Just saw another, more serious article on ESPN by Jeff Sullivan, attempting to identify what it would take for various teams to get Sale:
http://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/18160705/sullivan-how-five-teams-end-chris-sale
For the Red Sox, he says Moncado, Devers, Kpoech and Owens. His take:
I suspect the White Sox won't be able to get a young, big league position player. So the next best thing would be the top prospect in the minors, and that's Moncada. The Red Sox committed $63 million just to sign him in the first place, and his stock certainly hasn't fallen. No team would want to trade an asset like Moncada, but the Red Sox are in a situation where they could use Sale, and their roster already has a bunch of terrific young talent. Moncada isn't a part of the Opening Day picture, so they could suck it up, and the other players would be easier to part with. Kopech has a huge arm, but huge arms in the low minors are lottery tickets. Devers is young and good, but far away. Owens would be kind of a bounce-back pick. Moncada makes the package go. He could be in Chicago by the second half.
While I think that's a reasonable package of what it would take to get him, in terms of value. But this would be painful, and I'm not sure it's worth it from the Red Sox perspective. I wouldn't be crazy about the idea of giving up both Moncado and Devers - I think we'll need one of them to fill a need for a bat, and at 3B, over the longer term. I'd be more inclined to include Bradley (but not Benintendi) as a substitute for one of these two, and use the slight upgrade(?) in the package and throw in another mid-level prospect to also pry loose Nate Jones (or Abreu, I suppose, if White Sox want to). [I recognize that the WS wouldn't want Bradley unless they are also dealing Eaton, but that's already been rumored as possible.}
I also wouldn't like giving up Kopech in this deal, as I love his upside, but I suppose that's preferable to giving up ERod, who they need more for 2017 (although I'd be interested in how others view this - in a deal for Sale (or Verlander, etc) would you rather give up ERod or Kopech?).