It’s the most wonderful time of year for all the baseball maniacs out there. It is that time for nail-biting, hand wringing, web browsing, and more. It is the time that just about every major league baseball contender or pretender have the rumor mill flying on who is “buying” or “selling” talent at the Major League Baseball trade deadline. One of those rumors involves Chris Sale

Look at 2015 for example. If Kansas City Royals do not make those mid-season acquisitions of Johnny Cueto and Ben Zobrist, they do not win the World Series.  If the New York Mets do not trade for Yoenis Cespedes, they do not win their first National League pennant in 15 years, and more than likely, miss the playoffs.

So what do we have in the hopper for 2016?  Let’s start no further than the South Side of Chicago, and the tumultuous White Sox.  We all know who the biggest trade piece is, and that is their outspoken, and talented ace, Chris Sale.  Until 48 hours ago, he was such an attractive piece, it was assumed he is not available. The White Sox have since said they’ll listen.

The White Sox were in first place in the American League Central from April 23 through May 27, but are since 19-32 and now 7 games behind the Wild Card.

Saturday drama unfolded around 6:00 EDT when the White Sox healthy scratched Chris Sale from his scheduled start.

 

As soon as that news came out, everyone started to play arm chair GM on where Sale was going – Red Sox, Rangers, Giants, Cubs, Astros et al. However, it seems that there is a LOT more to it than that as it was announced by White Sox GM Rich Hahn that Sale was sent home for a “clubhouse incident”.

So now we have an extremely valuable talent (top six in AL Cy Young four straight years, five straight All-Star appearances, and under contract for three more seasons for under $40M total). As stated earlier, there are many teams that will be lined up to take their shot at getting an ace with this type of friendly team contract. The next week will be interesting, the first drama volley was fired today.