A Yankees-White Sox trade for Garrett Crochet with Spencer Jones in it

The Chicago White Sox are going to be entering a fire sale in the next couple of weeks. They will be looking to trade their top players like Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr., if they can find a suitor to match their asking price.

According to multiple insiders, the Padres and Dodgers have sent offers in for Crochet, but neither were close and the White Sox declined almost immediately.

MLB insider Bob Nightengale has brought us a bit closer to the idea of Crochet's value, reporting on what the White Sox are searching for in a deal with the New York Yankees.

"The White Sox are insisting on Yankees prized prospect Spencer Jones in a deal for Crochet," Nightengale wrote. "Crochet says he’s flattered the White Sox and other teams keep asking him for him."

For the Yankees, they would be foolish to keep any prospect, besides Jasson Dominguez, off the table in a deal for Crochet. Still, Spencer Jones would need a few more prospects besides him to get this deal rolling.

A blockbuster Yankees-White Sox trade for Garrett Crochet that's headlined by top prospect

A deal for a young, controllable ace like Crochet would be quite a big one. Crochet is still just 24 years old and he's under team control for the next two seasons.

Across 20 starts in 2024, Crochet has a 3.02 ERA, 0.95 WHIP and an incredible 12.6 K/9. The strikeout numbers are up even higher than his days as a reliever. There are few trade pieces that would net a bigger return than Crochet would for the White Sox.

Before we get into this deal, the Yankees would need to add in a fourth player, but that's as a player to be named later. It could really be any prospect across their top 30, depending on how the trade discussions go.

Obviously, the deal is headlined by the aforementioned Jones, who's slashing .265/.339/.440 with 30 homers in his three-year professional career. Jones has true, raw game-breaking power. He's the kind of prospect who can change the outlook of an organization when he makes his debut, much like Elly De La Cruz did in Cincinnati and like Adley Rutcshman did in Baltimore.

He is joined by the Yankees sixth-ranked prospect, teenage shortstop George Lombard Jr., the 19-year-old, is slashing .243/.369/.347 in his limited professional career. Lombard is seen as having true five-tool potential as a prospect. He's the kind of young prospect that the White Sox are looking for.

The last piece in the mock trade would be a pitcher, with a few names to pick from for this deal. I landed on the Yankees' 11th-ranked prospect, Kyle Carr. Carr has only thrown 62 innings since being drafted last year. He's struggled in these starts, but his potential is still there.

But acquiring a starter like Crochet is a once-in-a-decade opportunity. Most of the time, these deadline deals are for rentals. Crochet is much more than that, with legitimate interest in signing an extension after he is dealt. If the Yankees can bring him to the Bronx, they have a young ace to pair alongside Gerrit Cole and Luis Gil in their rotation.