South Side Sox Podcast 53 — The Trade Deadline Approaches

Four of your very favorite South Side Sox staff — Brett Ballantini, Darren Black, Tommy Barbee and Tyrone Palmer — gathered in anticipation of the sprint to Friday’s 3 p.m. CT trading deadline. The White Sox haven’t done anything yet, so there was plenty of time to cover most everything:

• Yes, this is a second straight podcast where Brett can’t keep the program number straight, as this is mothership podcast 53, not 52
• Eduardo Escobar, the presumably attainable White Sox trade target, is off to Milwaukee. Huh?
• The White Sox front office traditionally (and reasonably) detested teams agreeing to deals, then continuing to shop players in the agreement — most famously, Mike Rizzo backing out of the Edwin Jackson-Adam Dunn deal in 2010. But these White Sox trade leaks (from Sox lips to Bob Nightengale’s twitter account) as a means of pressuring teams is just as annoying. The Sox have now lost Joc Pederson, Manny Machado and Escobar due to such tactics, to some degree
• Roundtable: The most important area of weakness to address among second base, catcher and bullpen
• Again, a reminder to temper expectations when it comes to the talent the White Sox can draw in; the prospects tank is empty
• Thought exercise: Who among Yermín Mercedes, Gavin Sheets, Zack Collins and Jake Burger would you trade for Escobar? The answers, based on the comment thread on the Luke Smailes pre-deadline spec piece, will surprise/disappoint you
• Tommy admits that when a deal gets made across baseball without Micker Adolfo’s name attached, he breathes a tiny sigh of relief
• Most important single player to acquire: two votes for Jonathan Schoop, two for Ian Kennedy
• An update on Lucas Giolito’s no-hitter
• The Cubbie stink question again rears its ugly head, wherein Tommy teaches Brett to love again

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