Chicago White Sox: (15-40) 5^th in the AL Central
There was a time where the White Sox looked like a team on the rise. Luis Robert was a promising prospect, and the same could be said for outfielder and DH Eloy Jiménez. Tim Anderson was among the top hitters for average. There was even veteran leadership in José Abreu and Yoán Moncada.

As potential continued to grow, the team made a few splashes in free agency adding the likes of Yasmani Grandal, A.J. Pollock, and (most recently) Andrew Benintendi.

As for the pitching, the rotation was held down with aces like Lucas Giolito, Carlos Rodón, Dylan Cease, Lance Lynn, and Dallas Keuchel, just to name a few. Let’s not forget a solid bullpen that was held down by the likes of Liam Hendriks, Alex Colomé and Reynaldo López.

After making the playoffs in back-to-back seasons (including a division title in 2021), the organization was on top of the world. Then, very quickly, it came tumbling down.

Why Would They Sell?
Fast-forward to today, and while Jiménez and Robert are still part of the team, the most consistent hitter at this point in the season is 36-year-old Tommy Pham. Every other position player is hitting below .250, has been injured, or both.

Their pitching staff isn’t much better. After selling off Cease in March, their current ace looks to be Erick Fedde, a cheap re-import from the Korean Baseball Organization. He currently sits at a 3.10 ERA, with a 1.09 WHIP and 8 strikeouts per nine innings.

All the veteran players have been sold off for prospects or moved on in free agency. It seems the team has a long way to go before they start competing for a division title.

The team has a ton of expiring contracts this season, including the aforementioned Pham, Michael Soroka, Chris Flexen, and Paul DeJong. Jiménez can also become a free agent, should the White Sox decline his $16.5-million club option for 2025.

To make matters worse, their farm system isn’t the greatest. According to MLB Pipeline, the White Sox were 20^th on the 2024 Preseason Farm System Rankings. While this was announced prior to the Cease trade, they could still use a few more prospects to rise up those rankings. Right now, those standings matter more than the ones in the AL Central for 2024, since the Sox will play no interesting part in the latter fight.

The White Sox currently have four players on the top 100, including catcher Edgar Quero (MLB Pipeline’s #96 prospect), whom they got in the Giolito/López trade with the Angels last July; and hurler Drew Thorpe (#56 prospect), whom they landed in the Cease trade.

Their top prospect, shortstop Colson Montgomery (#11 prospect), has struggled a bit in Triple-A, but he still figures to make his debut at some point this season. As for former first-round pick Noah Schultz (#40 prospect), he’s still in High-A and has a long way to go before coming to Chicago.

Why Are the White Sox a Trade Partner?
It’s pretty simple: they’ll be selling, clearly and quickly, and they have starting pitching to move.

As we already know, the Brewers traded their ace in Corbin Burnes to the Orioles in exchange for Joey Ortiz and potential starter DL Hall. However, Hall just had a setback in his recovery from a knee injury, and in addition to more down time ahead, he’s staring down the possibility of never sticking as a starter.

Brandon Woodruff returned to the team, but isn’t expected to pitch this season. Wade Miley will miss the rest of the season after Tommy John surgery. Jakob Junis, who was also expecting to start some games, landed on the injury list after one start, and his progress toward a return has been frustratingly slow.

Right now, the rotation consists of Freddy Peralta, Colin Rea, Bryse Wilson, Robert Gasser, and Tobias Myers. They even got fancy with it during the Red Sox series, as they used Jared Koenig as an opener for back-to-back games. While this rotation has shown signs of success, it could be a matter of time before something slips and starts to buckle from beneath.

Utterly buried in the standings and with uncertain futures for their manager and their own, the White Sox have little leverage in trade talks. So instead of spending a Tyler Black or a Brock Wilken, the team could look at selling a Freddy Zamora or a Ryan Birchard. Depending on the player, though, it’ll probably be somewhere in the middle.

It’s very hard to predict how the White Sox value their players. But if they haven’t considered a full teardown before, there’s a good chance they will do something like that now. So which players could the Brewers look at? Let’s look.

