, A.J. Puckett, Yeyson Yrizarri, and more.
• The construction of the White Sox Under 25 rankings, as authored by Nick.
• Some always necessary talk about Japanese wrestling between Jarrett and Collin, while Nick tries not to fall asleep.

Be sure to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes by searching for “The Catbird Speaks.” Please be sure to rate and review us!

This is something I’ve thought about a lot over the last year as the White Sox have restocked their farm system with a number of promising young arms. It’s fun to think of a future where the rotation is some combination of Carlos Rodon, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, Michael Kopech, Alec Hansen, Dylan Cease, Dane Dunning, and Carson Fulmer.

That’s eight names, five of whom were acquired via trade in the last 12 months. Even with the acquisitions of exciting bats Yoan Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, and Luis Robert, pitching is clearly the strength of the organization, as has been the case for the last ~15 years.

You don’t need me to tell you how unlikely it is that all eight of those aforementioned young pitchers live up to their potential. The idea of all of them even carving out prolonged careers as relievers isn’t even that great. But what the White Sox are doing in acquiring a plethora of promising arms is increasing the odds that some of them will live up to their expectations. If six or five or even three of those pitchers become worthwhile rotation pieces, that’s already the makings of a solid rotation. If Fulmer or Cease or Lopez wind up as bullpen arms, that’s something you can live with if Rodon and Kopech are anchoring your rotation. If Dunning busts, you can survive because Hansen turned into a viable No. 3 or 4. Maybe the next contention cycle sees the White Sox use one of those arms in a trade for that missing piece in center field or at third base.

The White Sox have developed a reputation for getting the most out of the pitchers, but they’re of course not infallible. For every Jose Quintana there’s an Erik Johnson. For every Matt Thornton there’s a Mike MacDougal. But the odds of developing enough pitching to carry the next contender increases exponentially when you have six or seven or eight talented young arms. And in an era where, as noted on a recent episode of Effectively Wild, teams are using more pitchers per season than ever, you can never have too much pitching. Building a team around young pitching is a risky proposition, and with the Cubs and Astros winning the World Series while doing basically the inverse of this — drafting a boatload of young hitters and figuring out their pitching later — it seems a unique position.

Even with Moncada, Jimenez, and a few others in the fold, the White Sox seem to know their developmental strength and that’s developing pitchers. They’re not going to hit on every one, but they’re setting themselves up to have the best odds possible of building a contending rotation.

Lead Photo Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

1. After Tuesday’s action, the Twins maintained their 1-game lead on the Angels for the second Wild Card spot, although the Orioles have won six in a row to keep the pressure on and they too are only 1.5 games back.  Even after Minnesota finishes with the White Sox, their schedule looks fairly gentle down the stretch, with seven games coming up against the Royals, who just snapped a 4-game stretch of being shut out.  Otherwise, but for six games against the Yankees and Cleveland, they’ll be playing also-rans like the Padres, Tigers, and Blue Jays.

The Twins have been outscored by 26 runs on the season, indicating they’re playing a bit over their heads. But they’re a different team when they get good work from their starting pitchers, and Santana and Jose Berrios have both been solid, while the rest of the rotation is horrid.  Given the weakness of their pitching staff, I would still consider them a potential suitor for Miguel Gonzalez’ services down the stretch–two days left!

And, after a rigorous statistical analysis, this author—a cold, dispassionate analyst—can only conclude that the world is objectively better if the Twins do not make the playoffs and, instead, lose virtually every game.  It is acceptable if they beat the Royals enough to keep them out of the playoffs as well.

2. James Shields has tried fiddling around with his arm slot and pitch selection to do whatever he can to get through more than five innings an outing.  On Tuesday he walked more batters than he struck out, although I suppose he has improved his DRA from 6.58 last year to 5.43 this year.

Given how badly Shields pitched for the White Sox in 2016 and how that team wound up finishing combined with the meteoric rise of Fernando Tatis, Jr. and The Shields Trade has the makings of one of the most lopsided trades of the last decade.  One way Shields can help soften the blow is to continue being a mentor to the organization’s pitching prospects, as he has already been cited as someone who helped Lucas Giolito’s development during his rehab assignment in Charlotte.  Somehow, Shields is still under contract for one more season.

