White Sox “Trades” with EVERY TEAM – NL East Edition – 2024

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.

The Au Jus

Atlanta Braves

White Sox send: Michael Kopech SP / RP
White Sox receive: Jared Shuster SP
Rationale: Michael Kopech is a much maligned talent in White Sox lore. He’s got substantial prospect pedigree. When he showed up in Chicago he was like an adonis, then he got hurt. 2020 rolled around as he was ready to come back from TJ and he sat out the year. 2021 he was a dynamo in the bullpen working up to his eventual role on the throne of ace starting pitcher. The ride as a starting pitcher has been as bumpy as his often public relationships with hollywood starlets. Huge peaks and craterous valleys. You, the White Sox fan has been excited and frustrated nearly all of this time. Well, that’s over now as he joins an Atlanta Braves team that is looking to use his upside to help them buoy a 104 win team past round 1 of the playoffs.

Jared Shuster is one of a big pile of major league ready, low ceiling starting pitchers that the Atlanta Braves have developed over the last several years. He’s lefty, he’s 25 and he has an excellent change-up. The fastball won’t impress in the Speed Pitch at Sox Park and his slider is mid (as the kids say), but he has good command and is ready to be in a rotation, particularly one that has 4 empty spots at time of posting. Good command, crafty lefties sometimes become legends in this town, but I’ll settle for reliable in this case.

New York Mets

White Sox send: Andrew Benintendi LF
White Sox receive: Starling Marte RF
Rationale: If you’re dealing with the Mets, you might as well throw around big dollar amounts.

Starling Marte had a rough year battling a groin injury. It resulted in probably the worst year of his career, which would be a pretty good year for a White Sox RF. Jokes aside, Marte is a risky proposition going into his age 35 season. That’s the only reason I think the Sox would have a chance to get him. In return the Sox would offer a guy who is younger, but was also injury plagued this year.

Benintendi seems the less risky proposition of the two but also less upside. If he is what he is again this year, it’s a mediocre player that doesn’t really hurt you. Marte on the other hand is high risk high reward. You may get nothing or you may get awesome. If the Mets prefer the risk averse approach, this might be a trade that works.

Miami Marlins

White Sox send: Peyton Pallette SP
White Sox receive: Nasim Nunez SS
Rationale:

The White Sox new brass has been on record several times saying that they need to improve the defense. I would think the up the middle infield defense being near the top of the list that a small trade like this would be high on their list.

As you can see from the graph above, Nunez isn’t much of a hitter, but he can run, he’s patient at the plate and he can defend (70 grade defenders at Shortstop help even when they can’t hit). The White Sox are looking to upgrade anything they can. The Marlins don’t seem so enamored with Nunez, he’s 23, and last season they didn’t promote him instead they let the likes of Jon Berti, Garrett Hampson and Joey Wendle man the position, so I’d say he’s plenty available.

The White Sox send back Peyton Pallette who had a mediocre season at low A Kannapolis, but doesn’t require Rule 5 protection until 2025. Live Arm. all that shit.

Washington Nationals

White Sox send: Seth Keener RHP
White Sox receive: Stone Garrett OF
Rationale: Stone Garrett ended his season running into the wall and fracturing his fibula which required surgery. Add that to the fact that he’ll be 28 in November, he’s the equivalent of 100 years old on this Nats roster. Garrett has bounced around minor league teams before landing with the Nats and playing a half a season worth of games for them. What’s interesting is that his OBP was abysmal until a stop in Arizona in 2021 where he seemingly learned how to do that. It translated into a .343 OBP this year with the Nats. While I wouldn’t expect that to hold that high, he at least appears to be a guy who understands what is seemingly a foreign concept to the White Sox. He’s a plus defender in LF and a serviceable RF as his arm is not great. He probably sits as a 4th outfielder, playing mostly against LHP.

Overall, I don’t think he’ll be expensive. He’s controllable until like 2050 but as noted he’s 28 on a team seemingly getting younger by the minute. I think a middle of the road pitching prospect is enough to get it done.

Philadelphia Phillies

White Sox send: Gregory Santos RP
White Sox receive: Carlos De Los Santos OF & Andrew Schultz RP
Rationale: .

If I had one complaint about the Great 2023 SELL OFF, it’s that they didn’t deal Santos. Don’t get me wrong, Santos was terrific last year, by any metric and by Stuff+ for qualified relievers he had a top 3 slider at 159. I just think the reliever can be a fickle beast and cashing those chips in for some future value can make sense. So that’s what I do here.

Carlos De Los Santos is literally a gigantic prospect, he’s 6’9″, plays a reasonable center field (he can play all the outfield spots reasonably well) and his ginormous power. His problem is that he just strikes out too damn much and likely needs a year or two more seasoning even though he just spent a full year at AA. He’s curtailed the K rate to 27.5% last year and the walk rate is up to 9.3%, so his chance of being a big league regular is improving.

Andrew Schultz is a typical White Sox stab at a guy. He’s got a 60 slider, 60 fastball and almost no control. They have a decent track record of working these guys out and making major leaguers outta them, here’s another.