The Angels add yet another former White Sox player via trade after opening weekend

The Angels have been one of the busier teams in baseball the past couple of weeks, as they have been re-shuffling their roster in anticipation of the regular season...and now 3 games into the season. Perry Minasian has seemingly taken to the strategy of acquiring former members of the Chicago White Sox, and just continued that trend by trading for left-handed starter, Jake Eder, in exchange for cash considerations. Michael Petersen, who the Angels claimed off waivers in the offseason, was designated for assignment to make room for Eder on the 40-man roster.

Eder was drafted by the Miami Marlins in the 4th round of the 2020 MLB Draft out of Vanderbilt University. Taking draft fliers on Vandy pitchers is a solid strategy, and he flashed a lot of positives in his first minor league season at Double-A Pensacola. In 71.1 innings, he posted a whopping 1.77 ERA with a staggering 99:27 K:BB. However, things went sour quickly as he ended up missing the entirety of the 2022 season due to Tommy John surgery. He retained enough value to be traded straight up for Jake Burger on August 1st, 2023.

Organizations will gladly look past traditional statistics if there are underlying metrics that show that a pitcher is better than what he's shown. That looks to be the case with the Angels and the now 26-year-old Eder. He struck out 122 batters in 109 minor league innings last season (he split time between Double-A Birmingham and Triple-A Charlotte). Acquiring a pitcher the season after the season after TJ is a smart call, as he might be closer to his past physicacl self now than he was in 2024. On the other side of the coin, he posted a 9.87 in 9 starts/34.2 Triple-A innings last year. He only has 1 outing and 2 major league innings under his belt that came as a relief pitcher for the White Sox last year.

Eder will seemingly be retained a starting pitcher, and join the Salt Lake Bees' rotation that currently has Caden Dana and Chase Silseth. If he can continue to punch out batters at a similar clip in the hitter-friendly confines of Salt Lake with his 4seam, plus-changeup, cutter, and big curveball combo, then he could potentially join the Angels as a long relief option down the road.

The Angels and White Sox have been swapping several players and staffers in recent years. The Angels grabbed Tim Anderson (granted he has not played for them since 2022), Yoán Moncada, Nicky Lopez, Chuckie Robinson, and now Jake Eder from the White Sox...while the White Sox have Matt Thaiss, Ky Bush & Edgar Quero from the Lucas Giolito trade, Phil Nevin (not to mention Matt Wise, Marcus Thames, and Drew Butera), plus they signed Brandon Drury to a minor league deal before he was released following an injury.

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