Milwaukee Brewers: Four Chicago White Sox players to try to acquire before the deadline

Jake Burger can bash home runs at American Family Field while playing first and third base.

Burger’s glove is serviceable. What he does well is hit the ball far, very far.

He has 24 dingers on the year and a slugging percentage over .500. He has three long balls in his last two games.

He has a wRC+ of 106 and is a one fWAR player despite a batting average below .220.

Rowdy Tellez is currently at 79 wRC+ and Winker is at 64. Owen Miller will eventually shift back to third base once Tellez comes back, and Owen’s wRC+ is under league average. Andrew Monasterio has been getting a lot of time at third base and his wRC+ is 103.

Burger is crushing left-handed pitching with a .913 OPS.

Yoan Moncada returned from the IL and Burger played his first game at second base. Moncada is still due a big chunk of money and injuries has decimated his trade value. He is not going anywhere. That will create a logjam in the long run for Burger to get regular playing time.

The Milwaukee Brewers might be able to dangle a top-10 prospect to pry him out of Chicago since Burger still is not arbitration eligible until 2025 and the Sox need prospects.

Tim Anderson is starting to heat up and could be moved to second base.

Anderson has struggled at the plate all season, but this is the a player who has won an AL batting title and is a former All-Star.

He has also played the majority of the season injured. For some reason, the Sox have not put on the IL to fully recover.

The All-Star break seems to have helped him recover as he has an OPS over .900 in his last seven games.

His wRC+ is one point better than Brice Turang’s. Unlike Turang, Anderson has a proven track record of success in the bigs. Anderson’s struggles this season are most likely because he has been playing on injured legs that have zapped most of his ability to drive the ball.

If this recent stretch of solid play is an indication that Anderson is on the mend, he would provide an offensive upgrade at second.

Anderson has only played second base at the World Baseball Classic, but he did all right at that position during the that tournament. Turang is the better fielder, but he can come in as a defensive replacement.

There are three contenders interested in Anderson and want him to play second.

It is not like the Milwaukee Brewers have acquired a player at the deadline and had that person switch to second base with little experience there before. Mike Moustakas was brought into Milwaukee in 2018 and moved to second base. Moustakas nearly helped the Crew get to the World Series that year.

Also, Anderson’s trade value is nowhere near what it would have been in 2019. The reason the Sox might trade is him they have a team option for next season they might not want to exercise.

Instead, they can move him to get a prospect back. The Brewers could get a veteran bat that is primed for a second-half breakout in return at probably half the asking price.