This article will cover how players who joined or left the White Sox fared at the deadline, but first a word of warning: Content on the internet stays available forever, so be sure to date your work correctly.

I collected stats before the Houston series began and thought half a month might be a small but not unreasonable sample. I’m not warning so much about the trades, but about those who might have been traded but were left behind, namely Garrett Crochet and Luis Robert Jr.

Even national publications have said that the Dodgers and Orioles (among others) dodged a bullet by not trading Crochet. His incredible arrogance and unfathomable stupidity in making demands and threats that he cannot make under his contract saved them from making a grave mistake.

That certainly seemed to be the case when it was written. Since the deadline, Crochet had been beyond awful, allowing 13 runs in 9 1⁄3 innings, 11 earned, including four home runs allowed to the Cubs. Then came Friday’s game, where he looked like an All Star again, or at least a member of the Pitch-Limited All-Star Team, with nine strikeouts in four one-run innings.

One game doesn’t break a trend, of course, but maybe Crochet had escaped his descent into stupidity and was able to remember how to throw — and especially how to throw his cutter. (Or maybe a psychiatrist would determine that Crochet is simply terrified of throwing in crucial games, something he never has to worry about with the Sox.) Whatever the reason, it contradicted the premise that Crochet had been a total failure after the trade deadline.

The same goes for Robert, in the same game. Since his All-Star break, he’s been absolutely terrible, hitting just .135 with a .377 OPS and just one home run, with 43 strikeouts in 92 batting appearances. And Robert managed to get even worse in August, hitting an abysmal .093 with a .325 OPS, no home runs, and two RBIs—yes, Martín Maldonado could have been brought back to fill in for him as a pinch-hitter. Luis had even worked up a negative dWAR.

Then came the first game in Houston, which Robert won mostly single-handedly with two home runs, two singles and four RBIs. It was an All-World title and actually raised his batting average by 74 points in August – only to .167, but still a huge jump in one day.

BUT WE DIGRESS – ON TO THE PLAYERS WHO WERE CARRIED

We’ll be able to say more about most of the players Chris Getz got at the deadline when they’re old enough to drive. If he played well, 2032 should be a really good year.

The only exception is Miguel Vargas, whose sad face was seen in newspapers and on screens across the country.

Despite being a rookie, Vargas was extremely popular with his Dodgers teammates. Watch Tyler Glasnow’s reaction to the video of the grim scene in the White Sox dugout:

As Glasnow said, being on a losing team sucks, so imagine going from a top team to probably the worst team ever. And Vargas’ performance was as sad as his face. With the Dodgers, he had a batting average of .239 with an OPS of .735 and plummeted to .116 with an OPS of .449 with the Sox. Welcome to your new reality, Miguel.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THOSE WHO HAVE GONE?

The changes in pitchers’ performance were mixed. Michael Kopech was unhittable for the Dodgers, allowing just one hit and striking out 10 in 6 1⁄3 innings, but to be fair, his miserable season with the White Sox had already turned around, allowing just one hit and striking out 11 in his final 5 2⁄3 innings.

Tanner Banks had a 4.13 ERA with the Sox and has improved to 3.24 with the Phillies, albeit with a higher FIP, by limiting opponents to six hits in 8 1⁄3 innings. So an improvement, but not a dramatic one.

And then there’s Erick Fedde, who was great with the Sox but had his wings clipped as a Cardinal. In his first start in St. Louis, Fedde allowed four runs in five innings, although three of those came on a home run when he got careless against a relief catcher batting well below the Mendoza line. The next game, it was one run in five, so the one-pitch error was starting to look like an outlier, but then the Reds scored four runs against him in six innings in the last game, so maybe Fedde’s first game wasn’t an exception after all.

AND AS FOR THE RACKS…

The departure from the White Sox may have had mixed results for the pitchers so far, but not for the hitters. They’re all playing like they’re glad to be gone.

Tommy Pham made the first big splash when he hit a grand slam in his first game as a Cardinal, and things have continued to improve, albeit not quite as dramatically. With the Sox he hit .266 and with St. Louis he is .267, but his OPS has gone from .710 to .838 and he has 10 RBIs in 45 at-bats, compared to just 19 in 271 ABs before the trade. Of course, you need runners on base to get RBIs, but that’s another story.

Paul DeJong was the White Sox’s best home run hitter with 14 home runs, but despite that power show he had only a mediocre OPS of .706 with a .228 average. With Kansas City he was mostly a platooner, but in his first 25 official at-bats he hit .320 with an astonishing OPS of 1.000, including two home runs and five RBIs. He also forgot how to defend again, and now has +1 defensive run saved from his awful -10 with the Sox.

BUT FOR THE REALLY, REALLY BIG CHANGE…

Lauren Leigh Bacho/Getty Images

Many people thought the Orioles were crazy when they signed Eloy Jiménez. The Sox even had to cover most of his salary. But it turns out that Eloy is a happy hitter because he is a happy camper.

In Chicago, he hit a .240 batting average, with an OPS of just .642 and an OPS+ of 79, abysmal for a power hitter. In Baltimore, his slash is .414/.433/.483, with an OPS+ of 162, near the top. Small sample size? Sure. But still…

SO IF THE WHITE SOX’S PITCH COACHING HAS MIXED RESULTS, WHAT ABOUT THEIR HIT COACHING?

Yes, just as terrible as you thought all along and as all the other data shows.

Oh, remember the warning about timing – all stats for these traded players are for games played on August 15. Things change.