The White Sox are now within 48 hours of the trade deadline, and they still have yet to make a trade more recent than dealing Robbie Grossman, but there are signs of activity under the surface, particularly regarding Erick Fedde.
Fedde has had all sorts of teams linked to him. James reported in the pregame notes earlier today at Sox Machine that the White Sox have tried to acquire Jordan Walker in discussions with the Cardinals. Ken Rosenthal mentioned the Brewers alongside the Cardinals in an update last night. Joel Sherman says the Mets have called on Fedde, which makes sense given that they reportedly lost out to the White Sox for Fedde's services over the winter. James says Mets scouts were in attendance for Fedde's last start on Saturday, along with representation from the Phillies and Diamondbacks.
Most recently, Jon Heyman says the White Sox and Braves have been in contact, and while he doesn't specify Fedde being the center of it, Atlanta's rotation needs grew more acute with the news that Reynaldo López will undergo an evaluation for forearm soreness.
Count it up, and you have six potential landing spots before you have to judge the weight of this curious note from Bob Nightengale's column this morning.
The White Sox are telling contenders in the AL Central, including the Minnesota Twins, that they really would prefer not to trade within the division. The Twins and Guardians would love to get their hands on starter Erick Fedde.
The idea that a team shouldn't trade within the division is relatively antiquated in the era of expanded postseasons, but given the members of the White Sox organization who have a history of talking to Nightengale, old-fashioned ideas are ones he's likelier to hear.
The impulse is understandable if you're acquiring a rental and trading a player who might directly impact the chances of winning a division after the season. For instance, the White Sox traded Eduardo Escobar to the Twins for Francisco Liriano back in 2012. Liriano did not bolster the back end of the rotation nor the bullpen like they'd hoped, while Escobar evolved into a perennially useful backup plan for several teams over a 13-year MLB career, including seven with Minnesota. With Liriano on an expiring contract, the Twins were just hoping to get something for nothing. As it turned out, the White Sox were the ones who had nothing to show for it.
But the White Sox are on the other side of the equation this time around, which is why I can't understand why divisions are even worth the briefest consideration.
Here, the White Sox actually have something in Fedde, and they have no credible hopes of contending during the remainder of his contract. Not only is there no need to discriminate against intradivision opponents, but it shouldn't even be cause for holding noses. If anything, seeing Fedde pitch against the White Sox this season would be a reminder of how well the Sox did signing him in the first place, and if the White Sox could make an AL Central opponent rue the deal over the long haul, so much the better.
In the scheme of things, this is just one sentence in a notebook comprising thousands of words in a column that could be rendered outdated within a day, so it might not merit a reaction. It certainly wouldn't if any one decision-maker on the White Sox deserved the benefit of the doubt, but until Chris Getz produces something besides a roster that's challenging MLB history for futility, every development that's potentially reflective of a mindset is worth noting.
