The Chicago White Sox didn’t get what they needed from Craig Kimbrel after the trade.
As mentioned before, the Chicago White Sox trade Nick Madrigal. He was sent to the Chicago Cubs with Codi Heuer in exchange for Craig Kimbrel. The White Sox were getting one of the premier targets on the trade block as he was having a marvelous first half with the Chicago Cubs. He is one of the greatest closers that ever lived and he looked like it with the Cubs in the early going.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go well for Kimbrel when he came to the south side of town. It wasn’t all his fault as the White Sox didn’t use him right. People who know baseball know that pitching is a mindset too. Closers need to close games and the White Sox didn’t use Kimbrel as the closer as they had Liam Hendriks. Using him in the 8th inning was terrible and it didn’t work.
As a result, it sounds like the White Sox are going to pick up Kimbrel’s option for 2022 and then trade him during the offseason. They might be able to get something for him but they aren’t going to get back what they paid for him. Either way, you can expect him to be pitching for a different team by the time that next season rolls around.