Biggest winners, losers, and trade grades from Cardinals-White Sox-Dodgers trade

The St. Louis Cardinals just finalized a three-team trade with the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers, acquiring RHP Erick Fedde and OF Tommy Pham from Chicago while sending CF Tommy Edman and minor league pitcher Oliver Gonzalez to Los Angeles.

Rumors began to swirl about this potential three-team trade last night, and the clubs were able to agree to terms as today unfolded. Reactions are popping up everywhere regarding this deal and I wanted to jump in and give my biggest winners, losers, and overall trade grades from this deal.

Winner: John Mozeliak

This was a masterclass move from John Mozeliak. After being backed into a corner by ownership at this deadline due to their unwillingness to add salary to this roster, Mozeliak had to get creative if he was going to be able to add anything of significance to this roster. and boy did he.

Flipping Edman, who has still yet to appear in a game this year, and the one and a half years remaining of control he has for a year and a half of Fedde and rental bat in Pham is all you could possibly ask for. Edman has been an extremely valuable player for the Cardinals and has not always been appreciated enough for what he provides for the team, but the presence of Masyn Winn and Michael Siani made his role less clear for the club, and they parlayed that to fill two major needs

Fedde has been really good this year, posting a 3.11 ERA across 121.2 innings for the dumpster fire Chicago White Sox. Fedde now gets to pitch for a contender and in front of a really good defense, and while fans have concerns about his past MLB performances, Fedde remade himself last season while pitching in the KBO.

The Cardinals get a reunion with Pham, who will provide the most value to them as a right-handed bat against left-handed pitching. The Cardinals have been horrible against lefties this year, while Pham has posted a 141 wRC+. He'll likely start in left field or center field against lefties while Nootbaar or Siani starts at the other position, and he may even get some run against right-handers as well.

What a move by John Mozeliak!

Loser: Hindsight

While I am going to give Mozeliak all of the credit he deserves here, it is fair to at least point out that he could have signed Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham this offseason for very inexpensive contracts, and still have Tommy Edman in the organization.

I am not allowing that to hurt the trade grade though, as you can make that argument for every club when it comes to those two players, and you can make that argument about so many other guys who will be traded at this deadline as well.

Still, it would have been nice to just have had these two the whole time.