Chicago brings back a familiar arm in Erick Fedde as it looks to stabilize innings and buy low on a pitcher who once found success on the South Side.
The Chicago White Sox and right-handed pitcher Erick Fedde are in agreement on a one-year deal.
Fedde originally joined the White Sox on a two-year, $15 million contract before the 2024 season, marking his return to Major League Baseball after reestablishing his value overseas.
That contract came on the heels of a dominant 2023 season in the KBO, where Fedde won league MVP honors after posting a 20–6 record with a 2.00 ERA.
Fedde enjoyed a very strong first half with the White Sox in 2024 while working closely with the organization’s pitching lab. He went 7–4 with a 3.11 ERA over 121.2 innings pitched before being moved at the trade deadline.
The deal was a three-team trade that sent Fedde to the St. Louis Cardinals and brought a package of prospects back to Chicago, headlined by infielder Miguel Vargas.
While Fedde finished 2024 on a solid note, his 2025 season was a disaster. Pitching for three different teams — St. Louis, Atlanta, and Milwaukee — he struggled to a 5.49 ERA and a 4–13 record.
Virtually all of Fedde’s underlying metrics fell off a cliff in 2025. Now, as he approaches his 33rd birthday, he’ll be looking to recapture some of the form he showed in 2024. And there’s no better place to try to do that than with the organization that helped him have the best season of his career.
The White Sox were fairly desperate for innings and have needed to add another veteran starter all offseason.
Fans were likely hoping for a bigger splash than Fedde — who could very well end up being detrimental to the pitching staff — but this is a clear buy-low move. Chicago is targeting the lower end of the remaining starting pitching market.
Maybe it’s a payroll consideration. Maybe it’s about maintaining flexibility for the young arms pushing toward the big-league level. Either way, the White Sox already have a crowded mix of starters at the MLB level and in the upper minors.
I can’t say I’m particularly optimistic about the signing. But if there’s one person I trust to get the most out of Erick Fedde in 2026, it’s White Sox senior advisor to pitching Brian Bannister. And it’s not as if Fedde’s big-league success is far in the rearview mirror.
There’s enough here to envision the White Sox restoring Fedde into a serviceable rotation piece. And he unquestionably brings innings to the table — 318.1 over the past two seasons combined.
If Chicago gives him a long leash in the rotation, getting 150-plus innings out of Fedde shouldn’t be an issue.
Does it move the needle? Not really. And it shouldn’t. But it’s hard to turn your nose up at another starting pitching option — especially one who has already played his best baseball with the White Sox before.