In Lance Lynn, Sox acquire reliability for World Series push

The theme of the White Sox offseason is clear. The message they're sending to their fans and the rest of the league is clear.

So clear, perhaps, that it doesn't even need to be uttered by the general manager.

"I don’t think we need to hang any signs on the side of 35th Street," Rick Hahn said Tuesday afternoon, "but it’s pretty clear what our intentions are at this time.

"We feel the window is open, and we are now going to be aggressive in our efforts to try to put us in our best position to win championships."

RELATED: What Sox rotation looks like after Lance Lynn trade

To put his team in the best position to win a championship before he worries about making it multiple trophies, Hahn swung a win-now deal, bringing in veteran starting pitcher Lance Lynn from the Texas Rangers and sending rookie pitcher Dane Dunning, along with another pitching prospect, off to the Lone Star State.

For a guy who's spent an awful lot of time talking about building for the long-term future — and make no mistake, that's still very much a priority on the South Side — here he was Tuesday discussing a trade of a well regarded young pitcher for a veteran with just one year left on his contract.

Some fans might have seen such a trade as a little bit jarring, but this is now where the White Sox stand in their rebuilding process. It's time to load up and start competing for titles.

"We start off by moving premium pieces to acquire multiple guys and hope they grow into championship-caliber players or, alternatively, guys that we can move to acquire such players. And I think one element of this deal for Lynn sort of shows the growth of where this process has taken us," Hahn said. "We are now in that stage, perhaps the most exciting stage, of being ready to contend for championships. You have to give up something to get something."

To get into championship position, the White Sox needed to add dependability, undoubtedly the trait the team is shopping for the most this winter.

Swapping Rick Renteria for Tony La Russa in the manager's chair set the tone for the offseason, doing away with someone who hadn't done anything wrong in favor of someone with plenty of winning experience. It will never be known how far Renteria might have taken this team. But the White Sox can point to the three World Series rings on La Russa's fingers and his plaque in Cooperstown and know that they have a manager who can get a team to the promised land.

The same goes for Lynn, who won a World Series as a rookie, coincidentally enough with La Russa's St. Louis Cardinals in 2011. Dunning has plenty of promise, and Hahn reiterated multiple times during his Tuesday media session that the White Sox still believe his future is bright. But in 2021, he was slated to be an unknown quantity. What would he be able to give a White Sox team with championship expectations? No one had that answer.

But Lynn? He's a consistent veteran presence who flew under the radar the last two years in Texas as one of the best pitchers in baseball. He's a workhorse who's excited to throw 200-plus innings and however many more it takes in the postseason to repeat the feat he and La Russa accomplished a decade ago.

The White Sox can count on Lynn, and having a pitcher behind Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel that they can count on solves their most glaring offseason need, the thing that bounced them from the postseason in 2020. It was Dunning who was thrown into the fire of a win-or-go-home elimination game after just seven big league starts. The White Sox didn't have anyone else to turn to.

Now they have Lynn. Problem solved.

"We want to put ourselves in the best position to win come October. But at the same time, we know we need to get there," Hahn said. "When you look at a guy like Lynn and his track record and durability over the course of the season, he’s an extremely strong stalwart piece of a quality rotation.

"We love some of the young guys. We still firmly believe in Dane Dunning’s future. But the reality is that Dane Dunning in 2021 is going to probably have to be a little bit limited in terms of his ability to give you the amount of innings that a guy like Lance Lynn could.

"So given where we are as an organization and what we think we are capable of doing in 2021, being able to know that every fifth day, someone like Lance is going to be, health permitting, able to take the ball, that’s an important element to this deal."

Hahn refused to address his team's reported reunion with right fielder Adam Eaton. But that move, too, would give the White Sox the dependability they crave. Eaton has his own baggage from his first stint on the South Side, but on the field, he's been as consistent a performer as they come. And now he, too, has championship experience, winning the World Series with the Washington Nationals in 2011.

For all the thrilling young talent that has made the White Sox a true contender, young players still carry a certain amount of mystery. When it comes to adding to a young, talented core, it's about reducing that mystery and giving the team something it can bank on. Keuchel and Yasmani Grandal fit that description during last winter's White Sox spending spree. La Russa, Lynn and Eaton are filling that need this offseason.

So what does Lynn bring to the White Sox? Exactly what they're looking for: someone to depend on.