Sox make splash with reported trade for Lance Lynn

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The White Sox have reportedly landed their starting-pitching upgrade.

According to multiple reports, the White Sox have made a trade with the Texas Rangers for veteran right-hander Lance Lynn, adding another proven arm to the rotation and creating a 1-2-3 punch alongside Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel.

According to ESPN's Jeff Passan, the White Sox are trading away Dane Dunning and another prospect in the deal for Lynn.

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The 32-year-old Lynn will turn 33 roughly a month into a 2021 season the White Sox enter with championship expectations. For the second straight winter, Rick Hahn's front office went into the offseason with starting pitching on its shopping list. Though this time, there seemed to be greater urgency, not only because the White Sox ascended out of rebuilding mode and into contention mode in 2020, but because the team's quick exit from its first postseason appearance in a dozen years came in large part because of the lack of a third reliable starting-pitching option behind Giolito and Keuchel.

Lynn becomes that third option, and reliable is exactly what he's been in recent seasons. In 2019 and 2020 with the Rangers, he posted a combined 3.57 ERA in 46 starts.

The White Sox heading to the trade market to find impact starting-pitching help makes sense considering the lack of appealing options on the free-agent market past top-of-the-market arm Trevor Bauer. Lynn was mentioned as a possible trade target in recent rumors, along with Blake Snell of the Tampa Bay Rays and Sonny Gray of the Cincinnati Reds. According to Passan, the White Sox had also discussed acquiring Gray with the Reds.

But what a win-now trade this is, with Lynn under contract for just one more season and Dunning only seven starts into his major league career. The White Sox acquired Dunning in one of the rebuild-jumpstarting trades at the Winter Meetings four years ago, getting him along Giolito and Reynaldo López in exchange for Adam Eaton. Dunning made his big league debut in 2020 and showed promise before a rocky end to the regular season and his two-out start in Game 3 of the AL Wild Card Series, which ended up being the final game of the White Sox season.

In sending the 25-year-old Dunning away for Lynn, the White Sox are showing just how committed they are to competing for a world championship in 2021. That message was already emphatically sent when the team swapped Rick Renteria for Hall-of-Fame manager Tony La Russa. But fans tend to get a lot more excited about player movement, and here the White Sox have made their first big roster move of the winter in acquiring Lynn.

Whether this means the White Sox are through adding to the rotation remains to be seen. Certainly there are internal candidates to fill out the final two spots on the starting staff, with Dylan Cease and Michael Kopech the most logical options. Though other veteran arms could certainly be added to create depth heading into spring training, something that strikes as appealing after the way the White Sox have burned through starting-pitching options in each of the last two seasons.

The front office is also on the hunt for solutions in right field — after last December's trade with the Rangers, for Nomar Mazara, failed to produce a fix at that position in 2020 — and at designated hitter. Bringing in a closer, whether re-signing Alex Colomé or adding someone new, would be a good way to keep the bullpen a strength, too.

But the White Sox tackled the need that was perhaps the most glaring, especially when viewed through the lens of how the 2020 season came to an end, with Lynn. They can now map out a 1-2-3 pitching punch of Giolito, Keuchel and Lynn in a playoff series, something that should stack up well against most any opponent.

The White Sox were looking to create a championship-caliber rotation this winter. And with this trade, they've moved a step closer to doing just that.

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