Potential Brewers Trade Targets:
While there hasn’t been any rumored trade talks with any of the White Sox players, there has been a potential list of names that could be on the move, with just about every productive name on their roster on it: Fedde, Pham, reliever Michael Kopech, and several more.

Now, these players are expected to go, but there’s no telling if the White Sox will find the right offer, or if they will include any other player on the market. But of the potential players the Brewers would be interested in, here are the few that make the most sense.

Erick Fedde: 11 GS, 64.1 IP, 2.80 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, 58 K, 18 BB
Fedde is probably the easiest, best trade piece for Chicago this season. If you looked at any of his statistics in MLB, you would think that Fedde wouldn’t keep it up. Prior to this season, he had a career 5.41 ERA with a 1.47 WHIP and 7.0 strikeouts per nine. But his best statistics were recorded overseas.

The former first-round pick played for the NC Dinos of the Korean League. In that one year, he was the best player in the league. He had a 2.00 ERA, a 0.95 WHIP and 209 strikeouts, becoming the first foreign player to win 20 games and record over 200 strikeouts.

He won every award under the Korean baseball sun, including the Triple Crown, the Choi Dong-won Award, and the KBO League Most Valuable Player Award. That’s like a pitcher winning the Cy Young Award and the MVP in the same season.

Not always does success in Korea translate well in MLB–see former Brewer Josh Lindblom. However, Fedde has performed well to start the season. The White Sox signed him to a two-year deal worth $15 million, so he will cost some money, but it’s a very manageable amount. There is a chance competing teams could get into a bidding war for this pitcher, allowing the team with the best offer to get him. Let’s hope one of those teams will be the Brewers.

Tommy Pham: 25 GP, .304/.355/.443, 3 HR, 12 RBI, 127 OPS+
While the Brewers (at first glance) may not need another hard-hitting, right-handed bat, the recent success of Pham may be enough to take a spot on the Crew’s roster. After having a decent season with the Mets and the D-backs, he signed with the White Sox shortly after Opening Day this spring, on a minor-league contract. He played only four preparatory games in the minors, before being called up to the parent club just over a month ago.

If the team is planning to get younger, having a 36-year-old outfielder isn’t doing the White Sox any favors. The club will still take the best offer for the player. There should be a decent number of suitors for the veteran outfielder.

By the trade deadline, the Brewers should have five outfielders in Christian Yelich, Garrett Mitchell, Sal Frelick, Jackson Chourio, and Blake Perkins. However, with Perkins and Chourio’s recent struggles, the crew might need a veteran upgrade in the lineup while one of them sees more time in Triple-A. Injuries, too, are always a factor, and have been especially important considerations for Yelich and Mitchell. They could well end up in a position, come late July, to pursue a bat like Pham’s.

Michael Soroka: 12 GP, 53 IP, 5.43 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, 39 K, 31 BB
Injuries have shipwrecked Soroka’s career, but somewhere in there is the talent that once made him a highly promising arm for the upstart Atlanta team fixated on regaining its primacy in the NL East.

Most of you are probably wondering why the Brewers would want a struggling pitcher who was relegated to the bullpen recently. In short, they’d be trying to find the same magic he captured before tearing his Achilles tendon in late 2020.

Soroka was an All-Star in 2019 as part of the Braves, where in 29 starts, he had a 2.68 ERA with a 1.11 WHIP and a league-leading 0.7 home runs per nine innings. As stated earlier, his 2020 season was cut short due to injury. His Achilles has been his, er, biggest weakness ever since, as he suffered a setback in 2021 and re-tore it in 2022, effectively ending his season.

The Braves remained cautious with him, until he was eventually traded to the White Sox in the Aaron Bummer trade. Sure, he hasn’t looked like his old self since his injury. But he might be a nice surprise to a rotation that has been plagued with injuries (ironic, I know).

Because of his injury history and his season not being off to a great start, he would be on the cheaper side in value. He is only on a one-year contract, but there’s team control remaining, and at 26, he has a bunch of time to turn his career around.

The Brewers could very much be buyers as we get closer to the deadline. While the obvious choice is to go after a team like the White Sox who aren’t going to be competing any time soon, there are other teams who could be looking to upgrade their farm system in hopes of building a young core.