Today the White Sox made a three-team trade with the Cardinals and Dodgers that sent Eric Fedde and Tommy Pham to St. Louis. Louis and Tommy Edman in Los Angeles. In exchange for Edman, the Dodgers picked up a prospect tab in the deal, sending Miguel Vargas and Low-A minor leaguers Jeral Perez and Alexander Albertus to the other side of the Camelback Ranch structure. You can read about the Cardinals and Dodgers parts of the trade here.
The White Sox had gotten a rebound in their previous trade made under new GM Chris Getz, but this time they turned to hitting, getting three batters that I've slightly lowered the consensus of viewing expectations. I like all three players but I don't like them love any of them, though I think Vargas has a shot to possibly be a decent everyday player, and soon.
The seeds of this deal were planted when Chicago signed Fedde during the offseason. After a stint in Washington, Fedde reinvented himself in the Scottsdale lab and had an incredible 2023 season for the KBO's NC Dinos, posting a 2.00 ERA in 180.1 innings while striking out 209 and walking just 35. He was named the KBO MVP and the KBO MVP won the equivalent of the Cy Young. Getz and the White Sox bet a very small amount ($15 million over two years) that Fedde's development would translate to the big leagues, and they were right. Fedde jumped well and turned into a prospect piñata. Pham's salary was just over $2 million. Paying significant amounts for prospects (especially hitters) is exactly what a team like the White Sox should be doing, and over the course of about eight months they've done just that with Fedde and Pham.
A big part of the reason I was lower on Miguel Vargas' expected time than my sources and peers was because I didn't think he could play the infield well, if at all. That proved to be true and, after trying several infield positions outside of his native third base, Vargas moved to left field this season. This comes as the Dodgers have had the league's biggest injury to the wall, which I think is telling. He is not good on the left either, but it is clear that he can improve as he continues to play there. I haven't heard from anyone on the org if the White Sox will revisit the infield with Vargas. If they do it would strike me as a 2025 spring training activity rather than something they're asking Vargas to do right away.
Vargas lacks the raw power typical of a big left fielder. He's not a very explosive swinger and it depends on his feel for making contact with the sweet spot to generate more base power. The combination of Vargas' plate direction and this smooth barrel sounds like it creates enough offense for him to be a low-impact everyday left fielder. Here's how some of his performance metrics and talents compare to those of other MLB left fielders:
Miguel Vargas Hit Data vs. MLB LF
| contact him | Z-Contact% | EV ratio | Hard Hit% | 90th% EV | chase% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Miguel Vargas | 80% | 86% | 89.7 | 35% | 102.4 | 20% |
| Medium All LF | 76% | 84% | 89.2 | 40% | 102.7 | 27% |
| Average High 30 LF | 76% | 85% | 90.0 | 43% | 103.9 | 27% |
These are solid numbers that support the obvious scouting report that this is a skills-over-tools type of hitter. I think he'll be producing about 20 times more innings (give or take) than all lefties in the league five years from now. Vargas' front-runners in Los Angeles have held him back from the big-league playing time his minor-league career has deserved over the past two seasons, and he should be given an immediate big-league opportunity in Chicago. Andrew Benintendi is under contract until… (checking Roster Resource… holy shnikes) until 2027, so the White Sox have to figure out what to do with that. Benintendi is not playing well enough to stop Vargas.
The other two infielders in the field, Alexander Albertus and Jeral Perez, were both playing at Low-A Rancho Cucamonga until Albertus was diagnosed with a broken lower leg a week ago and put on the IL. Albertus' name has been bandied about at each of the last couple deadlines because he's done things that have caught the attention of scouts and analysts. The soon-to-be 20-year-old outfielder is a career .303/.449/.415 hitter (especially at the rookie level) who puts the ball in the ballpark and controls the bullpen. He takes the offensive square and has been athletic enough to do so while maintaining a strikeout rate in the 14-18% range over the past two seasons (MLB average is 22%). As hard as he is to throw, Albertus doesn't generate a ton of power and his swing is downhill. He plays a cleaner defense at third than at shortstop, and he may end up being good there. (He's played all three non-1B outfield positions over the past few seasons.) This is the Yandy Díaz branch of the infield prospect tree (OBP and contact skills, third base fit, less power than you want) where Díaz is a hit. An athlete gets very, very strong in his late twenties. Pathways to the daily role will likely require Albertus. He might be a useful guy.
If you want proof that Albertus is a tough shot, look no further than Jeral Perez. Perez has already been more physical than I would have thought having watched him a ton in Arizona last year when he was a Note-type player in the Dodgers system. Now he has raw big-league power at age 19 and, physically, he looks overwhelmed. Perez's compact build and strong upper hand through contact allow him to be timely in general, but his feel for moving the barrel is poor. Although he has posted above-average contact rates thus far, I am concerned that he is someone who will be exposed to better fastballs in the minors, which are located in the upper quadrant and outside of the strike zone. Perez is a similar mixed bag defensively; he has acrobatic moves and can really swing it once he gets the baseball, but he often struggles to do so. He has versatile hands (likely to get better) and average range (likely not as he gets older). This is the type of second baseman who has no range but is good around the bag and basically average overall. I like his chances of being strong enough to have significant range over Perez (40+ FV is like a mid- to late second-round prospect in a typical draft), but I view his profile as good value risk and variation. This is not the type of athlete who ends up being able to defend himself in different ways, so he will have to keep hitting.
You can see how these guys fit into the White Sox system here.
In addition to Edman, the Dodgers also picked up 17-year-old DSL pitcher Oliver Gonzalez for the deal. He worked 21.1 innings in the piggyback role before the deal. He's 6-foot-4 or so, and his fastball currently sits at 89-93 mph with about 20 inches of vertical break and just over 7 feet of extension. His curveball has good depth and pitch, but he doesn't have the feel to get it. It's a great starting point for any young thinker. Also, the draft is a good way to gauge how we should think about Gonzalez, who is likely to earn around $750,000 to $1 million in bonus money. He was added to the bottom of the Dodgers' roster.
Source link
