The Erick Fedde Trade – 3 Quick Thoughts
I recently got back from the big #108ing Road Trip with our friends from SoxMachine and all of yous that made the trip to Kansas City. Whatta great time spent with White Sox fans!! While I was there, amongst other drunken ramblings, I proclaimed to a couple of yous on the trip…”I just want the White Sox to get back to a point where people can’t just say ‘Well The White Sox are Stupid’ as the main point of their analysis and have it be a plausible conclusion without further discussion.”
Under the guise of that thought process, I’d like to analyze this trade. The White Sox sent Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham to Saint Louis and Michael Kopech to Los Angeles (Dodgers) for Miguel Vargas, Alexander Albertus and Jeral Perez.
I conveniently had an episode of The Au Jus just a few hours later with Jacki Krestel (watch the entire episode below), where we try to unpack the trade. Our general thesis was that it seemed a bit underwhelming. In this post, I will not dig deep on the White Sox side of the return, but for that you can read this Fangraphs article to get a quick fix on that.
My tag line on The Au Jus show is “We ain’t tryna be right, we’re just tryna understand” and I think that fits perfectly for my thoughts on this Erick Fedde trade.
Did I Overrate Erick Fedde’s Trade Value (and to a lesser extent Michael Kopech and Tommy Pham)?
Conveniently, the very first super chat of Monday’s Au Jus asked this very question. Thx Jerry O’Sullivan!
As I denote in the discussion. I don’t think White Sox fans overrated his performance, but it is possible that we as fans overrated his trade value. If just six months ago, no other team was willing to give him a 2 year deal for a meager $15 million, maybe not even a 4.7 bWAR / 2.7 fWAR first 2/3rds of a season was going to sway them otherwise. At this point in time, Erick Fedde doesn’t exactly light up the Baseball Savant scoreboard if you will.
I think the tweet below summarizes the potential apprehension for a team to really barrel some prospects for Erick Fedde inspite of the most recent 4 months of evidence and the additional year of cheap control.
Tommy Pham is basically a replacement level outfielder at this point and although that felt like a breath of fresh air to us White Sox fan, you have to think that the fact that he was freely available in April combined with the fact that he hasn’t really lit the world on fire since leads you to a relatively low return on investment for your $2 million (full year contract of $3 million).
Michael Kopech on the other hand, absolutely does light up the Baseball Savant scoreboard (in some areas), however the real life results have been very shaky across his spotty MLB career.
I wrote about Kopech most definitely getting traded on the strength of a single pitch, you can read that HERE. However, it would appear the other warts in his catalogue might have dragged down his value relative to others in the market place (oh and all the blown saves and weird balks too).
Inevitably, I think the group thesis from the most recent FromThe108 podcast with Alex Rude came thru in that Erick Fedde might be the most disappointing return of the White Sox trades….but let’s look into a few other factors.
Did Chris Getz Hurt The Return By His Own Conditions?
A lot of people used the term “FLEECED” when looking at this trade in reference to Chris Getz. The definition is below.
I don’t think this is what happened. I definitely think a GM can lose a trade in the moment, but given how publicly available players become through media leaks and agents and such, the modern trade markets are more like public auctions than backroom card games. This tends to lead to the market price materially winning out (not perfectly, no markets are perfect). However, if you decide to adjust the parameters a bit, then maybe you can end up with something that doesn’t look as market to the naked eye.
Like let’s say you are precluding a subset of teams for the very antiquated “They are in our division” theory. Then it is entirely possible that you may lose out on some value. But lopping effectively two teams off of the larger market isn’t likely to have material effects on average (it’s still not smart). Assuming that is what happened here. But it does possibly add to the publicly viewed underwhelming return. But another idea probably had a greater effect.
The White Sox were very publicly seeking bats in their trade deadline returns.
If you are lopping off effectively half of the player pool when cultivating the deal, you are most definitely going to “lose value” in an overall sense. However, the bat talent received in return may be entirely market price for the players you are trading. Now let’s further tighten up those parameters. Chris Getz and crew chose hitters that control the strike zone well and prioritized that and swing decisions. If you narrow that path further as to want the return may look different than you are expecting. That’s right. It’s very possible that the deal is fine (given your stated parameters) but is below market overall because of those self imposed parameters.
I am not saying it is. I’m also not definitively expressing that it was smart to draft Hagen Smith #5 overall and then take this approach in the trade markets. Maybe Jac Cags at #5 and increasing these return on a trade like this by taking an arm back was a better approach. I have no fucking clue. But it does make sense as to the look and shape of the deal and the public reaction. It also seems like Getz and crew do have an approach here and are following through on it. Again, no proclamation for future effectiveness, I’m just trying to understand (in true Au Jus fashion).
This Isn’t Your Drunk Uncle’s Trade Deadline
Per JJ Cooper at Baseball America they have re-ranked their board and of the 64 traded prospects, exactly zero are top 100 Prospects. Trades these days just look different. And it’s not as easy to say “well they got these top ranked guys so the trade is a win”. Prospect hoarding is real. Now your trade returns are going to weigh heavily on your scouting / evaluating team and your ability to develop those players. Yes, that was a grumble you heard from my tummy…maybe the same just happened to you as a fellow White Sox fan. But I think trade returns might look more unorthodox, especially if you aren’t dealing STAR LEVEL talent, than they did in the past. You and I, the layman, might be left wanting more on general principle.
In Conclusion…
In conclusion, the White Sox spent $7 million ($5 million – Fedde & $2 million – Pham) to acquire 3 players with bat talent they covet. I’m more comfortable with this deal than I initially was in it’s overall shape and value given the needs and parameters of the team. And also I’m fine with the path, the approach if you will, of the types of players that Getz and crew acquired. However, I’m also less comfortable that they get these guys across the line as big league regulars (given their recent deficiencies in developing upper level bat talent and the lack of resources the chairman is usually willing to levy for such endeavors). Or maybe we get lucky this time.
-BeefLoaf
About The Author
beefloaf108
Low information White Sox Fan. Big Feet Energy ORIGINAL 108er Like Whore 2019 Opening Day #SoxMath WINNAR Mediocrity Personified
Thanks, Beef! I appreciate your insight.
There was a lot of discussion after the Getz hire about how he was in charge of development and our development was terrible, but defenders argued he wasn’t in charge of picking the players to develop and was stuck with what Rick/Kenny gave him. While I don’t think the argument is so binary, I wonder how his development system will fit the types of players he’s now targeting – like those bats that can control the strike zone, as you mentioned. It’s definitely a different approach than Rick/Kenny who had a hard-on for guys like Zack Collins.
I say all that to ask if this is going to be their strategy moving into the off-season, and presumably impact how they navigate moving the few assets they have (e.g. Crochet), do you think there’s any chance that his prospect acquisition strategy works out because they’re now aligned to the system he’s trying to develop?
Thanks for reading Schlesspapi!! You’d like to think there should be more synergies in player acquisitions / drafting / development with Getz / Barfield manning that part of the ship and seemingly in lockstep. Until there is proof of concept of them actually making it work, I’ll probably just close my eyes and cross my fingers and hope it works. But it is something that could give an optimistic observer something to hand their hat on.