White Sox: Jose Quintana And The Twitter Imagination Shop

The seeming desire of the White Sox trading Jose Quintana is enough to stretch any logical reason why they would want to in the first place. But beyond that, the scenarios regarding a trade are becoming more remarkable and ridiculous every day, as witnessed by the blockbuster suggested yesterday on Twitter……..

Try to wrap your head around this one…….as a suggestion offered on Futuresox.com. I’ll summarize it for you, ready? The Yankees get McCutchen from the Pirates who get Quintana from the White Sox who get Pittsburgh’s No. 1 prospect. Noticeably absent in the Tweet though is what the Yankees are giving up to get McCutchen. Hell, it’s Christmas and he must be a gift from Santa.

I’m leading with this because not only is that deal unlikely, it ignores the question of why the White Sox would want to trade Quintana in the first place. Granted, Rick Hahn wins the award as the best General Manager of the offseason and it’s usually not wise to question a guy who’s on a roll, but Jose Quintana is a pretty good major league pitcher and you have control of him for at least the next two years.

The White Sox Are Propelling The Twitter Imagination

And you don’t dangle a pitcher out there like Quintana and not expect your phone to ring off the hook, if indeed the White Sox put his name out there in the first place. Because you have to wonder if this isn’t all just a figment of the “Twitter Imagination” that has become so prevalent and predictable these days. And nothing meshes with the glowing report that Hahn gave Quintana just two years when the White Sox thought so highly of him that they awarded him with a five-year guaranteed contract, as reported here by White Sox Pride when Rick Hahn said:

“Jose quickly has established himself as a quality major-league starting pitcher, and along with Chris Sale, we expect him to be an important piece of our rotation for the foreseeable future. Jose brings a tremendous work ethic and professionalism to his approach, and he is well respected by his teammates, so we are excited to be able to reward him for what he has accomplished thus far in his career and possibly keep him in a White Sox uniform for the next seven seasons.”

And it’s too easy to simply chalk it up to “that was then but this is now” or “everybody has a right to change their mind”. And besides, Quintana has only gotten better since then. He’s pitched 200+ innings for four consecutive seasons and he has a cumulative ERA of 3.41 – in the American League! He’s a horse who looks and pitches like a young CC Sabathia .

White Sox: Think July!

The other day I wrote a piece titled, Some Of The Best Rebuilds Are The Ones That Never Happen in which I argued that teams like the White Sox should consider shutting down the complete overhaul of their team, take a deep breath and wait until they can see how things look in July, or possibly even next offseason when the dust will have settled from the moves already made.

Because if a player like Quintana has caused this much of a stir in December, you can imagine what it’ll be like in July when the trade deadline approaches. It makes more sense to wait. The likelihood of the White Sox overtaking the Indians this year is remote at best, with chances of a Wild Card spot only a tinge better.

So, what’s the rush. But not to worry because after all, the Twitter Imagination Shop is open for business 24/7………