White Sox trade Robbie Grossman for relief prospect Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa

Robbie Grossman looked bound to cause something interesting in the coming weeks with Luis Robert Jr. nearing a return, if only because the 34-year-old's usefulness would make the White Sox have to choose between him and players whose production remains theoretical.

Sure, Grossman's slugging percentage in White Sox uniform is now frozen at .268, but the at-bat quality remained sturdy enough to put him on base during the offense's better moments, which makes one wonder what might have been if the organization had looked his way for an outfield corner job in years past when it would have meant more. Be it out of zone chase rate (14.3 percent, lowest in MLB for those with over 80 PA) or just pitches per plate appearance (4.45, a career-high), Grossman's ability to resist the urge to swing looked as potent as ever through his 25 games with the team.

"That's one of my strengths: making the pitcher work and getting a pitch I want to swing at," Grossman said. "It's just something I do well."

And when Robert arrives off the injured list and pushes Tommy Pham to an outfield corner, in turn it could push Gavin Sheets -- the team's best hitter all year -- searching for at-bats amid the team's years-long project to get Andrew Vaughn and Eloy Jiménez going in the 1B/DH slots. That potential conflict still looms, but Grossman's viability as an on-base merchant in a lineup already short on them was another wrench in the machinery. Divvying up leverage opportunities between Adisyn Coffey, Caleb Freeman, Eric Adler and now, Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa in the Birmingham bullpen is less complicated, with lower stakes.

The Hawaiian-born Hoopii-Tuionetoa was a 30th round pick out of a small community college in 2019, so his pedigree is born not out of draft status but recent results out of the bullpen. Even after pitching in the Arizona Fall League last year and his work this season with Double-A Frisco, Hoopii-Tuionetoa has not allowed an earned run since August.

Reports have him comfortably sitting 96 mph with his fastball, and in writing him up as one of the best candidates to get plucked in last December's Rule 5 Draft, Baseball America praised Hoopii-Tuionetoa's flat approach angle and command of a gyro slider for backing up his sterling results.

Hoopii-Tuionetoa did not get picked, and the Sox went with a name higher up on that same list in Shane Drohan, who is currently throwing live bullpens in his progression back from shoulder surgery. Touting a 34 percent strikeout rate at Double-A with just four walks in 12 1/3 innings, Hoopii-Tuionetoa is now at the level of player who gets swapped in the second week of May for Grossman, which might be a similar to where he was at, but this route gives him an easier developmental path to navigate.

None of Hoopii-Tuinetoa's on-field results have diminished the shine in the intervening time, and if they're backed by stuff that will play at the highest level, he's joined an organization where he should get to try out his wares in a major league bullpen relatively soon.

When Luis Arraez was dealt this past weekend, I can't have been the only one whose first question was, "How far behind will the White Sox be in selling?" Grossman, whose status as a regular was mere weeks away from getting more complicated, is not the same level of purge to the team's current project as flipping Arraez, and was acquired by the same front office group that is shipping him out after all of six weeks in the organization. But in the record books, the answer will go down as "about four days."

Whether it's Pham, Mike Clevinger, John Brebbia, Chris Flexen, or others offering an additional year of control like Erick Fedde and Michael Kopech, there are plenty more players whose twin purposes in the Sox clubhouse are to raise the level of competence of the major league team, but also produce enough to build some trade value by mid-summer, or obviously sooner, for an organization trying to stock depth for White Sox teams that will be easier to love in the future.

The former function can take center stage when the games are being played and you're staring up close at how badly everyone present would like to take part in some winning baseball, but on the other hand, Robbie Grossman got traded for a Double-A reliever on May 8, so it doesn't take too much speculation on what priority is going to win the day when the two are at odds with each other.