If you're playing well on the 2024 Chicago White Sox, it behooves you to at least contemplate the possibility of being traded in the next six weeks.
"I mean, I get it," said Erick Fedde, whose two-year contract puts him in that perfect trade deadline sweet spot where he's more substantive than a rental addition, but not so expensive that teams lacking loaded farm systems are eliminated from the bidding.
"We lost kind of our three big guys at the beginning of the year, put us in a bad spot. The emergence of [Garrett] Crochet as a legit No. 1 is huge. There's a lot of young guys coming up showing promise. Next year, of course there's a chance, and it's always fun to be somewhere you feel like you're at the start of something. But part of the job is going where they tell you to go."
After last year's deadline, Paul DeJong hit .129/.128/.183 across stints with the Blue Jays and Giants, as he struggled to acclimate to life away from the Cardinals organization that had employed him since 2015. He credits the experience for forming a durable mindset that has him leading his new club with 14 home runs, and also ready for whatever comes, since he's on a low-cost one-year deal for team whose top prospect plays the same position at Triple-A.
"I was with the Cardinals for all of my 20s, so to turn 30 on my first day in Toronto, it was almost like a new era of where I'm at in my career and maybe bouncing around a little more than I ever thought," DeJong said. "I like being in Chicago. I like the guys here. I feel like I'm close to the city, but I understand the organization might be in a transition period."
"Might be" is certainly in kind with DeJong's polite manner of phrasing things. A new TV network is launching for next season, and team officials speak openly about the White Sox needing their longed-for new stadium to generate the revenue necessary to contend regularly. No wonder Chris Getz thought it unwise to identify a specific year the White Sox are targeting to challenge for the AL Central crown. But White Sox fans are more than experienced enough with rebuilds to know that when the general manager is openly longing for chances to add prospects, it's early in the process.
"As we continue to want to build this organization back, one of the better avenues to doing so could be on the trade front," Getz said on Tuesday. "It's about having talent and bringing talent into the organization. There's different mechanisms to do that. You've got the amateur draft in which we're prepping, international as well. You've got trade acquisitions. We're an organization that wants to build from within. We really believe in our development process. There's a time to go out in free agency to help improve our major league club. We don't want to be reliant on it. Our goal is to be able to build that with our prospects that have gone through our minor league system to be on our major league club. To identify a player as someone we can build around or not, I think there's a handful of different factors that go into assessing that and that really is probably a more timetable sensitive question that we're still assessing at the moment."
But when the timetable is amorphous and the most valuable members of the active roster -- Luis Robert Jr. and Garrett Crochet -- have injury histories lengthy enough to lend some pause to projecting them as key figures on a contender in the distant future, most everyone has to figure they're under some consideration.
“Definitely, I would like to stay with this organization," Robert said via interpreter. "This organization, they gave me the opportunity to play in the majors and made my dream come true. But if they decide otherwise, I will go to do my best somewhere else.”
Crochet possibly best represents the duality of the situation. His pre-arbitration years were spent chasing relief help for a contention-ready team, and rehabbing an elbow blown out in service of that goal. With no hint of contract extension talks, his free agency is a decent bet to arrive before the next White Sox playoff team, and his sudden spike in trade value can look like a godsend to a front office that will get little reward from this lost season in terms of draft capital.
Yet for any embroiled in the daily grind of trying to make this team viable, Crochet's emergence as a 24-year-old starter coming into his own and pitching at an All-Star level has been one of the highlights of this season, and the sort of development that are the best possible use of this season.. Even beyond striking out the world, the clear boost in confidence Crochet has received from moving to the rotation has made him a gregarious and swaggering clubhouse presence for group that could use the lift.
"He's doing his research, which is super helpful on my end of things," said Korey Lee, who was still technically a rookie catcher entering this season. "I'm doing my homework on a team. But it's also really, really nice to see other pitchers and our staff, doing their homework on the other guys and really hammering out what their weaknesses are."
"I know the other team is not excited to see him and we're ecstatic when we know it's his day to start," Fedde said. "Our belief with him on the mound is that we're going to win that day. That's as important as anything in a clubhouse."
Getz said many veteran acquisitions, DeJong in particular, were identified as having the makeup necessary to handle a season heavy on losing, trades and turnover. He also detailed that he's made a regular process of taking players aside and telling them where things stand, so as not to let reports of trade talks dominate their thinking and detract from their on-field focus. Though postgame Wednesday night, Crochet said he hasn't had any such conversations.
Ultimately, the clubhouse mood and focus level of a team that is under 35 games under .500 get pushed well aside when the larger direction of the franchise is being considered.
"I have a lot more clarity about what could happen," DeJong said. "Versus last year it was, 'Am I even going to get traded? I want to stay here.' I had my option to stay. A lot of things were still up in the air. This year it feels a little different and I feel like I'm ready for it, whatever it is."
