The Jake Burger for Jake Eder deal from last year’s trade deadline is one of the more polarizing trades the White Sox have made in a long time. People supporting both sides have staunchly held their ground and still debate the trade to this day. The perception of the deal has also changed over time. The Marlins were the clear winners in the second half of last year. Then, the White Sox side looked better earlier this season when Burger was struggling. That has again changed. As time passes, it seems like Burger has proven Kenny Williams and the White Sox wrong.
Burger has been on an absolute tear recently. He already has 14 home runs in just 27 games in the second half, along with a .333 batting average and 1.204 OPS. In 15 games in August, he is hitting a whopping .356 with nine home runs and a 1.274 OPS. He recently homered in four straight games as well. He started the season slowly, but one would never know that by his stats. Burger is on pace for well over 30 home runs, a level of power the White Sox could certainly use in their home run starved lineup.
The metrics back up Burger’s strong performance this season. Per Baseball Savant, he is in the 88th percentile or higher in bat-speed, barrel %, hard-hit%, average exit velocity, and xSLG. In other words, what he is doing is not a fluke. He is still striking out a lot, but he is also amongst the best in baseball at hitting the ball hard. Burger is a top 30 player in baseball in terms of average exit velocity, ahead of players like Byron Buxton, Elly De La Cruz, Matt Olson, Bryce Harper, and Luis Robert Jr.
Jake Eder, on the other hand, has gradually been trending downwards. He began the 2024 season in AA, where he was mediocre. He pitched to a 5.09 ERA with a 1.53 WHIP in 74.1 innings over 15 starts at that level this season. Despite his relatively poor numbers, Eder got promoted to AAA at the end of July. He has a whopping 9.28 ERA and 1.88 WHIP in five AAA starts. His last two starts have been improvements over what he was doing before, but it is still not anything special.
While it is a small sample size, it is also worth noting that both his strikeouts and walks have trended in the wrong direction since his promotion to AAA. There is not much positive to take from Eder’s 2024 season. As a soon-to-be 26-year-old, he will need to figure it out soon, or else he will be entering non-prospect territory.
There was logic to making the trade at the time. Burger was somewhat redundant in the White Sox lineup and Eder was a high-upside pitching prospect available in a buy-low opportunity because of injury issues. It is also worth noting that Burger would not have solved all of the White Sox problems this season even had they kept him. But this trade has not played out the way White Sox had hoped. That is not debatable. Burger continues to mash while Eder is floundering in AAA. It is not yet time to definitively say the White Sox lost the deal, but it is not looking good.
