Ortiz trade looking closer | Braves | ajc.com
As Sean said in the comments, there’s a rumor floating around that the White Sox (as I predicted!) are interested in Russ Ortiz. The Yankees are as well, but apparently he’s a second choice there. Sean says that in Chicago the word was that Jon Rauch would be the primary player the Braves would get. Rauch is a talented guy who has rubbed Ozzie Guillen the wrong way, so I like him already. Leo, another repair job coming through.
I don’t have that much of a problem with Rauch as one of the players coming our way if this deal comes together.
Looking at Randy Johnson’s stats, he had his first full year in the bigs at 25 or 26 and didn’t get his walk total under 100 until he was 30.
Rauch would be a project, but a project with potentially dominating stuff. It would be nice if the Sox tossed in either Anderson or Sweeney from Winston-Salem as well. They are both OFs and Sweeney has a really sweet upside.
Kenny Williams would be coughing up a lot, but he’s been known to do that. Clearly, the Sox fall out of contention without more starting pitching. The Twins aren’t that good and can be caught. Honestly, I think Cleveland might be the team to watch in that division.
Frankly, the way Ortiz has pitched this year, getting Rauch for him would be a bargain. I’d like it more, though, if the Sox would include one of their young outfielders in the package — Borchard or Rowand (they’d never trade Jeremy Hill). I’m not sure they’d do that with Magglio heading for free agency, though.