So far this year the Chicago White Sox have shown that they are fully committed to the process of rebuilding.
Within the past month, the Sox have traded Jose Quintana, Todd Frazier, David Robertson, Tommy Kahnle, and most recently Anthony Swarzak in exchange for a boatload of top prospects.
But there remains one name on the White Sox team that many thought would have been traded by this point and has left people asking: “why hasn’t Melky Cabrera been traded yet?”
Cabrera has expressed interest in staying with the White Sox, and so far that wish has come true, which is a bit surprising considering the year he’s been having.
Melky is currently batting .293 with 13 home runs in 93 games this season. The numbers show that his batting average is perfectly decent and he’s only 5 home runs shy of tying his career high of 18 and there’s still a little under half the season left to play.
Outside of the offense, Melky has a fielding percentage of .986 so he’s no fielding liability either, that being said, none of these numbers are amazingly spectacular either.
The real reason Melky hasn’t been traded yet comes down to two reasons.
The first is his power numbers. Even though Melky is on pace to have a career high in home runs, he has yet to finish a season with over 20 and near the trade deadline teams look to add major power weapons, and at 32 years old it’s pretty well established that Melky just isn’t that type of hitter.
The other major reason is the market for outfielders. The only big name outfielder to be moved midseason has been J.D. Martinez who is widely considered a premier hitter and the Tigers got a relatively light return for him, Outfielders just aren’t high on the target list for teams this season.
At the end of the day, Melky lacks both the numbers and the market for there to be any major interest in him before the trade deadline passes. The only possible way the White Sox could trade Melky would be to eat a major chunk of his salary and even then the turn would not likely be anything that would considerably help the rebuilding effort.
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