Baffoe: White Sox Had To Trade Chris Sale To Get Happy
By Tim Baffoe--
(CBS) They traded a generational ace for prospects. That existentially sucks.
But this is the Chicago White Sox, a franchise that's perpetually showing its bipolarism, be it in conflicting messages in the front office or the fickleness of the fans. A week ago, we were forehead slapping over them still seeming to be those rebs who crept out of the woods years after the Civil War ended still ready to defend a fallen country.
If you're a 20-something Sox fan, the best pitcher of your rooting life who's about your age just got shipped away, with ace left-hander Chris Sale getting moved to Boston. If you're an old Sox salt, you might be grumbling about trading a sure thing for prospects whose names you have to learn to pronounce. And if you're in between those poles -- say 34 and handsome and logical and witty -- you can hold the yin and the yang of this trade with the Red Sox and understand that this was necessary, albeit not without sadness.
But this is how you get happy. This is how the year-after-year demand to blow the whole operation up and rebuild instead of lying to themselves with the next Jimmy Rollins happens. This turns a red downward arrow in a different direction.
To get to a better place - -a happier, more positive outlook on franchise direction -- general manager Rick Hahn had to ship off Sale. This trade was months in the making, not so much because of Boston but internal turmoil in Chicago. A lefty strikeout machine, Sale accelerated his reputation as a petulant child in 2016, from publicly feuding with his superiors in spring training over the embarrassing Swiss Family LaRoche saga to Sale sabotaging team property midseason and being sent home before a start because he didn't get his way. Sale's multiple emasculations of manager Robin Ventura no doubt played a role in the latter deciding to step away at season's end, and such a spaz probably wasn't the best roster centerpiece for a new manager in Rick Renteria.
In fairness, Sale's behavior and attitude may have been prevented or at least mitigated had the Sox put a decent product around him. Had the team been good, Sale is probably framed as colorful rather than bratty. (Take the less dominant and certainly more ornery and otherwise unsavory John Lackey across town, for example.)
Hahn realized that besides any headaches Sale might bring, even with his Cy Young-candidate stuff the Sox weren't getting better with him. On Tuesday, he called the trade "bittersweet," indicating that logical pivot from lamenting what could have been -- an annual theme for the Sox this decade -- to looking forward to a hopefully brighter future, a happy future.
"Given where we were as an organization entering this offseason, we knew we were going to have to make some painful decisions," Hahn said. "But if we had the opportunity to acquire some high-impact talent that would be around for a number of years, it was time to start that process … So today was the first step in what very likely will be an extended process."
Hear that key word, Sox fans? Process. That's a good word right now. It's a happy word. "Plan" is kind of trademarked on the North Side, but hearing it repeated to the point of satire bore fruit -- really big friggin' fruit.
For too long, Sox fans have pressed knuckles to temples moaning about what the hell was the vision of this team. Was Hahn really pulling the strings or having his strings pulled by an increasingly loathed helicopter Kenny Williams?
Hahn showed you what's up with this trade. It's his vision -- a happier one than resting on any 2005 laurels that are increasingly becoming as morbid as clinging the 1985 Bears. This shows a process, one that isn't going to involve just plugging holes with washed up former All-Stars while scooping water out of the boat in order to have familiar names that sound good to say but don't produce.
Hahn made a big-boy GM move, pitting the Washington Nationals and Boston against each other to drive up the Sale price until he got four valuable prospects -- second baseman Yoan Moncada (baseball's top prospect), right-hander Michael Kopech, outfielder Luis Basabe and right-hander Victor Diaz -- instead of the Nats' supposed three and no more.
Despite that tearing feel of ripping away a Chris Sale, we're happily not talking today about the Sox messing up a big trade. And as a happy byproduct of that, the price of left-hander Jose Quintana, whom the Sox are also shopping, goes up in a now-thinner pitching market. Reports even have the Nationals trying to rebound with Quintana, and those prospect names above would certainly factor into that.
"This is an effort to move more toward being able to sustain ourselves at that higher echelon," Hahn said. "There may well be some pain along the way … But ultimately we think whatever sacrifice we make for the short-term at the big-league level is going to pay off for an extended period (in the future) because the last place we want to be is caught in between."
Another happy word -- sustained. Not being good for a year but for a lot of them, in a row, so that your entire Sox existence doesn't hang on a single year like a grade-school art project that's beyond faded but still on the fridge because it was your peak accomplishment. With this process underway, you can start moving beyond mere pride in Adam Eaton's hustle and Drake LaRoche endorsements and Todd Frazier's Sinatra walkup music.
This is how a man with a pla -- process -- talks, Sox fans. There's a vision here. We don't know what will come of it, but dang it if it ain't at least 21st-century professional. After years of Keystone Kops baseball on the South Side, that's a something. A happy something.
Even if it involves the present bitter taste of one of the best pitchers in the game going away to make it happen.
Tim Baffoe is a columnist for CBSChicago.com. Follow Tim on Twitter @TimBaffoe. The views expressed on this page are those of the author, not CBS Local Chicago or our affiliated television and radio stations.
