Brewers Trade Target: Eloy Jiménez

Even back in July, there were some reports that the Chicago White Sox would listen to trade offers on Eloy Jimenez, and that the Brewers were one team who had checked in on him. It doesn't sound like those talks went far during the summer, but the Sox are now under new management and headed for a rebuild. It's time to revisit and fully consider Jiménez as a trade target.

Jiménez, who just turned 27 at the end of last month, helped blaze the trail the Brewers and Jackson Chourio just navigated. He's under team control for up to three more seasons, on the terms of a team-friendly deal he and the White Sox signed before his big-league debut. He'll make $13 million in 2024, and then has two club options with a total value of $35 million. In 2023, he hit .272/.317/.441, with 18 home runs in 489 plate appearances. It was a step back in terms of per-opportunity production from his stellar 2022, but that seemingly paltry number of times at bat was also the most he's accrued in any season since he was a rookie in 2019.

It's the combination of mild offensive inconsistency and severely lacking durability that makes Jiménez theoretically available in trade. That cocktail should also keep his cost down enough to keep anyone's eyes from popping out of their head at what the White Sox request. Still, Jiménez is a very good hitter, and when he's kept out of the outfield, he stands a better chance of staying healthy. He's a DH, really, and Chicago's stubbornness in admitting that contributed to some unnecessary lost time over the last few years.

Happily, the Brewers really don't have anyone even penciled in for the DH spot right now. Since Christian Yelich has been ruled out as a candidate to take over the also-vacant first base role, he figures to get some of his playing time at DH, in addition to playing the bulk of the time in left field. William Contreras is a catcher who hits so well that the team should try to keep him in the lineup even on some of his off days from actually catching, so he, too, needs some DH at-bats. None of that is a problem, though. For instance, Yelich sliding to DH to allow both Garrett Mitchell and Sal Frelick to play the outfield on a given day could be one way to both combat a tough right-handed pitcher and keep Jiménez fresh.

More than positional fit, the question with Jiménez is whether the Brewers would think they could help him get back to the highest levels of performance he's achieved, or at least better approximate them than he did in 2023. For such a hulking slugger, Jiménez hits the ball on the ground far too often, but he can crush the ball. He also makes contact at a good rate, for a power hitter. In fact, he substantially cut his strikeout rate in 2023, although he did it by getting more aggressive early in counts and at some cost in terms of walks and power.

Last month at Baseball Prospectus, Robert Orr introduced a very cool and valuable way to evaluate the prime directive of any hitter: selective aggression at the plate. Jiménez was one of the better players at enacting the hitter's mandate in 2023, by that measurement system. As it happens, the Brewers are also one of the teams who excelled in the statistic, overall. Jiménez's skill set and approach are strikingly similar to Contreras's. 

Obviously, whether or not Jiménez is a desirable trade target depends on a couple of things:

1. How much Mark Attanasio and Matt Arnold envision spending on payroll over the next three years; and
2. What, exactly, the White Sox want in return for him.

Jiménez is the kind of player with obvious, incontrovertible (though far from unlimited) absolute value. His contextualized value depends on whether the team would be slotting him in as 7 or 10 percent of their payroll, though. If the Brewers can't much exceed $125 million, Jiménez might not be a smart pickup. If they can comfortably go to and past $150 million, there should still be enough to address other needs after bringing in the expensive bat.

The trade cost seems like an even more important variable. Obviously, the Brewers would love to center a deal around one of their ostensibly expendable young outfielders: Joey Wiemer, Mitchell, or Frelick. If the White Sox are amenable to that, landing Jiménez makes sense. If they insist upon getting one of those players and a polished pitching prospect like Carlos F. Rodriguez or Robert Gasser, the appeal fades. The interesting midpoint might be a deal that only includes Tyler Black.

If the Brewers internally believe (as many scouts outside the org do) that Black will end up needing to move to the outfield, then effectively, he's part of the team's looming outfield logjam. We just don't quite see that clearly yet. In that case, trading Black for up to three years of a middle-of-the-order bat is a fascinating proposal. 

What do you think of Jiménez as a trade target? Are his injury concerns enough to scare you off, or the wart that makes him obtainable at a good price for a Brewers team in need of a big bat? Join the conversation in the comments.