"We loved Stroman, but second base has been a bit of a weak spot for us, and we couldn't pass on the opportunity to add a guy in Gordon who has the potential to be a 20 HR and 80 RBI guy. Two seasons ago he had 16 homers and we felt that adding that power at 2B would make us a stronger team, so we felt giving up an arm like Marcus was well worth it. This is a guy who has been around winners his whole life. From Ozzie to Konerko to Buehrle and so forth, we feel he has been instructed to play the game the right way and we see tremendous value in that. This is also a guy who was a top 50 prospect in baseball a few years back, so we feel there is still some considerable upside left in him to be untapped into. When we found out he was available, we went to Beest, and without hesitation he told us to do it. That's the commitment we have from ownership - we identified a piece that we needed and had the means to go out and get it."
- AA