Surprising Chicago White Sox MLB Trade Deadline deal closes chapter in Cubs' history

The Chicago White Sox sent Eloy Jiménez to the Orioles before the trade deadline earlier this week, seeing the final piece of the infamous 2017 deal between the Crosstown teams leave Chicago. While most people remember (but don’t want to), a reminder of the full deal made on July 13, 2017, included the South Siders sending Jose Quintana to the Chicago Cubs for Jiménez, Dylan Cease, Matt Rose, and Bryant Flete. This trade defied the perceived notion that the two sides of town would not make a blockbuster deal with each other at that time.

Quintana was an incredibly consistent and solid starting pitcher with years of team-friendly control, Jiménez was a top prospect in baseball with insane power and Cease was a notable pitching prospect. Seven years later, the end results of this historic blockbuster deal were, on both sides, very disappointing in the grand scheme of things. Arguments over who won the trade just fall flat now.

When the trade was made, both teams had their eyes on these pieces helping them win a World Series at some point. Quintana was going to add another anchor immediately to a contending rotation that had Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, and Kyle Hendricks, while Jiménez and Cease were going to be part of what looked like an insanely bright future on the South Side.

None of these guys won a World Series in Chicago, and only Cease really reached his potential with the team he was traded to. Even so, the White Sox rebuild under Rick Hahn failed, and Cease was traded to the Padres, where he has a chance to win it all. Quintana posted a disappointing 4.24 ERA, 3.93 FIP, and 1.3 WHIP as a Cub from 2017-2020 and left the North Side in Free Agency afterward. It looked like Jiménez was going to be a 40+ home run All Star cornerstone on the South Side, with the Cubs and their fans watching every 460-foot shot he’d hit in agony, but countless injuries and seemingly lackluster efforts at times saw those dreams go up in smoke. It ended with 300+ games missed and averaging 15-ish homers a year. The go-ahead homer Jiménez hit at Wrigley Field in 2019 did not end up being the "shot heard round the world" like it was initially thought.

“Thanks, Cubs!” on the South Side turned into “Thanks, Orioles…for taking Jiménez off our hands.” Meanwhile, both Cubs and Sox fans got to see Cease throw a no-hitter last week as he is among the better pitchers in the National League this year.

Seriously though, who did win the deal? It would still make sense to say the Sox did with the value Cease had in a Sox uniform and the return from San Diego. Cease was a Cy Young finalist in 2022 with the Sox, sporting a 2.20 ERA, 227 strikeouts, and 3.10 FIP. It also hurts some Cubs fans knowing they went down this route over future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander in 2017, but that’s another tangent we won't go on. On the other hand, the Cubs won a playoff series with Quintana in 2017, and he pitched well down the stretch that year (3.74 ERA, 3.25 FIP, 1.1 WHIP, and 98 strikeouts in 84.1 innings). However, Quintana followed 2017 with three overall mediocre seasons and just was not the guy they were hoping to get. So. Much. Nibbling. At the end of the day it feels like a collective shrug and move on.

Oh, what could have been. It’s a perfect microcosm of Chicago baseball since 2017. Now it’s all history.