White Sox “Trades” with EVERY TEAM – NL East Edition – 2023

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 once again 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

White Sox send: Tim Anderson SS
White Sox receive: Mike Soroka RHP Starter, Ian Anderson RHP Starter & Darius Vines RHP Starter

White Sox Fans: "How come we never get national acclaim?"

Also White Sox Fans: "Let's trade the White Sox player with the most national acclaim."

Trading Tim Anderson is dumb for about 100 reasons, and you're an idiot if you think it's a good idea.

— Bennett Karoll (@TheBennettK) October 14, 2022

Rationale: Tim Anderson is the FACE of the White Sox so it can be curious to attempt a trade. The Braves are a perfect fit. A market that would love a Tim Anderson, a team that just had an excellent short stop graduate to free agency and a cost conscious ownership. Anderson’s remaining deal / team options make him a perfect fit.

In Mike Soroka and Ian Anderson you get two from the Atlanta Braves starting pitcher tree that didn’t quite make it. Soroka was mostly due to bad luck as two achilles injuries (he can start a support group with Jake Burger) have derailed a very promising start to his career. Ian Anderson just kinda lost it, he was a top prospect and had an impressive beginning to his career, but he’s fallen off, like the Smashing Pumpkins after Mellon Collie.

Darius Vines is an interesting throw in, he’s on the Braves 40 man bubble and the White Sox could easily protect him on their 40 man, so he makes sense here. He’s a 5th or 6th starter type, the Sox are dying for this sort of depth.

Tim Anderson was an all-star in 2022, but struggled mightily for two-thirds of the season due to a myriad of injuries, including a wrist injury that cost him the final stanza of the season. He’s still a very good player, but sometimes a team needs to shake things up and particularly Rick Hahn GM’d White Sox teams who usually need to trade a good player for a couple of possible good players and nail that parlay.

New York Mets

White Sox send: Yasmani Grandal C
White Sox receive: Dominic Smith LF / 1b
Rationale: I was looking for ways that the White Sox could cut bait from Yasmani Grandal. There aren’t a lot of fits for $18.5M catchers who didn’t hit (or even catch) that well in the prior season. The Mets however, have the capital and are ready to cut bait on their incumbent (James McCann appears to be entering the playing golf and going to church in perpetuity portion of his career). Tomas Nido is meh, but the Mets did just call up top catching prospect Francisco Alvarez. I assume he’d be the top dog in 2023, with a guy like Yas there to mentor and see if the Mets could catch lightning in a bottle with a nice bounce back of his offensive skills.

When you have a billionaire owner that is hungry to field a winner, you can take all kinds of risky chances when it just costs money. In Dominic Smith you are getting a late 20 something bat only prospect that hasn’t made it. Being truthful, our old friend Daniel Palka out hit him at Syracuse in 2022, and DP is basically free on the open market. Maybe you can move Dominic Smith to first base and he’ll magically hit, I hear that works.

To me this also feels like a chance for Steve Cohen to rub his wealth in Jerry Reinsdorf’s face. I see him as Grandma from Rounders (played by Michael Rispoli) and JR as Lester “Worm” Murphy (played by Edward Norton).

Miami Marlins

White Sox send: Cristian Mena, Zach Remillard
White Sox receive: Joey Wendle
Rationale: Joey Wendle did not have a great offensive performance in his first year with the Marlins and is owed $6.6M if his option is picked up for this year. While the bat didn’t come through, his defense still made him a 2.5 bWAR player. At 2B, the Sox could surely use this in addition to him being able to swipe a base. The MLB’s recent rule changes should put a premium on these 2 skills.

The Marlins won’t just give him away, but they probably don’t want that type of cash at 2B at the same time. Cristian Mena feels like a guy the Marlins can mold into another solid pitcher in their staff. Not that it’s their greatest need, but it doesn’t hurt to have a bunch of pitchers. And let’s be honest, what deal isn’t sweetened with Zach Remillard?

Washington Nationals

White Sox send: Yolbert Sanchez
White Sox receive: Erick Fedde
Rationale: On its face, you may be saying that it’s gonna be really tough to get a SP for a minor league 2B, but I have a feeling if the Nats can’t move Fedde, they may simply non-tender him. And if you love Yolbert, well that’s great, but I have no idea why.

Fedde was a 1st round pick in 2014, but he simply has not panned out. Nor has the Nationals roster, which lead them to trading some of their best players. Going into arb year three, it would be surprising for the Nats to want to pay $3.5M to someone that may end up a swing man.

For the Sox, on the other hand, this could be a project similar to Vince Velasquez both in role and salary. However, Katz (assuming he’s retained) will have more time with Fedde. It’s also worth considering that the Nats may have just done a terrible job at developing him. Not to mention his numbers are inflated by them leaving him in to wear it in games where he ended up giving up 8 or 9 runs.

Philadelphia Phillies

White Sox send: Yoan Moncada 3b & $5 Million dollars
White Sox receive: Rhys Hoskins 1b / of
Rationale: The Phillies in their never ending quest to improve their defense are effectively buying two years of a good defender at 3b with some offensive upside. Moncada is scheduled to make $17M in 2023 and $24M in 2024 (and a $5M buyout for 2025), while Rhys Hoskins is in arb year 3 and expected to make north of $12M in 2023 in his final year of control. Rhys is a free agent after 2023 and will be entering his year 31 season. This move would allow the Phillies to put Alec Bohm in his rightful place of 1b (sound familiar?) as he is a little rough at the hot corner.

The White Sox are getting some salary cleared up in 2024 (the cash thrown in evens up the 2023 salaries). They are also getting power, that’s what Rhys does, he hits the ball outta the ballpark, 30 this past year, which would’ve lapped (almost twice) the entire Pale Hose squad.