The White Sox have acquired LHP Francisco Liriano from the Minnesota Twins for prospect LHP Pedro Hernandez and utility-man Eduardo Escobar.
After rooting against him for years, it’s time to support Liriano. Credit: SBNation
With the John Danks injury saga continuing to drag on and not currently looking too good, this is a good pickup for the South Siders. He will be added to the rotation and will likely make his first start for the Sox this week as they take on his former team, the Twins, in Minnesota.
The trade has many positives but also renders many questions. First, here’s the bright side:
- Another starter in the rotation lets Chris Sale rest more
- Liriano is experienced pitching in the American League Central
- It’s a fairly cheap pick-up
- Liriano will work with Don Cooper and try to recapture his dominant stuff
And here are the questions it brings to the front table:
- Who will be the utility man (replacing Escobar)?
- What will the rotation look like from here on out?
- Can Liriano find consistency?
Those questions can only be answered with time, but I do expect Williams to pick up an experienced bench player before Tuesday’s trade deadline. That need is now much more pressing than it was before.
Don Cooper is one of the best in the business as far as capitalizing on potential, so seeing how Liriano fares in Chicago should be a fun series of events. He’s been very good of late, besides getting rocked at The Cell by the Sox earlier this week.
It’s another deal in which the team didn’t give up very much on paper. Pedro Hernandez is a prospect that came over in the Carlos Quentin deal with fellow-prospect Simon Castro. Hernandez got rocked in Fenway Park last week in his big league debut. He’s a “nice” prospect, but nothing special. The Sox already have a couple soft-tossing lefties playing in to their future rotation plans in Jose Quintana and John Danks, so Hernandez was pretty expendable.
Escobar sparked the Sox in their win Saturday night, but as a rookie utility man, we shouldn’t overestimate his value to the team. And don’t get me wrong, I liked him a lot. But he is very, very replaceable. Plus, with Beckham and Ramirez hopefully being the middle infield duo for years to come, Escobar probably didn’t play into any long-term plans.
Overall, it’s a good deal. It helps make the team more complete and gives them a pitcher in Liriano that can go up against anyone when at his best. Considering he’ll be nothing more than a back-end of the rotation guy, there’s not a lot of pressure on him, either.
If he can get off to a quick start with the Sox like Kevin Youkilis did last month and Brett Myers has done in the last week-or-so, this deal will be a success. Low-risk/high-reward deals are always ideal, and Kenny Williams seems to be doing a great job with them so far in 2012.
Hopefully Francisco Liriano can tap into his great stuff that no-hit the Sox in 2011. Well, one can dream at least, right?