3. In more pleasant news, Jose Abreu went 4-for-4 with a walk, raising his line to .297/.350/.534 on the year.  While it doesn’t mean a lot on the field for the team this year, Abreu’s strong 2017 campaign breaks a three year trend of declining production, as he has matched last year’s WARP total with a month left to play.  He turns 31 in January and serves primarily as a mentor and clubhouse leader, but even if his power is no longer elite, it’s looking more and more like he may hold onto enough hit tool to age more gracefully than might have once been expected.

4. Dane Dunning bounced back from a rare rough outing to strike out 10 against 2 hits, 2 walks, and 2 ER in a 6 inning effort.  With over 100 innings under his belt in High-A, one anticipates he will begin 2018 in Double-A Birmingham.  Given Dunning’s profile and arsenal, the high minors will be an interesting challenge as he continues along his trajectory toward a #3/4 starter in the majors, with a potential ETA as early as September 2018.

5. Per James Fegan, the White Sox have announced this year’s Arizona Fall League participants as Dylan Covey, Matt Foster, Jace Fry, Connor Walsh, Seby Zavala, Danny Mendick, and Tito Polo. Covey pitched in the AFL last year, and as his continued durability issues resurfaced in 2017, he could use the extra work again.  Zavala is a somewhat interesting catching prospect who had to share time behind the plate with Zack Collins, so the AFL should give him a chance to shore up his shaky defense.  Polo profiles as a fourth outfielder, and was the third piece acquired from the Yankees in their large midsummer swap.

Lead Image Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Delmonico is a bit of a tweener as a prospect.  He can cover both outfield and infield corners, but unless he takes another step forward in his development it’s likely his bat limits him to a bench / platoon / second division starter role.  Delmonico has had his advocates, and with his mysterious departure from Milwaukee and reappearance in the White Sox system it hasn’t been a traditional development path.  Also in his favor is the fact that he shredded Double-A and had nice K:BB numbers in Triple-A, so maybe there’s room for him to upgrade his forecast if he shows more power.

2. Concussions are scary and often unpredictable injuries, so it is unclear when Willy Garcia will be cleared to return, but one hopes he doesn’t experience any long-term symptoms. Despite being only the third-best Garcia Breakout on the roster this year, getting what has been a league average bat with solid defense off of the Triple-A waiver wire is a victory as well if he can continue performing at this level in the future.

So far there has been no change in the day-to-day prognosis for Moncada, as it seems like he simply sustained a severe contusion to the quadriceps with appurtenant inflammation

3. On the pitching side, Mike Pelfrey nearly went six innings, but between his efforts and those of Gregory Infante, Pelfrey was charged with six runs as well. Although Pelfrey and Infante are surely giving their best efforts to try to keep their major league careers going, as far as the White Sox rebuild is concerned they fall into the category of “veteran stopgaps.” Given that the pitching staff is almost entirely composed of this phylum of pitcher at the moment, Tuesday’s game is a representative sample of the types of losses we should expect to continue for the remainder of 2017.

4. Fortunately, the arms in the system continue to impress. Michael Kopech kept his run of utter dominance rolling as he pitched 7 innings allowing only one earned run, striking out 8 and walking none. Over his last 27 innings, Kopech has walked just four batters.  Baseball America’s Ben Badler recently noted that he has done a better job of staying in line to the plate in his delivery, which is consistent with the sudden improvement in his control numbers.  Kopech’s arsenal is terrifying, so pitching deep into games and reigning in his walks checks the two biggest boxes one could have hoped for this season.  The questions now are how many more innings will the White Sox let him throw this season and can he keep this going?

Dane Dunning shoved again, striking out 11 over 7 innings with one walk and one run allowed.  In some respects this is what Dunning should be doing at High-A, given his advanced pitchability and change up. Still, if these trends continue Dunning should have positioned himself to start 2018 in Birmingham.

Compared to his recent blitzkrieg, Tuesday’s start represented a bit of a disappointment for Reynaldo Lopez, “only” striking out 5 in 5 innings while allowing two runs and 3 BBs.  Lopez seems ready for a call up, but it’s not exactly a crisis to let him keep learning in Triple-A while the White Sox see if they can find a waiver buyer for Miguel Gonzalez.

