Trade Rumor: Oakland Athletics, White Sox ‘Very Close’ to Frankie Montas Deal

The same night that the Oakland A’s offense came alive, reports surfaced that the front office was “very close” to swinging a deal to send Frankie Montas to the Chicago White Sox.

For the past week, the Oakland Athletics and Chicago White Sox have been reportedly linked together in trade talks centered around the A’s ace who had another fantastic season in 2021.

Mike Rodriguez, with Univision Sports in the Chicago area, reported that the two teams were in deep discussions Monday night to finalize a deal. USA Today’s Bob Nightengale corroborated the sentiment.

But after hours with no follow-up or confirmation that that was indeed the case, the same sticking point for the trade emerged as before—the Chicago White Sox do not want to part ways with Andrew Vaughn, who the A’s have made clear is who they are after.

Vaughn, who was previously ranked as the top first base prospect in all of baseball in early 2021, made his major league debut that same year. In just under 500 plate appearances, he hit .235/.309/.396 with 15 home runs.

Drafted in 2019 as the third overall pick by the White Sox, Vaughn was universally garnered as one of the best college bats in the sport. He mashed 50 home runs in his sophomore season at Cal on his way to a Golden Spikes Award in 2018.

However, like many other prospects in the Covid-era, Vaughn saw limited playing time in 2019—just 55 games—and followed up that campaign with a missed 2020 due to the canceled minor league season.

In 2021, the highly touted slugger would be thrust into a White Sox lineup desperate to fill out a depleted outfield. To this point, Vaughn has actually played more games with the White Sox than any minor league affiliate and outright jumped from high-A ball to the majors.

Valuating Vaughn is tricky with all these things considered. His overall numbers last season are respectable for a rookie, but compute out to being just below league average. Though he has shown some positional versatility in the outfield thanks to his above average arm strength, he likely profiles as a first baseman or designated hitter in the coming years.

“Vaughn worked on exactly what I talked to him about at the end of the year,” White Sox hitting coach Frank Menechino told The Athletic’s James Fegan. “Because of the lockout] I didn’t talk to him all offseason…He came back and it’s very noticeable the changes he made and the stuff that he learned from last year. I’m looking for a really good year from Vaughn.”

So far, that has been the case. Vaughn has two home runs and six RBI in his first three games this season. The hot start has only made fans even more apprehensive about any prospective deal.

Due to the lockout, the Oakland A’s have had to cram what was supposed to be a five-month fire sale into five weeks. There is no safety in making it to the doorstep of the regular season as we saw with the Sean Manaea trade to San Diego.

The various reports that the Chicago White Sox are interested in Frankie Montas appear to be legitimate, if for no other reason than the fact that the White Sox find themselves in a sudden, precarious situation with their pitching depth.

Lance Lynn tore a tendon in his right knee during a Spring Training start, requiring knee surgery that will put him on the shelf until May. Lucas Giolito has an abdominal strain that will have him miss at least the rest of April. Garrett Crochet, the highly anticipated lefty swingman, may have taken over in the meantime if he wasn’t out for the year after Tommy John Surgery.

As it currently stands, the White Sox have a rotation with a lot of question marks, along with a comfortable spot in the middle of the rotation for Dallas Keuchel, who looked atrocious last season.

The White Sox have their finger hovering over the panic switch in the early going, but there has been plenty of speculation on whether or not parting ways with Vaughn to shore up the rotation with a front-of-the-line starter is an overreaction.

Frankie Montas would certainly alleviate rotation concerns for Chicago and would form a formidable top three once some of those names returned to action.

Montas, who made his major league debut with the White Sox in 2015, finished sixth in Cy Young Award voting last year and went 5-2 with a 2.17 ERA and 102 strikeouts in his final 14 starts.

Adding to his value is a team-friendly $5 million contract this season and an extra year of control next year as he hits his final year of arbitration.

The Oakland A’s know that they are sitting in the driver’s seat for this trade. With the White Sox being blindsided by a slew of injuries and with the A’s having what might possibly be the top pitching piece that will be dealt this season, Oakland has clear leverage in these negotiations.

It could explain why they have deviated from the norm of scooping up trio—or quartet, or perhaps even a quintet—of middling prospects with high ceilings and low floors in this kind of trade.

The A’s can hold onto Montas all the way up until the deadline, or realistically even beyond it, with very little risk on their end.

The Chicago White Sox, meanwhile, are teetering on whether or not they have a finite window. While they have exciting players like Vaughn freshly entered into the major league level, Jose Abreu is in his age-35 season and final year of his contract. Yasmani Grandal is entering his tenth year in the league as a catcher. Tony La Russa turns 104 this October.

Nothing creates buzz in baseball journalism like arguing over trade rumors. It took just ten minutes after Rodriguez’s tweet for a Chicago-area blue checkmark to refute that there were any serious talks between the A’s and White Sox. To prove it, he linked an article that, in about 500 words, said “Hey, it could happen or it might not happen at all!”

That is true. It may happen. It may not happen. But the real thought experiment in all of this is figuring out the sweet spot in regard to timing.

Can the White Sox manage to wait it out for two months and hope that issues with starting pitching depth resolve without doing anything? How long until there are other serious inquiries made on Montas? How long can John Fisher afford the albatross of a $5 million contract?

The reality is that the White Sox can wait it out. But the price tag of Andrew Vaughn may not be as unreasonable as those on the south side seem to think.

With a formerly top-heavy and now relatively barren farm system, the A’s are possibly looking at a list of names closer to the majors than you would typically expect them to be interested in.

Could asking for Vaughn simply be a way of setting to the standard for the type of haul they would be expecting back? Absolutely.

If Andrew Vaughn is viewed as absolutely untouchable, then you would have to expect that the A’s would make like bandits for the upper portion of the remaining Chicago farm system.

Outfielders Oscar Colas or Yoelqui Céspedes—younger brother of Yoenis Cespedes—could be interesting targets in some kind of package deal. The A’s may continue trying to load up on middle infielders at the top of the White Sox prospect list. Norge Vera, the flame-throwing righty in rookie ball, could also be considered.

But all of these names are 50-grade prospects that might not even make the top ten of the Oakland A’s system.

The White Sox may have already fallen in love with the idea of Andrew Vaughn being the heir-apparent to Jose Abreu’s throne. But with mounting pressure internally, and with rival teams likely ready to pick up the phone to ask about Montas, that panic switch may end up being flipped after all.

More likely than not, the White Sox will continue to balk at the idea of trading Andrew Vaughn. They will wait and see what kind of rehabilitation timelines their starting pitchers are working with in the coming weeks.

The A’s will continue to wait for more calls. They will wait for pressure to continue to mount. In their estimation, the Chicago White Sox, or some other team, will break down and give into the apparently lofty price tag.

While fans continue to try to sort out which MLB analyst is reputable and which is not, which headline is current and which is a rehash from four days earlier, the message is clear that the Oakland A’s know what kind of trade bait they have with Frankie Montas.