White Sox “Trades” with EVERY TEAM | AL West Edition | 2027

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 AL West Edition.

The Au Jus

Texas Rangers

White Sox send: Jordan Hicks rhp
White Sox receive: Paxton Kling of

Rationale: The Rangers bullpen killed them all year. Having an unstable group back there is probably would cost them the AL West crown in 2026 (as dubious as that might have been). They need leverage arms and Hicks is that. I know, I know, yous are probably asking, Beef, why the fuck would the White Sox trade a decent arm from their good 2026 bullpen. 1) He’s expensive $8.5M in 2027 2) Getz likes to take some profit when he can. Remember Hicks was the salary dump portion of the David Sandlin deal. Getting him back on track and re-flipping him feels like it is right out of this group’s playbook. 3) And most importantly, Getz has gone out of his way to note where they want to improve and one spot is the outfield. Enter Paxton Kling.

Kling is a 7th round pick out of Penn State. He’s a good athlete who probably sticks in center, but health and hitting at the upper levels of the minors are the obstacles in his way. He’s currently in the AFL and destroying it, but AFL stats for hitters are l0lz anyways. Consider this move one to improve the outfield depth in a system that is dying for it.

Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim

White Sox send: Caleb Bonemer 3B/OF, Tanner McDougal RHP, Drew Thorpe RHP, Prelander Berroa RHP
White Sox receive: Reid Detmers LHP, Yusei Kikuchi LHP
Rationale: I know you all want Reid Detmers and I honestly don’t know how to make that happen considering they seemed like they weren’t really considering trading him at the deadline. I assume it is gonna take a lot because they didn’t go for Jefferson Rojas at the deadline allegedly, but I also assume the White Sox don’t have enough alone in the system. So I added Kikuchi to this deal so the Sox could take on his $21M.

Let’s start with Kikuchi as I think this could be interesting. If he limits his pitches to his best 3, ups the slider usage, reduces the 4-seam usage (but pump up the velo a touch), and keep the splitter, then I think he could fill that Newcomb role that will be gone. Don’t worry about his salary, consider that part of Reid’s.

Reid is the main piece of this deal and I think his 2026 has made him very expensive in the trade market. He changes the White Sox rotation immediately and impacts the entire staff.

I do think the Angels are gonna tear it mostly down this year and try to turn it around as quickly as possible while Mike Trout is still around. So handing over major league ready players seems necessary. In theory, all fout of Bonemer, McDougal, Thorpe, and Berroa could be in the majors for the start of the 2027 for the Angels, though I assume they’d manipulate whatever service time they could. With Berroa, they’d hope to see some of that high velo, high leverage work and flip him for the 5th time in his short career.

Houston Astros

White Sox send: Roch Cholowsky ss, Caleb Bonemer 3b / of, Sam Antonacci 2b / lf, David Sandlin rhp, Joey Volchko rhp
White Sox receive: Yordan Alvarez dh / of / bmf

Rationale: The biggest complaint I heard of 2026 Playoff White Sox, other than “Pitching to Jose Ramirez” was, not getting the big hit when it mattered. I personally think the best way to remedy this plan is to get the best hitter in baseball added to the roster. I modeled this trade after the 2022 trade deadline trade that the Padres made with the Washington Nationals to acquire Juan Soto. I did haircut this a bit given, Soto was acquired with 2 years plus of contract remaining, which means he’d be available for 3 theoretical playoff runs and Alvarez will only be available for 2. Also, Soto was 23 years old when that deal was made and Alvarez is 29, but otherwise, best hitter in baseball vibes remain.

Alvarez could wear a glove in left field, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Surely there will be some warm nights on 35th and Shields where that does happen, but this man is brought here to DH and bat 2nd, so that teams can no longer walk Miguel Vargas nine times in a playoff series.

The Astros are resetting their farm system with this move. Of course Antonacci is a full fledged major leaguer at this point, but the rest of this is guys that are future help, including the trade piece Chris Getz couldn’t part with at the deadline (Bonemer) and the 2026 #1 overall pick. The price seems steep, but Yordan Alvarez’ don’t grow on trees. Want to get better for RIGHT NOW…this is the BEST WAY!

Seattle Mariners

White Sox send: Braden Montgomery RF, Hagen Smith LHP
White Sox receive: Logan Gilbert RHP
Rationale: I don’t think I really need to sell anyone on how valuable a pitcher like Logan Gilbert could be to this White Sox team. And with the amount of pitching the Mariners have, it makes sense for them to move one of them to fill a need. The problem is that the Mariners want to compete right now and they should! But that means we need to send some major league talent to them.

This is where the trade gets complicated, because the Mariners could really use an impact right handed bat. That’s a place where the White Sox are a bit thin these days. So we have to go at this in a different direction sending two high upside prospects that have already reached the majors. With Montgomery, this could be an impact bat for the M’s, but we’ve only seen glimpses so far. They’d be taking a chance on that. With Hagen, this feels like a guy Dipoto would absolutely want in a trade. He can use him in the pen, but could also develop him as a future starter. And he could certainly find a trade for him at some point.

Oakland Athletics

White Sox send: Drew Thorpe rhp, Tyler Schweitzer lhp & Jairo Iriarte rhp
White Sox receive: Luis Severino rhp
Rationale: My general thesis on the 2027 White Sox is that short term free agent answers will mostly be their tense because they are trying to resolve a fair amount of talent that is hanging in and around the 40 man roster. Don’t look at Severino’s overall stats, look at this Away stats only because the bandbox in Sacramento plays like hitting in Mexico City. Severino at home, looked like a position player pitching (or Luis Castillo in September) and on the road he was a good starter. Now the A’s are cheap so getting the 4 months of 2027 salary plus taking the risk of him getting injured is a big chunk of the freight here, but there is some chance he would stay upright and be good and grab a haul at the 2027 deadline.

For that the White Sox trade off some arm talent at the fringes of the roster. Drew Thorpe was an interesting starting pitcher, then he got hurt and a bunch of internal options passed him in the pecking order. He should be fully healthy heading into 2027, and being in Oakl-Sacra-Vegas will allow him much more opportunities than he would get at 35th and Shields. Tyler Schweitzer was a quite valuable long-man on the 2026 playoff White Sox. He’s effective, but with the Wizard Mike Vasil returning from injury in 2027 I suspect that’s his role, so Tyler can comfortably go ply his rotation saving trait elsewhere. Lastly, the last gasp for Jairo Iriarte. Once a key piece of the Dylan Cease trade, he’s now holding on to his last slippery chance of making it in the big leagues. He actually had a pretty nice year out of the bullpen in 2026 in the upper minors, but not nice enough to get a shot in an ever turning over White Sox bullpen, so maybe moving on to greener pastures would give him a chance to fluorish.