5. Blake Rutherford has had a very Blake Rutherford-y stretch since his arrival in Kannapolis, hitting .351/.415/.432. As an older high school draftee, one would hope he’d be able to dominate at this level.  Rutherford gets high marks for his bat-to-ball skills and he is controlling the strike zone well enough, but it remains to be seen how much power will arrive as he ages.

By contrast, Eloy Jimenez is six months older than Rutherford and continues to obliterate High-A, hitting .349/.406/.651 since joining Winston-Salem.

Lead Image Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA Today Sports Images.

1. The White Sox won 7-6 in walk-off fashion, fully erasing a 6-0 deficit when Matt Davidson — fresh off a walk-off home run on Sunday — lined a two out single off Roberto Osuna in the ninth inning. But the focus both during and after the game was on the status of Yoan Moncada and Willy Garcia after the pair collided while attempting to catch a pop-up in the top of the sixth inning.

Here is the play Yoan Moncada injured himself on pic.twitter.com/gIhg9yGX1t

— Jesse Foster (@Jesse__Foster) August 1, 2017

As bad as it looked, the White Sox announced during the game that Moncada was day-to-day with a knee contusion, while Garcia was diagnosed with a head contusion and will be re-evaluated Tuesday. Both players, as well as the White Sox, hopefully caught a break that it’s nothing serious, but one would expect the team to be extremely cautious with both Garcia because of the nature of his injury and Moncada given his status with the organization.

2. Up until the injury and the thrilling comeback, Monday’s game seemed like another in a long line of uneventful White Sox losses. James Shields continues to get hammered — he allowed six earned runs, including three home runs — but did at least manage to last six innings to aid a constantly overworked and overmatched bullpen. Shields’ struggles have been apparent since his return from the disabled list, as his HR/9 was already at an absurd 2.13 before Monday’s outing (it was 1.98 in 2016, for context) and his ERA has ballooned to 6.19.

As we wait with bated breathe for the promotion of Reynaldo Lopez (currently scheduled to start Tuesday for Triple-A Charlotte), a not-all-that-important conversation that’s come up is which rotation spot Lopez would take if any when he’s promoted to Chicago. Even when considering the struggles of Derek Holland and Miguel Gonzalez, as well as the overall meh-ness of Mike Pelfrey, AND the fact that Shields makes way more money than any of them, one would have to imagine Shields would be the No. 1 choice to vacate his spot.

The caveat, of course, is that the Sox could still unload Holland or Gonzalez, for whatever they’re worth, in an August waiver deal. And with rosters expanding in a month, the strict limitations of a five-man rotation become much less important as September nears. But the fact remains the while there was a glimmer of hope at the beginning of the season that Shields could rebound from his no good, very bad 2016 season, 2017 is turning out even worse. Oh, and the White Sox still owe him $13 million after this season.

3. As mentioned, Monday’s win was the White Sox second straight in walk-off fashion. This is notable not for anything related to their place in the standings, nor is the fact that they’re now 3-16 since the All-Star Break relevant toward the long-term success of the team.

But what seems apparent is that despite the struggles, as well as the fact that more than a quarter of the 25-man roster has been traded away in the last month, there’s a sense that the team still, to put it simply, gives a crap.

Just check out what Jose Abreu told reporters after the game, courtest of editor emeritus James Fegan:

“We had a meeting a few weeks ago in KC and we talked about how we can do things better on the field. I think that he’s been taking advantage of that situation, using the whole field and that’s something that lets you know that the kids are trying to do better and trying to take any piece of advice that you could give them. That’s good. That makes you feel proud, because you see that they are trying harder. They’re trying to find ways for them to have success and that’s good. I’m just happy, not just because of the win today but because of how they’re playing, how we’re fighting.”

This is simplistic and speculative, and it’s unfair to draw conclusions like that coming off two of the more exciting wins of the season, but this year’s bad White Sox team is different than previous bad White Sox iterations in so much as that, maybe, instead of being filled with veterans just going through the motions during a lost season, you’re instead seeing players fighting to prove they belong on a major league roster, or they’re young and trying to further their development, or — in the case of the few veterans who remain — trying to ensure their professional careers will continue beyond this season.

It’s hard to quantify how much stuff like this matters in the long run, but it’s sure as hell good to see.

4. Before leaving Monday’s game with the aforementioned injury, Moncada was 0-for-2 and is now 4-for-46 in his White Sox career.

