Jake

There's a certain age where it begins to interfere with me caring about control. So I'll say in general that I can't value the many years of control of a 27 year old very highly because of my concern that even if a player "turns out," he has high risk of collapsing by age 30 or so. Probably moreso for a hitter than pitcher although pitchers can imminently self-destruct regardless of age...

What would you say to AJ Smith-Shawver, Nacho Alvarez Jr, Jose Perdomo?

I think Getz would like Nacho Alvarez Jr.

If you want to say Kopech was traded for the two 19 year olds, then holy crap what a deal, maybe Getz really knows what he's doing!

I think the league clearly isn't seeing Fedde as a sure bet, Getz still could have probably at least gotten another player of the caliber of the two 19 year olds we received, and also that Vargas is the superior prospect out of Vargas/Norby/Stowers which likely relates to why Sox dealt with Dodgers rather than O's.

I don't really like either of those guys over Vargas, but it's surprising that Rogers nets much value at all.

You certainly have to hold out for a good return, but don't get cute either. Crochet is really a ticking time bomb and Sox won't have as much leverage in the offseason. Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good here.

Jasson Dominguez would have been fun although the injuries are scary.

For any who play MLB The Show, Vargas was once nearly the top ranked player in the world in its online multiplayer. I do remember hearing that he had engaged in a mild form of cheating to get there though, lol

For the analytically inclined, Edman's 15.9 career WAR would slot him into a tie for 38th among position players in White Sox history, tied with Carlos Lee, just short of the immortal Zeke Bonura, and just ahead of 2025 manager AJ Pierzynski

I've been worried that Kopech might degenerate into full-blown yips at any time so I'm sympathetic to the view that maybe you should just offload him. Of course in this deal I have no clue how much, if anything, he got added to the return for the Sox.

Looking forward to having Fletcher back on the team. Would like to see him show whether he can be an everyday major leaguer

I don't know. As soon as I heard we did a three-way deal with the Cardinals I suspected there was a chance the industry valued those two guys the same (although I remain fuzzy on Edman's injury status) but I was hopeful the Sox could get more for Fedde. But can't rule out the possibility that teams just aren't that high on Fedde given his long track record of being terrible before this season.

Strongly suspect what was intended with the comment in the confusing tweet was the Sox agreed that they would probably accept a trade in which the Sox accept the prospect return for Edman as the prospect return for Fedde

I remarked to a friend the other day that the only person who I am fairly confident knows what they are doing is Brian Bannister — the problem is if I know that, surely everyone in baseball knows that Bannister is good too. So what are the chances he gets poached? At this point, I have to think even a lateral move would be tempting to him but maybe the Sox are offering something to him that he wouldn't get elsewhere.

One thing's for sure, the best way to truly show your ass as a GM is to go into buyer mode

Frazier/Kahnle/Robertson trade as worst in Sox history??? The trade was by no means good, seeing as the Sox netted zero value out of it. But Kahnle accumulated 1.7 WAR/>4.00 ERA in 110ish innings before reaching free agency after the deal. Frazier was playing just okay on an expiring deal. Robo pitched well before reaching free agency but was on a market value deal, thus making it hard to get any surplus trade value out of him. There was just not much downside risk for the Sox in that trade because of the positions of the players they traded and their contract situations. Semien, Bassitt, and Phegley for Samardzija is SO MUCH worse it's not even funny, and I haven't even brought the Tatis situation into play yet since at least the Sox can say that nobody thought Tatis was going to be that good back then.

For the record, I am in agreement that it seems like STL does bafflingly well in this deal which suggests to me the Sox may have left something on the table. That said, it is not striking me as a trade that we will be looking back years from now as shockingly bad. Partly because the only real downside for the Sox is opportunity cost which we can never never truly quantify, but also just that my assessment is there's some chance the Sox clearly end up "winning" it by some measure despite the fact it looks like they could have gotten more.

I can't filter by PCL/IL, but of all AAA hitters who have seen as many pitches as him, he's tied for 8th (with Addison Barger) out of 292 qualified players. Below are those who have a higher xwOBA than him (Dingler is at .403, Vargas at .382).

The lesson I've learned of the past 6 or so years of White Sox baseball is that maybe you can't just go out and easily sign 2 WAR players on the cheap. And that's not 100% a Hahn/Reinsdorf/etc. criticism, FWIW...the guys reaching free agency as of late really stink with a few exceptions

For the Dodgers, I think they are just seeing him as likely far superior to their in-house alternatives at multiple positions where they're dealing with injuries — and they have good reason to be thinking a lot about the short term right now.

Well the Statcast data looks similar to the back of the baseball card, which seems to show in the past he didn't hit well enough. I guess I don't see anything so conclusive about the future. Nothing jumping out that screams "fatal flaw" to me at least with the bat. Good contact tool, seems to have good at bats, keeps the ball off the ground. Just not doing enough damage. No, he's probably not someone with a perennial all-star ceiling but the Sox also need guys who are just decent. If Vargas averages 2 WAR per season until he reaches free agency that is an awesome outcome IMO. And that's not just grading on a curve for the Sox, that's any team. Winners are made out of assembling a critical mass of solid players. And by the way, the guy we traded is a 31 year old with 4.1 career WAR and a 3.77 xERA in his breakout season...which might have informed the thinking of competing GMs.

Oh boy, let me see this Statcast data that shows Vargas will be unable to hit in the future. So far all I see is Statcast data showing he's gotten basically exactly what he's deserved so far in MLB (which, to be fair, is not much) and Statcast data showing he was almost the best hitter in all of AAA.

Presumably the Sox are coming out way ahead in terms of money spent though, so if they spent a half mill to drop 10 mill in salary, they still saved money (this is not an endorsement of making salary-shedding deals, just doing some accounting)

I'd happily trade Oscar Colas for Vargas too, seeing as at no time would the Dodgers have dreamed of considering such a deal