White Sox’ Winter Meetings deals could establish them as long-term AL Central power

The Chicago White Sox have been one of the most active teams at Major League Baseball’s Winter Meetings, and the moves they’ve made have potentially set them up to be the team of the future in the American League Central.

The White Sox have been attempting to contend for several seasons now, but the team hasn’t actually succeeded in reaching the postseason since 2008. They came fairly close in both 2010 and 2012, but despite all the money spent between 2009 and 2016, they’ve finished below .500 every other year during that period.

This winter, the White Sox finally gave in and went for a full rebuild, as admitted by general manager Rick Hahn. That essentially meant everyone was available, and they had some very valuable pieces.

First, on Tuesday, they were able to trade Chris Sale to Boston for a group of prospects headlined by Yoan Moncada, the top position player prospect in the game, and pitcher Michael Kopech. On Wednesday, they followed it up by dealing Adam Eaton to Washington for an astonishing haul that included Lucas Giolito, rated as the best pitching prospect in baseball.

The moves mean that the White Sox will definitely be a rather poor team in 2017, but that’s irrelevant. They likely wouldn’t have been playoff caliber in 2017 even if they’d kept Sale and Eaton. Instead, according to MLB.com’s prospect rankings, they’ve acquired the No. 1, No. 3, No. 30, and No. 38 prospects in all of baseball.

The White Sox have, essentially, rebuilt their entire farm system – which was previously below par – in the span of a little more than 24 hours. No other system in the AL Central compares. The Minnesota Twins have a lot of young talent, but the likes of Miguel Sano are already in the bigs, and outfielder Byron Buxton hasn’t developed as quickly and as completely as the team would have hoped. The Detroit Tigers have more young talent than they did two years ago, but most of it is already in the majors and the system as a whole is still poor. The Cleveland Indians and Kansas City Royals have had really good prospects in the past, but most of them have already reached the big leagues or were traded away as both teams attempted to win immediately. That leaves a unique opening for the White Sox two to three years down the road, and they may not even be done replenishing their system, with Jose Quintana and Todd Frazier reportedly available as well.

There’s another wrinkle to this as well. If this core of prospects develops and still looks promising after the 2018 season, the White Sox will be in a unique position to take advantage of the free agent market. Chicago’s long-term, high-priced commitments – largely wrapped up in James Shields, Melky Cabrera, and David Robertson – are all off the books by the end of the 2018 season. As it stands, they have just $2.25 million in guaranteed money on the books for 2019, according to Cot’s Baseball Contracts. Why is that significant? The 2018 free agent class could contain the likes of Bryce Harper, Manny Machado, Matt Harvey, Josh Donaldson, Adam Jones, A.J. Pollock, David Price, Clayton Kershaw, Matt Harvey, Craig Kimbrel, and Andrew Miller. The White Sox will have a lot of money to spend on some of those free agents that could, if everything goes well, give them immediate legitimacy and throw them back into contention.

Sure, there’s a chance this backfires. Giolito, Kopech, and Moncada might not reach their lofty ceilings. However, this was a team that was going nowhere fast, and they’ve done about as well as anyone possibly could have expected them to in this rebuild, with possibly more to come.