As great as it would be if Moncada’s long-awaited arrival had been followed by a scorching hot start, we’re a long way from being a long way from worrying about him in any way. James has a great piece up at The Athletic Chicago on why that is, including quotes from Rick Renteria and Todd Steverson, but it’s worth re-stating that while the strikeouts we always knew would be there are, in fact, ever-present, his patience has been on display (six walks), and small sample size alert he’s hitting the ball hard when he makes contact but running into poor luck (.143 BABIP).

5. While Lopez is still expected to start for Charlotte on Tuesday, fellow prized pitching prospects Dane Dunning and Michael Kopech took the hill Monday. A quick perusal of the box score finds good things — Dunning allowed one run and struck out 11 in seven innings for Winston-Salem, while Kopech allowed two runs, struck out eight, and walked zero in seven innings. What’s worth watching for both guys as the minor league season winds down is how they continue to hold up. Every inning thrown by either guy creates a new career high and both are at more than 100 innings on the season now.

Lead Photo Credit: Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

2. The prospect who had the best weekend of them all, however, was Yoan Moncada. He’s been hitting well all season long, but his performance over the weekend was outstanding. Naturally, questions have been raised about when he’s going to get brought up to the big leagues. He’s hitting .337/.412/.519 on the season with five home runs. He’s also striking out at a clip of 26.6 percent. The contact rate and ability to handle certain types of spin are certainly relevant and concerning, although he has cut the strikeouts down considerably in the last few weeks. Even so, the power and hitting ability are clearly there as well.

Financial considerations cannot be so quickly ignored, either. In order to gain an extra year before Moncada reaches free agency (i.e. Moncada reaches free agency in 2023), the White Sox would have to wait until after May 15 to call him up. At this point, there is absolutely no reason to not wait until that date. Where things get a bit dicier is in the possibility of Moncada avoiding becoming a Super Two player. That would require waiting until after the All-Star break to call him up. The benefit for the White Sox would be another year in which Moncada’s salary is fixed rather than going to arbitration. The gains from such a decision may not be obvious in comparison to the desire to see Moncada at the big league level. That’s completely fair. However, the White Sox have made it clear that they’re an organization very much interested in spending as little money as possible.

If they are going to compete for a long enough window to win a championship, keeping the core players at a controlled cost will be vitally important. Despite his slump, having Tim Anderson locked up for the next six seasons is a good start. It’s unlikely that Moncada signs a deal similar to Anderson’s because he’s already earned much more money from his initial contract with the Red Sox. In that sense, the ability to avoid arbitration for an extra season could potentially lead to an extra free agent signing that puts the team over the top.

When the financial considerations are mentioned, the tendency is to put blame on the team for exploiting young talent. Perhaps that is and will be partially true about the White Sox treatment of Moncada. However, the White Sox made it clear before the season began that they would take things slow with the newly acquired prospects for reasons that had nothing to do with money at all. Recent memory haunts most White Sox fans when thinking of prospects precisely because they weren’t patient with hitters.

Moncada is still having struggles with striking out to go along with his monstrous power. That is concerning. Purely for baseball reasons, the contact issues might indicate more time is needed. Even though the White Sox are technically competing in the division for the time being, the bottom line is that they are a rebuilding team without any intention of winning ballgames. They don’t need Moncada right now. While the financial considerations have and will play a role in Moncada’s stay in Charlotte, the baseball reasons are still enough to argue that he should spend more time in Triple-A. With such a small amount of experiences in the higher levels, the failures of his time in Boston, and a concerning strikeout rate the White Sox have good reason to take it slow with Moncada. That is disappointing to hear as a fan who wants to see fun baseball. It’s great to hear as a fan who remembers the failures of prospects past. The White Sox have one shot to get this right. They shouldn’t be in a rush to possibly ruin the best talent they’ve seen in their minor league system for a long, long time.

3. The White Sox had a no good, horrible, very bad weekend in Baltimore. The pitching performances left quite a bit to be desired, but the offense didn’t show up at all. That led to an easy three game sweep for the Orioles.

Avisail Garcia’s hot start to the season has been chronicled and pondered over since a week or two into the season. The general consensus has been that, for many reasons, he’s likely to decline at least a small amount. His BABIP is at an unreal mark of .418 mostly because of an inordinate amount of infield hits. There’s also the fact that everything we’ve seen from Garcia thus far indicates there isn’t going to be a sudden jump in production. Everything seems to scream regression is coming.

