As the Atlanta Braves look for starting rotation help, it couldn’t hurt to look into some options they missed out on at the trade deadline.
Bleacher Reports’s Time Kelly released a list of nine fresh trade ideas ahead of the Winter Meetings. For the Braves, he proposed they acquire starting pitcher Erick Fredde from the St. Louis Cardinals.
No proposed deal was included in any of the trades.
Kelly likes this move because it would guarantee the Braves some experience in their rotation that will also give them consistent innings.
“The Braves specifically need some certainty in their rotation,” Kelly wrote. “Max Fried and Charlie Morton are free agents. It’s unclear exactly when Spencer Strider will be able to return to the mound after undergoing an internal brace procedure on his pitching elbow last April. Chris Sale and Reynaldo López are excellent pitchers when healthy, but neither is likely to make 33 starts in 2025 either.”
This isn’t the first time that it’s been suggested sending Fedde to the Braves. During the march to the trade deadline, The Athletic’s Jim Bowden included the Braves as a likely landing spot for him when he was still with the Chicago White Sox.
The 31-year-old righty returned to the States after having a dominant season (20-6 record, 2.30 ERA, 0.954 WHIP) with the NC Dinos in South Korea.
Fedde returned to MLB as an entirely new pitcher. In six seasons with the Washington Nationals, Fedde had a 5.41 ERA in 121 games pitched, including 107 starts. In 31 starts split between the White Sox and Cardinals, Fedde has a 3.30 ERA, a 1.16 WHIP, a 126 ERA+ and 154 strikeouts in 177 1/3 innings.
He has one year left on his contract worth $7.5 million, which would be very ideal for a team looking to make upgrades while staying under the luxury tax.
This deal would also be a much cheaper acquisition when it comes to what the Braves would need to give up. Fedde arrived in St. Louis through a three-team trade. Flip a solid minor leaguer the Cardinals’ way, and that should get it done.
Acquiring Fedde would fill one of the gaps in the rotation while also keeping a lot of money open for a free-agent splash.