Stan Kasten: Tommy Edman Trade Was Fine Actually…

Tommy Edman’s exploits with the Dodgers have been fun to watch. He has put up a 123 wRC+ in the playoffs and turned things up a notch in the NLCS, winning the NLCS MVP after batting .407 and hitting clean up for a loaded Dodgers lineup.

But Edman’s success has come with plenty of angst from St. Louis Cardinals fans after the Dogers acquired him from the Cardinals at the trade deadline. And that’s why I want to write about Tommy Edman today, and, more specifically, to defend the Tommy Edman trade.

Just because a player is having success on their new team doesn’t mean the trade was a bad one. That kind of “analysis” is overly simplistic and that’s the kind of “analysis” we’re seeing this postseason.

So today I want to step back and take a wider and properly contextualized look at the trade that sent Tommy Edman from the Dodgers with the goal of vindicating it from recency bias.

The Context

Context is king. Tommy Edman is hitting good so the Tommy Edman trade was bad for the Cardinals is just bad analysis. The conclusion might be correct, and I’m willing to debate that, but it doesn’t follow from the premises.

Let’s look back to the time of the trade.

On July 29th, the Cardinals sent Tommy Edman to the Dodgers as part of a 3-team deal and received Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham in return.

We know how the season ended up for the Cardinals but that’s not a factor here. At the time, the Cardinals were 54-52 and only 2.5 games out of the final wild card spot. You can make the argument that the Cardinals should have sold at the deadline because they weren’t likely to be World Series contenders but personally, I have a hard time blaming them for trying to fill gaps in the roster and push for the playoffs.