Perhaps that time has started. In the first month of the season, Garcia went hitless just five times. A week into the second month of the season, he’s been hitless twice. While that isn’t super meaningful, his 2-for-12 performance in Baltimore is even more indicative of the fall that he’s slipping into. Extend the time constraints to the entire road trip (nine games) and you see that he’s gone 10-for-36, which translates to a .278 average. While that isn’t horrible, it’s certainly a fall from how he has been hitting. His BABIP has also dropped considerably, as predicted. It could just be a small slump for the White Sox right fielder, but it also might be the start of what we’ve been expecting for a while now.

4. Jose Quintana’s start to the season is starting to be a little more troublesome. While no good scout is allowing a few bad results change their mind about a pitcher who has been very good over the last four seasons, there is growing concern about the market for Quintana. He’s shown troubles in the early parts of games only to settle in and pitch enough innings to remain valuable. That’s worrisome. However, it’s not time to panic yet.  It’s not encouraging that Quintana struggled to put away hitters once he had two strikes on them on Sunday, but he also got zero good luck on weak contact against a quality offense.

The White Sox appear to have passed on some subpar trade offers for Quintana during the offseason. The bad news is that they didn’t take them and Quintana proceeded to have a poor start. The good news is that they have Quintana under team control for another three-plus seasons. In the same way that Garcia never performing in the past tends to indicate he won’t suddenly be amazing, the fact that Quintana has only shown success in the past, and his peripherals don’t show reason for decline, indicates that he hasn’t suddenly dropped into a bottomless pit of despair. The worries about Quintana are growing, but White Sox fans should remain at ease about the White Sox ability to get high end talent for the young lefty.

5. Jose Abreu has been as hot as they come in the past week or so. His start to the season was icy cold, so this certainly bodes well for both Abreu and the White Sox. He has three home runs in the past five games. Over the past week, he has an OPS of 1.074 and ISO of .407. Those numbers can be somewhat misleading in a small sample size, but the point is generally just that he’s hit the ball really well lately. If that continues the White Sox are in a great position to move him at the deadline or keep him around as a valuable veteran presence.

Lead Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

The White Sox sent Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals on Wednesday for a trio of prospects, according to multiple media reports.

The prospects, Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Dane Dunning, are all right-handed pitchers ranked in Washington’s Top 10 by Jeffrey Paternostro and the BP Prospect Staff.  Rumor has it this was the package offered for Sale minus Victor Robles.

Giolito is the centerpiece here. The No. 3 overall prospect and top pitching prospect in the league entering 2016 has front-end starter upside with a nasty curveball and fastball that has touched triple digits. He threw 21.1 innings in the majors in 2016 and could be in the rotation as soon as the start of the 2017 season.  It should be noted that he took a step back this year, as the Nationals fiddled with his mechanics, and he struggled with his command even after reverting to his Global No. 1 pitching prospect delivery.

Still, that seems like quite a haul for Eaton, even with his friendly contract and five years of control, but Lopez is also a Global Top 50 prospect, jumping as high as No. 39 in BP’s midseason rankings. He also saw time in the majors in 2016 after tearing through both Double- and Triple-A at the start of the season, and even if he doesn’t work out as a starter could be a dominant bullpen piece.

Dunning, the third prospect in the deal, isn’t exactly a throw in, either. The Nationals made him the 29th overall pick the draft in June after pitching mostly in relief for the University of Florida. One would assume the White Sox will see if he can start in the low minors.

In Sale and now Eaton, the White Sox have now acquired arguable the top positional prospect and top pitching prospect in the game, as well as two other Top 100 prospects. In two days they’ve transformed their system from Bottom 5 to, probably, Top 5. That has come at the cost of their best pitcher and best position player, of course, but it’s clear the White Sox are going all-in on a teardown. This, of course, will make the 2017 (and probably longer) product unbearable, but the White Sox have obviously chosen a direction and are “going for it” in a way we’ve never really seen before.

While the idea of a rebuild is a tough pill to swallow, now that it has reached full swing the best one can hope for is that they get the best value possible for all the pieces they are set to unload. So far, it would seem, so good.

Lead Photo Credit: Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports