Major Pablo López trade idea

The Miami Marlins plan to trade pitching for hitting this off-season. It’s expected that the starting pitcher traded will be Pablo López. Pablo is a free agent after the 2024 season and will see his price tag rise further in arbitration this off-season. The Fish have a rotation surplus and it only makes sense to move him for hitting now. What if we traded him to the Chicago White Sox for Eloy Jiménez?

The Miami Marlins can potentially trade Pablo López for Eloy Jiménez.

I was browsing different forums the other day and noticed a Chicago White Sox fan suggesting this trade idea. At first it looked a bit ridiculous to me, but then as I started thinking about it, it started to make more sense. The Chicago White Sox need starting pitching help with Johnny Cueto hitting free agency and them being up to their payroll limits. They also have ace Lucas Giolito coming off a terrible 4.90 ERA/4.06 FIP in 30 games and 161.2 innings pitched and need rotation stability that Pablo López brings.

Why would they trade Eloy Jiménez? Eloy is signed through the 2024 season on a team friendly deal and has two team options for 2025 and 2026. He’s also a power threat who hit .295/.358/.500 in 84 games and 292 AB in 2022. He clearly checks a lot of boxes for the Miami Marlins, so again why should Chicago trade him?

Eloy is not very good defensively (-0.8 dWAR) and is probably not a fit for them in the OF long-term. In fact, they’re likely to move him to DH. The problem with that is that it blocks both Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets, who are also DH candidates that they’re high on. Eloy also is a bit injury-prone (moving to DH might fix that) and they are expected to be looking to cut payroll where they can. Eloy will be making $10.3 million next season, Pablo will make less than $5 million.

Should the Miami Marlins worry about losing Pablo López ourselves? Pablo had a 3.75 ERA/3.71 FIP in 180 innings in 2022 and had a  3.94 ERA/3.77 FIP for his career. He’s not an ace for us. I think that if the Chicago White Sox actually go for it, we should do this trade.