Colorado Rockies: Is Nolan Arenado a fit for the Chicago White Sox?

Our colleagues at Southside Showdown, FanSided’s site for the Chicago White Sox, pondered whether or not Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado is a fit for the White Sox.

This offseason, the biggest storyline for the Colorado Rockies has been how Nolan Arenado may be looking to leave the Rockies for greener pastures. Recently, our colleagues at Southside Showdown, FanSided’s site for the Chicago White Sox, took a look at the case for Arenado joining the White Sox, and possibly during this time where no games are being played.

Yesterday, Rox Pile’s Kevin Henry discussed the rumor from this past weekend that USA Today‘s Bob Nightengale mentioned on St. Louis talk radio that Arenado thought he may be traded by the trade deadline. However, Nightengale believes that Arenado will be traded next offseason.

Along with the Cardinals, Cubs, and Braves, the White Sox are a team that could be a fit for Arenado. This offseason, the White Sox were one of the most active teams on the free agent and trade market.

They added catcher Yasmani Grandal, outfielder Nomar Mazara, designated hitter Edwin Encarnacion, and starting pitchers Dallas Keuchel and Gio Gonzalez to their mix of young players to bring themselves into contention in the weak American League Central division.

The intriguing thing for the White Sox if they were to trade for Arenado would be that they could move their current third baseman, Yoan Moncada, back to second base. Moncada, 24, is formerly MLB.com’s #2 overall and in 2019, he broke out at third base. He hit .315/.367/.548 with an OPS+ of 141. He also had a bWAR of 4.8.

Prior to 2019, he played second base for the White Sox. Second base is a weaker position for them so Moncada could easily slide back to second. Current second baseman Leury Garcia could move to the bench, which would suit him fine due to the fact that he is very versatile.

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For the Rockies, the White Sox could easily be a fit considering their young, MLB-ready talent. They could go with some of their talent already at the major leagues or some of their top prospects. The White Sox have four of MLB.com’s top 100 prospects and all four are in the top 40.

Of those four, three of them have either already played in the major leagues or reached the Triple-A level. In addition, all four prospects could fill in areas that the Rockies would be weak at.

• Outfielder Luis Robert (#3 overall)
• Starting pitcher Michael Kopech (#17 overall)
• First baseman Andrew Vaughn (#21 overall)
• Second baseman Nick Madrigal (#40 overall)

For Madrigal, he has only one game in his pro career that wasn’t at second base and that was at shortstop in 2018. However, the Rockies could easily move Ryan McMahon back to third base with Arenado gone. The Rockies may do that anyways if Arenado were to be traded so that there would be an opening for Brendan Rodgers.

Whether or not a trade to the White Sox (or a trade, in general) happens while we are in this lay-off is obviously unknown. I doubt it will happen, though, considering the current unknown of the season.

At least until we know when games are going to be returning, nothing will happen. Even when we do find out when baseball will return, I still believe that it will either be at the trade deadline (assuming there is one) or next offseason.