Can the Reds make a trade with the White Sox?
The Chicago White Sox are ready to talk trades if anyone is willing to make a phone call. Given how their season has gone, it’s no surprise that they are willing to move some of their better players at this point. Entering Friday they are far and away the worst team in baseball with a 15-48 record. They are 26 games out of first place. Jeff Passan of ESPN reported that Chicago is open to moving left-handed pitcher Garrett Crochet, outfielder Luis Robert Jr., and right-handed pitcher Erick Fedde. With the Cincinnati Reds on a hot streak and in a league where there might only be three good teams, adding talent could potentially go a long way.
The question is, do any of the White Sox players make sense for the Reds? Cincinnati just optioned Graham Ashcraft to Triple-A, leaving them with four starting pitchers. Brandon Williamson is currently rehabbing his way back from the injured list and potentially has two starts remaining before the team has to make a decision on whether to activate him and either call him up or option him to the minors, or put him back on the injured list. He’s been very good on rehab, making one start with High-A Dayton and three more with Triple-A Louisville and has allowed one run in 13.2 innings so far.
Adding a starting pitcher could be a good idea. But the team may prefer to see what Williamson can do before making a real decision with regards to trying to acquire a starter. Still, if they were going to, Garrett Crochet or Erick Fedde would seem to fit in nicely. Crochet isn’t a free agent until after the 2026 season. Initially used as a reliever from 2020-2023 (he missed all of 2022), his move to the rotation this year has gone well as he’s posted a 3.49 ERA in 13 starts and has 15 walks with 93 strikeouts in 69.2 innings.
Erick Fedde spent much of his career pitching for the Washington Nationals. And for most of that time he struggled, posting a 5.41 ERA in parts of six seasons with them – mostly in the rotation. Last year he headed to Korea to pitch and was dominant, posting a 2.00 ERA and striking out 209 batters with just 35 walks in 180.1 innings. That was enough to get him another shot in the big leagues and he’s taken full advantage of it so far this year, posting a 3.27 ERA in 13 starts. In his 74.1 innings he’s walked 22 and struck out 73. He made some slight adjustments on a few of his pitches since 2022 and it’s paid off for him this season.
Cincinnati seems to have 900 outfielders, but TJ Friedl is the only one who plays every day. Spencer Steer is in the lineup every day, but it’s not always as an outfielder. Perhaps that changes if and when everyone is healthy and there are fewer opportunities for him to play some infield, but right now that’s not the case.
Luis Robert is in his 5th big league season and he’s hit .277/.324/.500 for his career. Last year was the first time he was healthy enough to play a full season and he had 36 doubles, a triple, and 38 home runs. When healthy, Robert has been very productive. The problem is that he simply hasn’t been healthy for much of his career. He’s under contract through 2025, but there are also team options for $20,000,000 for both 2026 and 2027 with a $2,000,000 buyout on each of those two seasons.
There aren’t too many trades that take place in early June. Teams with players they want to move tend to hold out as long as they can in order to have more suitors to play off of each other to try and up their price. But for teams looking to add, doing so early certainly is beneficial as you get that player for more time in the season and in theory helps you win more games, it makes sense to try and get a deal done sooner rather than later.
