White Sox trade Zach Duke to St. Louis Cardinals

Zach Duke

The White Sox hammered a few more nails into their 2016 coffin over the weekend, blowing two out of three games against the last-place Minnesota Twins.

That series isn't worth rehashing on this trading deadline day. The real question is, what will the Sox do before the 3 p.m. CDT deadline?

So far, the only Sox-related trade happened Sunday, when the Sox sent left-handed reliever Zach Duke to the St. Louis Cardinals for 23-year-old outfielder Charlie Tilson.

Duke is having a respectable year. He's 2-0 with a 2.63 ERA in a league-high 53 appearances. He's got 42 strikeouts in 37.2 innings, so he has a good chance of providing value for the Cardinals - provided his arm doesn't fall off from the high number of appearances.

Non-contending teams don't need situational relievers, and Duke is under contract for $5.5 million for 2017. Given their situation, the Sox probably have better uses for that money than a guy who is going to pitch maybe 60 innings a year.

Tilson is a Chicago-area product. He played his high school ball at New Trier High School. This season, he's been playing at Triple-A Memphis, where he posted a .282/.345/.407 slash line with four home runs, 34 RBIs and 15 stolen bases.

The left-handed hitter might be a fourth outfielder, and even if that's all he is, that's not a terrible return for Duke. But I suspect Tilson will get a shot to prove he's more than that. With 57 relatively meaningless games to go, he could get a two-month tryout as the Sox's everyday center fielder.

It doesn't make a lot of sense for the Sox to continue trotting J.B. Shuck out there in center field. We already know he's not a long-term solution. Is Tilson? We don't know, but there's an opportunity now to find out.