Towards the end of this morning's Sox Machine Podcast when discussing Jonathan Cannon's uncertain status and the even more uncertain pool of pitchers who might be called upon to fill his innings, Josh said, "Hey, Aaron Civale wants a trade from Milwaukee...".
The idea did cross my mind, if only because this year's White Sox, perhaps due to Walker McKinven's presence, have liked to take chances on former Brewers (Shane Smith and Adrian Houser are wins for them; Bryse Wilson and Vinny Capra, not quite). I just couldn't immediately identify who the Sox could trade that wouldn't be an unnecessary pull from anybody they might need in the future, so I didn't pull at the thread any further.
Perhaps my brain just wasn't prepared for the idea of the White Sox trading Andrew Vaughn for him, but he certainly fits that description, doesn't he?
The White Sox are indeed sending their former first-round pick/fixture first baseman to the Brewers in order to shore up their rotation, as James confirmed the reports from Jon Heyman and Jesse Rogers. A source further confirmed the obvious: Civale will join the White Sox rotation. Upon the official trade announcement, the Sox are receiving cash considerations as well.
"We had heard that Civale was unhappy about being moved to the bullpen, so naturally reach out to Milwaukee to see if he was attainable," Chris Getz said. "More or less doing a status check on that situation, in which they were open to different ideas. As conversations progressed, we were able to come to a deal this morning and sending Andrew Vaughn for Civale."
Civale, who has started all 122 games of his seven-year MLB career and done a decent job at it (4.06 ERA, 103 ERA+ over 658⅓ innings) was relegated to the bullpen after the promotion of Jacob Misiorowski. Civale requested a trade on Thursday, which made sense from his side considering he's an impending free agent, and being pushed into a bulk role would kneecap his ability to market himself after the season. From the Brewers' side of things, Civale had been hamstrung by a left hamstring strain that cost him most of the first two months of the season, and he'd only pitched 22 so-so innings as a result, while Misiorowski proved his worth with five no-hit innings in his MLB debut.
It didn't even take 24 hours to find a taker. Vaughn is superficially interesting for an outside team considering he's a former third-overall pick who, at least before this season, offered league-average production despite a draft profile that hinted at so much more. The Brewers are set at first base for the moment with Rhys Hoskins, but he'll be a free agent after the season, while Vaughn has now two more years of team control worth considering if they can restore him to his past form, or maybe even a better one.
Whether that version of Vaughn still exists is a fair question. He hit .189/.218/.314 over 48 games before the White Sox made the surprising decision to option him to Triple-A Charlotte on May 23, and the reset hadn't done much for him outside of the walk column (10 in 15 games, compared to seven over 48 games in Chicago). When he's not providing slightly above-average production at the plate, it lays the rest of his flaws bare: He's an undersized first baseman with no baserunning or defensive value, which is why even Tim Elko is a more appealing option for them at the moment.
"Players like Vaughn where there's so much pressure on the bat, it can become an issue in regards to managing a roster with some of the positional limitations," said Getz. "With how we're trying to put together our roster and balance it lefty and righty, defensive versatility and where Vaughn is in his White Sox career contractually, it did make some sense to look at ways to help our team currently in finding an arm."
It's a fair deal on its face, a lineup-filler when he's right for a rotation-filler when he's right, with salaries that look onerous when they're not meeting their intended purposes (Civale's making $8 million, Vaughn $6.2 million, with cash coming to Chicago to offset the difference). The White Sox seem to get a little more from it from the jump.
Now there's no need to rush Cannon back from his lower-back injury that has limited him to catch play thus far, because they can drop Civale into that slot and let him do what he's used to doing. Getz further specified that Civale can provide cover for if/when the White Sox want to skip starts for Shane Smith or Sean Burke, and that a six-man rotation is an option when Cannon returns. In other words, Civale isn't likely to find himself squeezed out of the Sox rotation anytime soon.
"He got hurt early on in the season and he’s made his way back," Getz said. "He still pitched pretty well. He hasn’t gone too deep into games, and I think some of that is a byproduct of kind of their strategy and bullpen usage. You look at the quality of the stuff, whether it be his first, second or third time through the order. We do feel like we’ll be able to get more innings out of his starts."
And maybe Civale does enough to find a taker by the deadline, as he's been traded in each of the last two Julys. For the time being, he prevents the White Sox from being tempted to bring back Mike Clevinger, and that's plenty of value for now.
