There are logical arguments to be made for trading either or both. That’s an argument for another day. However, while Rick Hahn indicated at this week’s GM meetings in Orlando that the White Sox are in no rush to part with either of them, their respective values on the trade market are going to be a source of speculation throughout the winter. So with that in mind, here are a three teams who could, hypothetically, feel the need to acquire one of them.

Jose Abreu

• The Colorado Rockies have always seemed like the most obvious landing spot. During the White Sox Winter Purge of 2016, they were rumored to be interested in making a deal for him, but instead foolishly threw $70 million over five years at Ian Desmond — who had never played first base before — and he promptly put up a 73 OPS+. The Rockies made the playoffs anyway, because baseball. Desmond’s contract and the Rockies seeming unwillingness to part with prospects would be a hang up, of course, as would the presence of prospect Ryan McMahon, a third baseman who is blocked at third by some guy named Nolan Arenado. The Rockies’ desire to acquire Abreu would ultimately depend on how willing they are to go “all-in” after a surprising playoff appearance in 2017.
• The Seattle Mariners got similarly poor production out of their first basemen in 2017. They entered the season with a first base platoon of Danny Valencia and my large adult son Dan Vogelbach, and after that flopped they acquired Yonder Alonso, who fell back to worth after a surprisingly All-Star worthy first half in Oakland and is now a free agent. The Mariners have the longest active playoff drought in baseball and Dealin’ Jerry DiPoto is about the only general manager out there more active than Hahn, but the major hangup here would be Seattle’s barren farm system.
• The Boston Red Sox got a surprisingly productive season out of Mitch Moreland at first base in 2017, but he’s a free agent and the team is starving for power. The Red Sox, of course, are recently familiar trading partners with the White Sox. They’re also a rich team that may be more apt to spend their money on the market instead of parting with more prospects. That’s not to say Dave Dombrowski wouldn’t, if he and Hahn found a mutual agreement. But the odds seem long.

Avisail Garcia

• The Oakland Athletics have already been rumored to be interested in Garcia, a move that would seem logical in a “nobody ever knows what the hell the A’s are thinking” sense. Oakland has been in “Are they rebuilding? OK they’re definitely rebuilding. But maybe they’re trying to win now, too?” mode for a few years now, so all bets are off in guessing what Billy Beane could be up to.
• The Toronto Blue Jays are seemingly set to watch Jose Bautista leave in free agency, an outcome that would leave a gapping hole in right field. Garcia would be a logical replacement if they’re willing to part with prospects. With Kendrys Morales entrenched at DH despite a poor 2017, however, there wouldn’t be another spot for Garcia in the event that his already shaky defense continues to be an issue.
• The San Francisco Giants are coming off a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year in a season where many had them pegged for the playoffs. With the likelihood that they move Hunter Pence out of a full-time role, right field would be a spot they would presumably target to upgrade as they look to put 2017 behind them. The Giants, like the Red Sox, seem more likely to upgrade their roster with money rather than via trade, and a National League landing spot is less ideal for Garcia given his DH-ness. Besides, could you imagine him patrolling that right field?

There are other potential landing spots, of course, but IF Hahn finds himself inclined to move either player, the market is likely the biggest obstacle to overcome. I mentioned in both the Red Sox and Giants bullet points that those teams are more likely to upgrade their positions of need with money rather than via trades, but the same could be said for most any team.

Abreu and Garcia both hold value of their own, of course, but why trade valuable prospects for them when you could throw money at a Eric Hosmer, Carlos Santana, Logan Morrison, Lorenzo Cain, Jay Bruce, etc.? Because of both the market and, in Abreu’s case, his non-quantifiable value to the clubhouse, the odds are that both likely stay in Chicago. But if teams fall short of their goals in free agency, things could change quickly.

Lead Photo Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

The comedy was easy to find: an unremarkable player who was previously tucked away from the spotlight is suddenly thrust into it, and the baseball world reacts with confusion bordering on genuine annoyance.

It was much later, when Gillaspie started clubbing Aroldis Chapman fastballs into the dark and uninhabited regions of AT&T Park and going 8-for-19 in five playoff games with six RBI that the confusion bordering on annoyance suddenly got reflected back on all of us. Why did Conor do this in San Francisco, and not Chicago, after all?

Well, firstly, for all typical definitions, Conor Gillaspie never played a meaningful game in a Sox uniform in three years. He broke out with the worst Sox team in decades, had his best season with a clearly-rebuilding 2014 team, and got axed from a 2015 team that was 18-17 at one point and never above .500 again. He was never put in the position for his ability to hang in there with pretty much any right-hander to show up in a game that anyone besides myself, Jim Margalus, and seven other people were watching. And while I wouldn’t offer myself as sage for predicting the Cubs overwhelming the Giants, somewhere around ‘Gillaspie hitting fifth in an elimination game’ brought back memories of when simply being competent vaulted him way too far up the hierarchy.

The Giants didn’t really get anything special from Gillaspie. He hit .262/.307/.440 in the regular season, and while the power jump is a bit notable, it’s countered by getting a .262 average from someone who has a nice hit tool and no other standout ability. What they did was reduce him to a part-time player (he started just 37 of his 101 games) which de-emphasized the shaky defense that made him a slump away from being a total liability, as he was in Chicago. A reader might remember that he slumped in 2015, and then became a total liability to both the Sox and the Angels.

The reason five-tool guys, and players who man premium positions are more valuable is that slumps happen all the time, and players who can contribute in multiple ways are more able to help their team even when parts of their game are not going well. So while the Sox being so desperate as to make Gillaspie a near full-timer for parts of three seasons (despite him being an obvious platoon candidate) means Sox fans’ memories are filled with stretches of him being useless, but they also got to see his peak.

He hit .282/.336/.416 in 506 plate appearances in 2014, good for a solidly above-average .277 TAv. Moreover, he was, uh, clutch if we want to wade into those waters. He finished in the top-50 in the AL in win probability added, one spot ahead of Kole Calhoun, and had a superb 1.44 clutch rating. He hit a bases-clearing triple off Wade Davis to key a mid-September comeback win over the eventual AL Champion Royals, he hit the go-ahead RBI single in the 10th inning of an August win in Seattle, and a month earlier terrorized the Red Sox by hitting two separate two-out, sixth inning, go-ahead home runs in Boston.

Like any players with any offensive impact at all, Gillaspie had his moments — hell, Leury Garcia had a solo home run in a 2-1 victory in Los Angeles and a walk-off single in 2014 — the strangeness was always him being granted this grand stage, which, as it always does, has obscured any reasonable conversation about the player himself.

Lead Image Credit: John Hefti // USA Today Sports Images