White Sox trade Miguel Gonzalez to Rangers for Ti'Quan Forbes

Miguel Gonzalez

Hours after he received a no-decision in the White Sox's 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Thursday, right-hander Miguel Gonzalez was traded to the Texas Rangers for minor league infielder Ti'Quan Forbes.

Forbes, 21, was the Rangers' second-round pick in the 2014 draft. He has played both shortstop and third base, and he has split time between Class-A Hickory and High-A Down East this season. His slash line is not that impressive: .236/.283/.345 with 11 home runs and 45 RBIs combined in 131 games between the two levels.

I've read that Forbes is described as a "slow developer," and he's still a young player -- having been drafted out of high school. In fact, he just turned 21 on Aug. 26, so he would have been one of the younger guys in his league at age 20 for most of this season.

This kid is pretty much a lotto ticket, and it will be at least a couple years before we know whether he amounts to anything. Hell, for all I know, this will be the last time I ever write about him on this blog.

But, really, you can be expecting much return for Gonzalez, who is a free agent at the end of the season. There are about 30 games left to go, so the Rangers are looking at getting five, maybe six, starts out of Gonzalez, who is nothing more than a league-average starter.

What is that really worth? Apparently, it's worth a longshot prospect such as Forbes.

Credit Gonzalez for pitching well enough the second half of the season that he had some value to a contender. He allowed three runs over six innings Thursday, which represented his fifth consecutive quality start, and eighth quality start in nine second-half appearances.

Gonzalez is 2-0 with a 1.85 ERA over his past five starts. If you're the Rangers, and you're four games out of the wild card on Sept. 1, and you're getting increasingly desperate for pitching, you could do worse than Gonzalez in the middle or at the back of your rotation.

From the Sox perspective, well, this probably keeps the struggling Derek Holland in the rotation the rest of the year. Reynaldo Lopez is coming off the disabled list to start Friday night, and now he'll take Gonzalez's spot instead of Holland's.