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How the White Sox won the Winter Meetings

NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. – This is what a rebuild is supposed to look like. The Chicago White Sox hemmed and hawed, lived in that dangerous ZIP code where they weren’t awful but weren’t any good, either, and found themselves once again staring at a question no team ever wants to ask itself: Are we good enough? The answer, as is almost always the case when such an examination begins, was no. The ability for enough self-reflection to do something about it is always the hard part.

Honesty amid introspection can be hard to come by in a business judged solely upon wins and losses, which makes what the White Sox did over the final two days of the Winter Meetings all the more impressive. In trading Chris Sale and Adam Eaton – one a superstar and the other quite underrated, both on the sorts of team-friendly deals the White Sox have excelled at negotiating – Chicago managed to kick off its demolition in the best fashion possible.

Wednesday’s deal that sent Eaton to the Washington Nationals for pitching prospects Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning was, in the words of one executive, “Shelby Miller 2.0.” And while that may be an exaggeration – the Miller-for-Dansby Swanson/Ender Inciarte/Aaron Blair swap brought two everyday players, while the Eaton trade trafficked in the uncertain quantity known as pitching prospects – the implication was obvious: Chicago extracted immense value out of Eaton and the five years and $38.4 million that remain on his contract, should the Nationals exercise the two club options at the end of it.

“We are ecstatic about the return we were able to secure,” said White Sox general manager Rick Hahn, the architect of the Eaton deal as well as the Sale trade that secured them star-in-the-making Yoan Moncada, 100-mph-flamethrower Michael Kopech, outfield prospect Luis Basabe and power arm Victor Diaz. In Giolito, the White Sox bought low on a 21-year-old right-hander who, before six ugly outings in Washington, was thought to be the best pitching prospect in baseball. In Lopez, they got an ultra-quick right-hander who, if he can start, is a potential No. 2 and, worst-case scenario, ends up an eighth- or ninth-inning arm. And in Dunning, they secured the Nationals’ most recent first-round pick, a righty with the potential to move fast. Or, as Hahn put it, “High-impact, potential front-of-the-rotation pieces.”

The danger, of course, is that they’re arms, and arms break. Giolito’s ulnar collateral ligament tore in high school, and he’s four years removed from Tommy John surgery. Lopez missed most of 2013 with arm issues. Which is part of the reason volume return in these deals was so important to Hahn: The only antidote for pitchers getting hurt is having more pitchers down the pike.

Lucas Giolito
The White Sox continued stocking their farm system by acquiring Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning from Washington. (Getty Images)

What was a thin-but-improving system – scouts love Alec Hansen, the monster right-hander whose disappointing junior season allowed the White Sox to thieve him in the second round of the draft, after getting Zack Collins and his big bat in the first – is now trending toward one of baseball’s finest. And that’s before Hahn dealt Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier, Jose Abreu, David Robertson or Nate Jones, all of whom could go if Chicago chooses a full teardown.

That’s almost always the best course of action. It’s what the team 10 miles north did, and you may know about them. The Chicago Cubs won the World Series in 2016. They’re favorites to repeat in 2017. And they’ll keep churning in 2018 and 2019 and 2020, too, because most of the big-time prospects they acquired during their nuking happened to turn into productive major leaguers.

Hitting on prospects at that rate is uncommon and perhaps an unreasonable expectation for the White Sox. And yet the lesson the Cubs offer is instructive: Even in a big market, sometimes the best option is to commit arson and start from scratch. It takes patience and confidence and a willingness to bear risk, because if it doesn’t go as planned, it sets a franchise back a decade instead of three years, and that’s something no owner will oblige, not when attendance craters as it’s expected to.

“This is going to take some time,” Hahn said. “There’s going to be difficult elements of this along the way.” Both statements are true. Rebuilding is often ugly, and some of the perks of the past, like an increased bonus pool for international signings or a disproportionately large domestic draft pool, are gone from the new collective-bargaining agreement. The White Sox and San Diego Padres will be the first new test cases for how the current rules affect starting from scratch.

If the White Sox score for the rest of its desirables anything close to what they did from Sale and Eaton, the rules may not matter. The market for Quintana is bustling. Whether it’s the Houston Astros, the Colorado Rockies, the Los Angeles Dodgers or any other team that wants a front-of-the-rotation type, the price will be heavy, and Chicago will extract it thanks to another great long-term deal that accompanies Quintana. The market for Abreu may not reveal itself this winter, but a bat like his is always desirable. Frazier is a free agent-to-be and as good as gone. Robertson has closing experience in a market without enough to satisfy the number of suitors for it, and Jones may be even better than him. And with a goofy-great contract – five years at less than $14 million if he needs elbow surgery, four years at $15.65 million if he doesn’t – Jones’ value is absurdly high.

The catbird’s seat is Rick Hahn’s, the White Sox’s, because they’ve done what they had to do. Even with Andrew McCutchen, Dexter Fowler, Charlie Blackmon and others available, Hahn preyed on the Nationals’ desire to win now, with Bryce Harper around for only two more years, and played the vulture that dive-bombed that which was most prone.

It’s no fun moving out of that in-between ZIP code into one with a win total that starts with a six, but that’s merely a pit stop on the way to something bigger and better. Moncada at second base. Giolito, Kopech and Lopez in the rotation. It’s tough to say a team won the Winter Meetings while resigning itself to losing, but, well, the Chicago White Sox did. And this is just the beginning.

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