White Sox “Trades” with EVERY TEAM – NL East Edition – 2021

A long time ago, I was listening to an interview with legendary poker professional Phil Ivey and the interviewer asked the question (paraphrasing) How would you recommend a player learning the game get better the fastest? Phil said something to the effect of (paraphrasing) Buy in to a game at much lower stakes than you would normally play, and then play every single hand for an hour. Try and figure out how you would play all of these different hands in different situations and positions that you are normally taught not to play in. In the spirit of that recommendation from an all-time great, Chorizy and I are going to undertake the exercise of making a White Sox trade with every team in the majors…..this is the NL East Edition.

Atlanta Braves

108er: Chorizy-E
White Sox send: Reynaldo Lopez
White Sox receive: Travis d’Arnaud, Ender Inciarte, and Cash Considerations
Rationale: Ah, I remember the days when we couldn’t believe that Dansby Swanson and Ender Inciarte were traded for Shelby Miller. Now I can’t believe the Braves owe him $8M in 2021. The Braves have a lot of young talent and moving these pieces will help make room for some of that to ascend and it will clear some payroll. From the Sox side, ReyLo is looking more and more like a hard throwing reliever which is something Rick Hahn does a good job of finding for less money. And it will fill two holes relatively cheaply.

Miami Marlins

108er: Chorizy-E
White Sox send: Alec Hansen and case of Big Hurt Beer
White Sox receive: Lewis Brinson and Derek Jeter gift basket
Rationale: I feel like I’ve been hearing about Lewis Brinson for a decade, but somehow the guy still has a minor league option available. If the Sox have turned Adam Engel into a competent major league hitter, what could they do with the toolsy Brinson? Going to the fish is a guy with similar minor league hype who also has not panned out. If they non-tender Jose Ureña, that might open a spot for Hansen.

Philadelphia Phillies

108er: BeefLoaf
White Sox send: Michael Kopech, Andrew Vaughn and Benyamin Bailey
White Sox receive: Bryce Harper
Rationale: As automatic as most dull fans think these rebuilds are, they don’t always work. The Phillies basically already fucked theirs up. They kind of need to re-load on the fly here and the best way to do it is to trade their best player. Harper is a bonafide stud but he is receiving a market value contract, so while this is a substantial haul due to not being able to buy readily available Harper’s on the free agent market often, it’s not as great as you’d might expect. I wonder what each team’s Harper offer would look like given his contract. Anywho, this is mines.

Washington Nationals

108er: BeefLoaf
White Sox send: Andrew Vaughn, Jared Kelley, Jonathan Stiever and Benyamin Bailey
White Sox receive: Max Scherzer and Trea Turner
Rationale: The White Sox are thickly (or thicc-lee) in their championship winning window right now, while the Nationals are sliding out of theirs slightly, they still have a very good young core, but they don’t have the additional pieces to complement. This trade would likely make the White Sox an AL pennant favorite, even without adding anything else in the off-season. The Nationals on the other hand get to trade the last year of Max Scherzer (at market price) and a Trea Turner at arb year 3 (and then next year at arb year 4), while using the savings to buy in the market, which is expected to be depressed. Seems to work nicely for both squads. Now, I know what you are saying, Trea Turner is a SS / 2b / cf type and we have all of those guys already. FUCK IT!! You brought in a top end (but drinky) manager, let him figure out who plays where. Inevitably, I expect Turner to go to RF on the regular, but having too many up the middle players is one of those 1st world problems I be dreaming about.

New York Mets

108er: BeefLoaf
White Sox send: GM Rick Hahn
White Sox receive: $100,000,000 cash
Rationale: I am starting to buy into the Hahnbots rhetoric, that Rick Hahn is a good GM and all he really needs is an owner that will spend like Sirius on Howard Stern. Lucky for us, Steve Cohen is supposedly giving out money like Thornton Melon gave out pens in college. Hahn gets his dream job of getting to spend, spend, spend and the White Sox get to recoup their 9 figure losses from last season right in time to win a World Series.