White Sox: Trading Prospects for Young All-Star Catcher Makes Sense
White Sox could upgrade an important area for the future of their rebuild with a trade for a disgruntled young All-Star catcher in Miami.
The White Sox enter the offseason with not many long-term financial commitments and depth of talented young prospects in the minors. As many teams will look to make their team better by signing free agents, the Sox can not only sign solid veteran players but they can also trade for a young catcher.
Although the Sox currently have two catchers on their 40-man roster in Omar Narvaez and Welington Castillo, they could trade for a young disgruntled catcher in Miami. On Tuesday it was announced that catcher J.T. Realmuto of the Marlins won’t sign an extension with the team and wants to be traded.
Realmuto was one of the better players for the Marlins this past season and he became an All-Star for the first time in 2018. The 27-year-old catcher finished the year with an impressive .277/.340/.484 slash line to go along with 21 home runs and 74 RBIs. Realmuto appeared in 112 games at catcher for Miami and had a .992 fielding percentage and a caught potential base stealers at a rate of 38 percent.
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There will be many teams that will be interested in trading for Realmuto, but the Sox can offer the Marlins better prospects for the disgruntled catcher. With the Sox having many top prospects, they could very well trade from an area of depth to get a player that would help their pitching staff and offense for the next two years.
It isn’t shocking that Realmuto would like to part ways with Miami. The Marlins traded away many of their best players last offseason, and they won’t be contending for a while as they rebuild their team. Realmuto likely wants to play for a team going in a better direction and the Sox could be close to contending in 2020.
The Sox as it stands now, don’t have what it takes to contend next season. However, a few offseason additions via free agency and trades could certainly change that. Realmuto had an impressive 4.3 WAR in 2018 for the Marlins. That’s better than any other player the Sox had this past season. Reynaldo Lopez led the team with a 3.1 WAR.
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If the Sox were to trade some of their prospects such as Blake Rutherford, Dane Dunning, and others, they could possibly land Realmuto. The Sox have some depth in their farm system and they should take the opportunity to trade for an All-Star catcher. This offseason is the perfect time for the Sox to improve going into 2019. Hopefully, the front office doesn’t blow a golden opportunity to trade for a young catcher.