Andrew Benintendi TRADE – Choose Your Own Adventure

The baseball off-season is just taking its normal twists and turns to a usual clumsy end these past couple tree off-seasons. We get occasional news like yesterday’s Liam Hendriks signing by the White Sox, you can read my thoughts HERE. Followed by long awkward pauses, like right before you inform your mate that it’s over a little bit earlier than you intended.

However….like a SONIC BOOM, so to speak, Jim Bowden has been out in these twitter streets with a rumor that might just give us a small reprieve from those long languid periods.

According to multiple sources the #RedSox have been in serious trade talks with multiple teams re: OF Andrew Benintendi looking for prospect(s) type return with emphasis on P & OF….nothing imminent though

— Jim Bowden (@JimBowdenGM) January 9, 2021

I haven’t really thought much about Andrew Benintendi since the Chris Sale trade when it was rumored that #WhiteSox fans would possibly get him in return. We ended up getting Yoan Moncada, which I think most White Sox fans are pretty pleased about. I know I am. Let’s check in on how ole Andrew did last year.

YIKES!! .103 batting average, who the fuck does he think he is, a White Sox DH? That’s a short season, let’s look back a bit and see how he ranks. I’ll randomly pull 2018-2019 combined as a random sample size outta my ass.

Okay, that’s not too bad! In the 2018-2019 period, Benintendi was a decent player, ranking 7th out of qualified left fielders. He hits left handed, he walks, seems like a decent player. What if our White Sox decided to trade for him. What might that look like?

Rival executive familiar with Red Sox thinking said he would be “shocked” if Andrew Benintendi wasn’t traded before the end of the weekend.

— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) January 13, 2021

Jesus FUCK!! Slow down Mark, I can only clip pictures in from various websites to cobble together a poorly written blog so quickly. Give me a second to think.

Okay, here’s my thought, I am going to pick a similar type trade that we’ll use as a model for a White Sox / Boston trade for Benintendi. Then I’ll give yous some options from with which to build your trade for the Boston outfielder. DEAL? DEAL!…………let’s go with………………THIS ONE!

The Starling Marte trade is what we are choosing as a model. Now Marte isn’t exactly the same, he plays CF which is more valuable, he hits for more power which is more valuable, he’s better looking which is more valuable, probably more well-endowed, you get the picture. Still, close enough.

The two players that were traded for Marte, Liover Peguero and Brennan Malone (sounds like one of the Step Brothers), were decent prospects. According to THE BOARD at Fangraphs (back in the day) these prospects were rated a 45+ and a 45 respectively. So pretty good, but as noted, Marte is better than Benintendi, was coming off of a better year than Benintendi is coming off of AND had a longer track record of success than Benintendi. Both have / had 2 years of control remaining.

Here is the White Sox current Fangraphs prospect board, color coded for the exercise.

Now, since Marte fetched a 45+ and a 45, let’s just say that Benintendi fetches a 40+ and a 40 (SEE THE FV column for the scoring). Per the tweet, the Red Sox also prefer OF / P as the return, so I have specifically highlighted those folks.

YOUR JOB….is to pick one player in GREEN and one player in YELLOW and tweet me who they are and that becomes your Andrew Benintendi trade to the White Sox.

GO!!!!

-BeefLoaf