A’s Send Swisher to White Sox
January 3, 2008 by Geoff Young
Filed under Transactions
Baseball Digest Daily (disclosure: I am now part of the BDD staff) is reporting that the Oakland A’s have shipped outfielder Nick Swisher to the Chicago White Sox for Gio Gonzalez, Faustino Fautino De Los Santos and outfielder Ryan Sweeney. BDD has more info on the prospects headed to Oakland, but I’ll make a few quick observations here:
- I’m a big Swisher fan. I love his skill set and the way he plays the game. The White Sox have been searching for a center fielder; is Swisher the answer? I know he played there quite a bit in ‘07, but can he legitimately spend an entire season in center?
- What’s up with Gonzalez? He’s got the killer minor-league strikeout numbers, but this guy has now been traded for Jim Thome, Freddy Garcia, and Swisher in separate deals. Gonzalez may well be worth the fuss, I don’t know; but that’s a lot of moving around for a kid who hasn’t advanced beyond Double-A.
Meanwhile, the A’s are going through one of their periodic “Who Am I?” phases. They’re pretty good at this sort of thing, so I expect they’ll come out of it okay, but it’s got to be tough to watch (or be part of) in real time.
I really think the A’s phase is pretty clear: we are rebuilding and making this offseason worthwhile.
I absolutely love Beane’s offseason so far, replenishing his farm system with near-ready and long-term project, making sure that the pipeline is full and ready to contribute in 2009, 2010…
Great job! (no, I am not an A’s fan..lol)
Yeah, Beane is moving very aggressively. He’s got the track record to back up his bold moves, so hopefully A’s fans will be patient with him, but it’s got to be tough to watch a team stripped like that — even if it’s the right thing to do, which I think it probably is.