3500S

I cant imagine the Sox would find a potentially MVP caliber talent who has already put up a 5WAR season before age-25 and turn around just to trade him. If they wanted Gavin Lux so bad they would've drafted him (and IIRC they were linked to him).

Is it really outside the realm of possibility for young players like Moncada, Giolito and Eloy to be even better? Look the point I'm making here is not whether the young players will improve or to what extent they may. My point is adding Betts significantly lowers the extent the Sox need to rely on those improvements in order to make the playoffs next year.

I don't mean to be too WAR reductionist but Betts has had a 10WAR season and nothing about it screamed fluke.

I know you're going to debate that projection and try minimize those gains, but that's kind of my point in acquiring Betts. We go from debating whether this is an 80 or 85 win team to debating whether this is a 90 or 95 win team. And its almost impossible to imagine Betts not having a knock-on effect with his glove and bat that makes the whole a few wins better. All for the price of a bat-only player who doesn't have a position and some prospects? It's just a no-brainer. That's an expenses paid ticket to the playoffs for the price of a handful of prospects. I wouldn't give up Robert or anything obviously.

Moncada staying healthy: +1.5 wins Anderson staying healthy: +.5 wins Eloy staying healthy: +.5 wins Modest improvement from Lopez (to 3.5 WAR): +1 win Modest improvement from Cease (to 2WAR): +1.5wins Robert is a 2.0WAR player his rookie year replacing Leury Garcia: +1 win Madrigal is a 1.5WAR player his rookie year replacing Sanchez: +.5wins Kopech has a year almost identical to Cease's 2019 to replace the fifth starter nightmare: +1.5wins Add that to last year's total and that's 80 wins and I'm basically saying all three rookies will be only incremental improvements from the guys they are replacing. This is with zero improvement from Eloy or Moncada, just them staying healthy and producing what they did in 2019 over 160 games. That's within a shout of 85 wins.

Adding Robert, Madrigal and Kopech to replace Leury Garcia, Yolmer Sanchez and Odrisamer Despaigne/Ross Detwiler/whatever is a significant bump alone. All you'd need after that is for Moncada, Eloy and Anderson just to stay healthy all year and for Cease and Lopez to make incremental, modest improvements. I can do the accounting on this line by line if you'd like.

I'd do anything I could to avoid including Madrigal and preferably I'd keep Stiever. But at the end of the day if it required giving up those two plus Vaughn for one year of Betts I'd do it. It would be a Kawhi Leonard-type move that may just catch the rest of the AL with their pants down and open up a lot more than just AL Central contention for the White Sox. Overnight it'd remake this squad into a .500 team. And from then it doesn't take much accounting to start really finding extra wins here and there. Eloy doing it over a full season, Moncada & Anderson staying healthy, improvements from Cease & Lopez, Kopech returning with the stuff he's showing right now and the arrival of Robert and (provided he's not dealt) Madrigal. This is not to mention the fact that the Sox having basically nobody they care about due to leave the roster and ample assets to make some bullpen improvements. Is it unrealistic to see fifteen more wins there all tolled? Even with maybe a little bit of dip from Anderson, Giolito and McCann I can see that kind of improvement. I could see an even bigger twenty win improvement if Giolito sharpens up just a few things and Anderson stays healthy. Without Betts you have yourself 85-90 wins. Close, but ultimately not good enough in today's MLB. With Betts you have 95-100 wins. You're in the playoffs for sure and you're looking to do some damage. The Astros are losing Cole and their next best two starters are going to be 36 and 37 years old next year. They wont be chopped liver but they wont be an unstoppable behemoth. Betts represents a real chance at winning a title. Maybe he'd be a year early than what you would ideally want but so what, this is your chance to get him cheap and it wont be around next year. If all that costs is our first round pick and some other farm players? 100% sign me up. I'd do that every day.