The Cardinals Acquire Fedde And Pham, Send Edman To The Dodgers In 3-Team Trade

The Cardinals are acquiring Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham from the White Sox

Tommy Edman is heading to the Dodgers in a 3-team deal

The Cardinals are in the process of making their first deadline deal. They are working on a 3-team deal that will send utility player Tommy Edman to the Dodgers and bringing right handed starter Erick Fedde to the Redbird rotation and Tommy Pham to the outfield.

As of right now, the Cardinals receive Fedde and Pham, the Dodgers are receiving Edman and right-hander Michael Kopech, and infielder Miguel Vargas is headed to Chicago, along with prospects Jeral Perez and Alexander Albertus. There are more pieces that aren’t being reported yet, although the Cardinals are expected to be sending some prospects to the White Sox as well.

There was a report that Dodger prospect Noah Miller was part of the deal, but that’s been shot down.

Fedde, a former first round pick of the Washington Nationals, has seen a resurgence with the White Sox after spending some time in Korea. Fedde is 7-4 with a 3.11 ERA and 4.6 WAR; the ERA is backed up by a 3.76 FIP. He’s in the middle of a 2 year, $15M deal, making him a free agent after 2025.

He’ll probably push Andre Pallante out of the rotation; I’d rather see if they could move Lance Lynn at the deadline and keep Pallante where he is. He’ll be #2 behind Sonny Gray.

Pham has bounced around since the Cardinals traded him in 2018; he’s suited up for the Rays, Padres, Reds, Red Sox, Mets, Diamondbacks, and White Sox before returning to the organization that drafted him. Pham is batting .266/.330/.380 this season, worth -0.3 WAR; his OPS+ is 102, so he’s just above an average player. He’s spent most of his time in right and center, but has been a below average fielder all year. He’s a free agent after the season.

Pham will probably see more time at right than center; the Cardinals prefer Michael Siani as their everyday centerfielder. That could me more time at second for Brendan Donovan if they want to keep Alec Burleson in the field. I didn’t expect that they’d make this move, so I’m questioning how they’ll play the current guys with Pham in the fold.

The team will miss Edman, which we’ve seen with Siani manning center for most of the season. The former Gold Glove winner has not played a major league game this season, as he’s still rehabbing from off-season wrist surgery. I still blame the Cardinals for not making him get the surgery when they had Donovan get his surgery.

To me, this move feels like a “Look, we’ve made a move to get into the playoffs” type of deal, like they did with J.A. Happ and Jon Lester in 2021 and Jordan Montgomery and Jose Quintana in 2022. I don’t see this move alone getting the Cardinals to the World Series though.

I expect the Cardinals are not done though; they’ll send Dylan Carlson somewhere, as they’ve completely lost faith in him. They could use another bullpen arm and maybe a bat to replace Brandon Crawford and/or Matt Carpenter. Ideally, they’d get a real centerfielder, but they’d have to move a big name guy to get a long-term player of the caliber I want.