Chicago White Sox: Six untouchable players in trade talks

The Chicago White Sox are going to be able to make trades again soon. These six players are untouchables in trade talks once that happens.

The Chicago White Sox have been in a decade long slumber. They haven’t made the playoffs since 2008 and they haven’t been over .500 since 2012. There have been some years that we expected them to be pretty good but they ended up not being good at all. 2020 is now one of those years that we are expecting them to be good. It doesn’t fall under the same category as those other years because they have built their current roster the right way this time.

They started their rebuild after 2016 started off really promising but saw the bottom fall out. It was an ugly season but it has led to some great things for this organization. They are committed to building the right way and sustaining what they have built. There are a lot of good and young players in the organization now that they are hoping can take them to the promised land now.

2020 has been put on pause in the sports world because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That has forced this exciting White Sox team to go home and wait. Now, it looks like they are going to be able to play a short season starting in late July with Spring Training starting on July 1st. That means teams are going to start trying to get back to winning so they are going to be making transactions that better their rosters.

The White Sox are likely not going to be an exception. They are always going to be looking to improve their roster now so when rosters unfreeze they might get in on the action. With that said, there are some untouchable players for them and these are the six most notable:

Yoan Moncada is the best player on the Chicago White Sox. They acquired him from the Boston Red Sox for Chris Sale back in 2016. At that time, Moncada was the number one prospect in all of baseball. He has started to live up to it once 2019 rolled around and he had his breakout year. He is on the track of a superstar player and the White Sox are hoping he plays at a high level for them for a decade or more.

Moncada was a top-ten hitter in all of baseball in 2019 and top-three in the American League. It was a phenomenal year for him that showed that he is still going to be an enormous part of the success of the White Sox. It shouldn’t surprise anyone if he eventually goes on to be MVP good and on a Hall of Fame trajectory.

For all of these reasons, he is probably the last player that the White Sox would ever trade right now. He is so good and is going to be a key cog on this team for a long time. When the White Sox need a player to come up clutch in the field or at the plate, he could be that guy. His move from second to third base was a brilliant move for his career because he became an elite defender and an elite hitter as a result. The White Sox are so lucky to have this kid.

It seems pretty clear that Yoan Moncada is the best player in the organization that can make the most impact. With that said, Eloy Jimenez is the most fun to watch position player on this team as of right now. He is an electric factory of entertainment. Everybody who cheers for this team should be ecstatic to see what this kid can become.

He hit 31 home runs in 2019 as a rookie and he had some extended time on the injured list. It makes it clear that in a full 162 game season that he stays healthy could see him reach monster numbers. It is unfair to project what his ceiling number of home runs is going to be but we can just be excited knowing that it could be a whole lot.

He is one of the players that this team should never ever trade. The Chicago Cubs made the huge mistake of letting him go for Jose Quintana and now they look very bad for it. It is well known that if Theo Epstein could take it back he would. That is why the White Sox need to take full advantage of having Eloy fall on their lap. He is going to be there for a long long time.

It is hard to say that a player that has never played a Major League Baseball game is one of the best players on the team that should never be traded but Luis Robert is a rare case of that for the Chicago White Sox. He is going to make his MLB debut when the season gets rolling and be their starting center fielder for a decade or more. it is very exciting to think about what this kid can do.

Robert can challenge Jimenez and Moncada for the title of the best player on the team or the most exciting player on the team over the next few years. That is very high praise for someone who has never played in the MLB yet. The White Sox struck gold when they signed him as an international free agent and he has developed very nicely under their watch.

It is almost impossible to be as good as Mike Trout but you can compare Robert to him because of the fact that like Trout, Robert is a five-tool player. He can literally do it all on a baseball diamond and that is going to help the White Sox win a lot of baseball games. This is a kid that is the perfect age for what this team is doing. He will make an immediate impact for this team later in July.

The Chicago White Sox fanbase already knows what it is like to see their team trade away an ace pitcher. They saw the White Sox do that back in 2016 when they sent Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox and began their rebuild. It hurt at first but it also really helped them start to build something special. A day after that trade, the White Sox sent Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals for a few pitching prospects.

One of those pitching prospects was Lucas Giolito. He was one of the world’s top pitching prospects and the White Sox had a lot of hope for him. He looked like a complete bust after 2018 was over because he was statistically the worst pitcher in the MLB. He then had an all-time great bounce-back season in 2019 which even earned him some Cy Young votes. It was a great year for him and one that turned him into a superstar.

The White Sox need to make sure that he keeps it up so they can continue to have success with him leading the way on the mound. He can’t just be a one-hit-wonder after how his 2019 went as he has to show he can do it again. All signs, however, point to him being able to be dominant for the next decade which really excites White Sox fans.

There might be some people who see Tim Anderson as a movable part but they might want to think twice. Well, unless the White Sox find an even more premier shortstop, Anderson should absolutely be a guy that they never consider trading in his prime. He has a lot of work to do but what he can do at the plate is very significant for this team going forward.

The man won a Major League batting title in 2019 which made his breakout season that much more special. He led the entire league in batting average and that is something that he should be very proud of. Nobody needs him to hit .335 in 2020 or beyond but being around .300 would be lovely. He also provides a sense of leadership that this team absolutely needs.

If he can clean up the errors on defense and continue his tear at the plate, he will elevate himself into the conversation with the premier shortstops in the Majors. Having a guy like that on a team-friendly deal makes him virtually untouchable. The White Sox better be getting the best package possible if they were to move a player like him otherwise he should be considered an “untouchable”.