Cardinals kill two needs with one trade in Fedde and Pham acquisition
They also traded Dylan Carlson for a reliever right before the deadline.
Right when you thought President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak would stick around the low-hanging fruit section at the trade deadline, he stepped into the cold cuts and made a bigger deal. Well, two deals, but let’s get into the most important one first.
The St. Louis Cardinals pulled off a trade that filled two gaps that were getting larger each week. The need for starting help after Matthew Liberatore’s spot start disaster, and some right-handed hitting support. They traded Swiss army baseball knife Tommy Edman to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a three-team deal with the Chicago White Sox, acquiring starting pitcher Erick Fedde and old friend, Tommy Pham. The Cardinals also received a future player to be named and some cash considerations from the White Sox.
Even the toughest Mozeliak critic has to give him and the front office some credit here for acquiring a couple assets without giving up any young players, and actually coming away with cash. It’s like getting a steak at the deli, and the guy hands you a twenty along with the fresh meat.
Pham may be best known for incredibly serious sound bites with the press, but he can still sting the baseball. He hit 16 HR in 129 games last year, and 17 the year before. He slugs over .425 regularly, and can leg out extra base hits.
Pham plays all three outfield spots, and gives the team a much needed boost from the right-handed hitting side. In case you didn’t know, he also trains as a fighter in the offseason and runs backwards on a treadmill. Maybe he gets a hit with runners in scoring position on occasion, but let’s not get our hopes up just yet.
Fedde is a highly capable #2-3 starter who endured a rough start to his MLB career. From 2019-2022, the best ERA he could muster was 4.29 and the worst inflated up to 5.81. After spending last year in the Korean Baseball Organization, he’s returned as a different pitcher, akin to Miles Mikolas.
Fedde’s WAR this season via baseball reference is 4.7, a mark that zero Cardinals come close to. The ERA/FIP sits at a crisp 3.11/3.76, and he strikes out three batters for every walk without letting the ball fly out of the park that often. He’s under contract control next season for a very modest $7.5 million. While he doesn’t jump off the page as a great pitching asset, Fedde checks a lot of boxes and makes the Cardinals better than they were yesterday morning.
What you aren’t getting is a strikeout machine. Fedde, like a Jeff Suppan prototype, does pitch to bats and gets a lot of outs in the air. He bends without breaking, allowing just six earned runs total in his last four starts. He’s gone at least six innings in six of his last eight starts. He’s a more experienced version of Andre Pallante.
Edman was a solid player for the Cardinals, but his entire 2024 season has been marred by injury after injury--with the most vital setback being the wrist surgery and recovery. A stellar defender with a bat carrying some pop, Edman could get exposed with an extreme amount of playing time. Used in the right doses, he’s a nice addition for the Dodgers. With the emergence of Michael Siani (Edman was projected to play CF this summer) and Masyn Winn, the need for Edman lessened considerably.
Before time ran out this afternoon, Mozeliak traded Dylan Carlson to the Tampa Bay Rays for Shawn Armstrong. The latter isn’t a particularly noteworthy reliever, but he’s a starter/reliever hybrid type who suits the team’s unusual needs with their relentless August schedule. He does average close to ten strikeouts per nine innings, and his FIP (fielding independent pitching) has been solid this year. He’ll give the team a fresh arm to give the major players some rest.
All in all, a good showing for the Cards. They had three needs, and plugged all of them while only giving up Edman and Carlson, two players whose value around the club had lessened or expired. The latter was a top prospect who entered the 2023 season as a fourth outfielder, per manager Oli Marmol. After handing the ownership a pile of crap for saying there wouldn’t be significant payroll addition at the deadline-a somber and badly timed media announcement-they fix some holes without spending too much.
There’s entertainment in Pham’s postgame and his play, and Fedde makes the rotation much more well-rounded. There’s a sweet-looking six-man rotation if Marmol wanted to get unconventional, but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that one.
Needs were met, and it wasn’t low-hanging fruit to the rescue.