James Shields was the story of Monday night's series-opener in Cincinnati. At least he was until his manager stepped in and took him out of the game.
White Sox fans will be wondering why Renteria yanked Shields, who had thrown 88 pitches and allowed only one run, in favor of a relief corps that yielded four runs and caused countless headaches across the South Side in Monday's 5-3 loss. Shields himself didn't seem pleased with the skipper's decision, and Chris Volstad's four-run eighth guaranteed that sports-talk radio would have plenty of callers in the hours that followed.
But in this rebuilding season, losses thanks to the subpar performance of a reconstructed bullpen are to be expected. It might not make them any less infuriating, but the big picture of this team always included nights like Monday in 2018 so there were as few of them as possible in 2020 and 2021.
And so the biggest long-term item from Monday's otherwise meaningless tussle with the last-place Reds was another sterling effort from Shields, who could wind up netting the White Sox an unexpected piece to add to the ongoing rebuilding effort.
Being able to trade Shields away in a deadline deal seemed like the utmost best-case scenario before the season started. After all, the 36-year-old had done little in his first two years on the South Side (a 6.77 ERA in 2016 and a 5.23 ERA last season) to inspire confidence that he could be an attractive deadline addition for a contending club.
Well, consider this the best-case scenario then. Shields has been excellent since the end of a shaky April, with a 3.42 ERA in his last 13 starts after Monday's 6.2 innings of one-run ball, his 10th quality start in that span. Nine of his last 12 starts have reached the seventh inning. And because of it, he seems like a surefire trade piece at the deadline, especially because he keeps upping his value as the consistency that so alluded him during his first season and a half in a White Sox uniform has finally arrived.
A contending team looking for an addition to its starting rotation might not find many better options on the market. In addition to what he's been able to do on the hill the last couple months, he also brings the veteran experience of 13 big league seasons that have featured two trips to the World Series.
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Now, what could the White Sox receive in such a trade? That's a difficult question to answer, considering Shields would be nothing more than a rental.
Looking to last season might offer some clues worth following and some misleading ones, too. Rick Hahn traded a lot of players away but had much more to offer. Jose Quintana brought back Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease from the Cubs because he was a young, controllable, front-of-the-rotation pitcher just a year removed from an All-Star appearance. Todd Frazier was an everyday third baseman and David Robertson and Tommy Kahnle could be part of future bullpens for the New York Yankees, which brought Blake Rutherford into the organization. But even Anthony Swarzak — help up as a sign-and-flip success story — yielded only Ryan Cordell. Dan Jennings got just Casey Gillaspie. And there aren't many folks out there penciling those guys into their 2020 lineup projections.
So what about Shields? Or Joakim Soria? Or Xavier Cedeno? Or even the hot-hitting Avisail Garcia? Any of those guys could turn into midseason trade chips, but will they be desirable enough to land a Rutherford type? Or will they simply net a roll of the dice the likes of Cordell or Gillaspie? That all remains to be seen.
But the good news for the White Sox is that Shields is potentially pitching himself onto the wishlists of contending clubs. Not a bad development for the rebuild.