in case anyone still harbored any delusions that this team is rebuilding.

Keyser will luv this thread

Rebuilding or not, you do not trade guys just to trade them. You have to get something of value back. It probably behooves the White Sox to hold on to these guys (and Quintana) until closer to the trading deadline.

And Chapman & Miller last year. Even though Robertson is not nearly as good as he once was, there will absolutely be a contending team that has their bullpen crap out on them, and will give up something of value to get Robertson. Same thing with Frazier and a contender who needs offensive help or has a guy get hurt.

If the Sox do not make these types of moves during the season, then I might jump on board the "getting rid of Anti Mgmt guys" train.

Why does everyone assume there is some viable market for David Robertson and Todd Frazier?

Robertson is going to be 32, coming off of his worst season as a closer, a season which you would expect from a middle reliever, not someone you toss into high leverage situations. In the age of POWER ARRRRMS coming out of each and every bullpen in the league, the last thing you want to be is a cutter-curveball artist sitting at 91 with a plummeting strikeout rate and skyrocketing walk rate. On top of all that, the peripheral "luck" metrics don't show Robertson to have been particularly unlucky in 2016--in fact he benefited from an above-average HR/FB rate--so it becomes more likely that the precipitous falloff we've seen from his 2014-15 work is talent-related. Considering all that (and he's rather expensive), how many teams are going to gamble with prospects on a Robertson rebound?

As for Frazier, he's in the same boat as Mark Trumbo and Chris Carter: power-hitters who still make a ton of outs, and aren't really valuable outside of their ability to hit home runs. In fact, Frazier is the worst of the bunch, posting a .326 wOBA in 2016, by far the worst mark of any player who hit 30+ HR's last year. Only Justin Upton comes close. Both Trumbo and Carter were free agents, and both ended up signing meager contracts (1-year, $3.5MM for Carter, 3-year $37MM for Trumbo) despite being atop or nearly atop the league in HR's and other power metrics. The market seems to be cooling on one-dimensional power hitters, and Frazier is the most one-dimensional of them all.

Both these guys will get traded between August 1-5 for minor league PTBNLs which the White Sox will pick after the regular season is over.

Right, so why not do that now so Nate Jones can attempt to prove himself as a closer and Davidson/Saladino/whoever gets more playing time to see if they are worthwhile? Oh I know, because Frazier and Robertson give the White Sox a better chance at winning games in 2017 (at least according to this FO) and they wont be further harming the odds of winning this season.

Supposedly the reason that Robertson-to-Washington deal didn't get done was Jerry's unwillingness to break his rule about eating salary. My feeling is that they didn't want to trade their closer without having a replacement waiting.

They do have a replacement waiting either in Jones or Burdi

Right, so why not do that now so Nate Jones can attempt to prove himself as a closer and Davidson/Saladino/whoever gets more playing time to see if they are worthwhile? Oh I know, because Frazier and Robertson give the White Sox a better chance at winning games in 2017 (at least according to this FO) and they wont be further harming the odds of winning this season.

Exactamundo

Nationals are giving up on their closer already.

http://www.federalbaseball.com/2017/4/1 ... -nationals

Missed the boat on Frazier. He's fucking awful this year.