Per WSD: The White Sox Acquire James Shields and Cash For Erik Johnson and Fernando Tatis, Jr. #Sources
I’ll start this blog by taking my victory lap… If you wanna call it that. Actually it’s not really a victory lap, more just the back story on how in the last week or so every Tom, Dick and Harry (is that how that phrase goes?) started using me as their lead source for piping hot White Sox trade rumors.
Over the last 4-5 years I’ve developed a lot of good connections in the baseball world, through both Barstool and coaching. I know a decent amount of scouts from various professional organizations, college coaches, well-respected high school coaches, agents and baseball people in general. It’s a fun network to be a part of.
Anyways, I’ve always been tossed little tidbits here and there about trade rumors, signings, etc. but they either never really amounted to anything, I got misinformation, or by the time I confirmed the news it was already public knowledge, leaving me a day late and dollar short.
So two Fridays ago, one of my baseball connex said to me “Shields to the Sox. Erik Johnson and Fernando Tatis Jr. involved.”
I happen to have a person I could crosscheck this info with in San Diego and it reeeeeeked of correctness, for lack of a better phrase.
I wanted to be first, because of course, so I took it to every media member, player, scout, agents, cross checker, and bat boy that I knew, mostly because I was TERRIFIED of being wrong. You can’t be wrong on these things, because you’ll lose credibility forever. Eventually I made contact with San Diego Padres beat writer Dennis Lin. He confirmed the info that the White Sox we’re going hard after Shields but wasn’t sure how close a deal was to being finalized.
That’s when ALL of the big shots picked it up. From Jon Heyman to Buster Olney, to Ken Rosenthal. You name it, they were running with the info.
I wasn’t overly concerned with getting credit for actually breaking the news. I was more concerned that all of the big shots would go out of their way to avoid crediting a fat, drunk and stupid Barstool blogger.
I wasn’t about to let that happen. Hell or high water Barstool was getting some sort of credit, I was hell bent on it.
Heyman originally credited Lin, but Stoolies weren’t gonna let that slide. Bam. Big ups to Stoolies for making sure Kenny Rosenthal gave me and Barstool the credit it deserves.
Also, since all of this went down, my last name is out there. I don’t realllllly care that it is, but I’ve also been offered TV and radio appearances this week, which I accepted, so I’m pretty sure I’m about to get fired from my real job for my Barstool association. This is the part where I am obliged to ask Barstool Sports minority owner Mr. Davey Pageviews to toss some of that Chernin money this way.
As far as the trade itself: from a pure value standpoint, it’s a great move for the Sox. They’re only paying him $27MM for his next three years, assuming he doesn’t opt out after this year (he’s not gonna).
As far as how he’ll throw? We’ll see. He’s been giving up a lot of bombs the last two years, which doesn’t bode well for hitter friendly US Cellular Field, but at the same time, in the last two years Petco has been a more hitter friendly park than The Cell. With all of that said, he’s had 9 straight years of 200IP and is on his way to 10 this season. He’s an instant upgrade over either Latos or Gonzales. I’m assuming Gonzales gets bumped from the rotation because he has an option left and Latos doesn’t, but Gonzales is also pitching better right now and Hahn is all in after this move, so we’ll see. I’ll give a full breakdown on his mechanics, stuff, numbers, etc. more in depth this week.
The Sox dealt Erik Johnson and Fernando Tatis Jr. to San Diego in return. Johnson was never going to be anything more than a depth piece for the Sox. Probably a AAAA player at this point – someone who can excel at the highest minor league level but doesn’t have the stuff to be an impactful player in The Show.
Tatis Jr. on the other had is gonna be a very good player from what I’m told. After the Trade went down, a major league scout who’s currently in Arizona for extended spring training shot me this text:
“So reading up and you had a little first hand news on the Tatis trade. Nicely done. Dude is one of my favorite players down here, gonna be good and will stick at SS.
A young players’ ability to stick at SS or not is a pretty big barometer on his organizational value. There’s just not a lot of pure short stops at any level of baseball, so when a team has one, they potentially possess a major organizational asset, even if the player’s hit tool is very average. That said, apparently Tatis’ hit tool is above average and he could maybe break into the bigs as a 21ish year old.
This is the first move of a few more moves. Hahn doesn’t make the move unless he’s hell bent on making the playoffs, last shitty month be damned. They still possess their best three trade chips in Tim Anderson, Carson Fulmer and Spencer Adams. Anderson isn’t going anywhere, but don’t be surprised if Hahn pulls a rabbit out f his hat and trades for someone of the Cargo mold sooner than later. I already have my #sources digging up more rumors to break for me.