The White Sox have purchased reliever Rob Scahill’s contract from Triple-A Charlotte and placed right-hander Michael Kopech on the 60-day disabled list, per a team announcement.
Scahill, whom the White Sox signed to a minor league deal last December, is set to pitch in the majors for the first time this year. But Scahill’s addition to Chicago’s roster comes under terrible circumstances for the club, which found out Friday that the prized Kopech, 22, is likely to require Tommy John surgery just four appearances into his big league career.
The 31-year-old Scahill was with Kopech in Charlotte, where the former posted a disastrous 5.64 ERA despite solid peripherals over 60 2/3 innings. Scahill registered 10.53 K/9 against 3.71 BB/9 with a 49.7 percent groundball rate during that span, and he also logged a 3.23 FIP/3.19 xFIP.
A former Rockie, Pirate and Brewer, Scahill carries a decent track record in the majors, where he has recorded a 3.79 ERA/4.66 FIP across 144 2/3 frames. Scahill has managed a passable ERA largely because he has induced grounders at an excellent clip (54.8 percent), somewhat helping to offset subpar strikeout and walk rates of 5.97 and 3.48, respectively.
At least scahill won’t be blocking anyone on the 40 man come to season end. I just wish they gave Stephens or Adams a chance to shine.
So sorry for White Sox fans…as a tiger fan I was looking forward to the games between the two. He looked promising.
He still is promising. TJ surgery is highly successful.
Somewhat surprising move by adding Rob Scahill to the active and 40-man rosters. Scahill has not been a starting pitcher at AAA this season. Apparently Dylan Covey, who lost his rotation spot with the promotion of Michael Kopech last month, will now get yet another opportunity to perform in the rotation.
This move of promoting a veteran reliever like Scahill might also mean than Nate Jones will be shut down for the remainder of 2018. Jones was on a rehab assignment with the White Sox Winston-Salem A+ affiliate who were just eliminated from the CAR playoffs last night. Jones had been on the 60-day DL and seemed like a better bet to take Kopech’s spot on the roster.
The White Sox did have a couple of younger pitchers who were already on the 40-man roster that could have been promoted from AAA Charlotte instead of Scahill. They included swingman Tyler Danish and recently converted reliever Carson Fulmer. My preference would been to see one of those two get the call, particularly Fulmer who had been pitching better and with more command as a reliever with the Knights since his conversion to the bullpen in early July. While the former White Sox #1 pick has been a disappointment thus far he still has a chance to be a standout in a future White Sox bullpen. I don’t see that possibility with a journeyman like Scahill who wasn’t exactly “lights-out” in Charlotte this season.
K
They want less important poor bullpen options like Scahill to help blow leads. Could aid in having worse record than Marlins/Padres to move up to 3rd pick.
Yet the White Sox had already recently promoted SP Michael Kopech along with promising reliever and potential future closer Ian Hamilton from AAA along with another rated bullpen prospect in Jose Ruiz from AA. The only MLB ready top prospect not allowed to debut this season was OF Eloy Jimenez. If the White Sox were only concerned with “tanking” in 2018 in order to achieve a better draft pick next June they could have just waited until next year to promote their better prospects who were knocking on the door.
Kopech shelved changes things a little for this ’18 stretch run IMO. Don’t disagree that many recent changes reflected being okay with falling to 6th pick. Fluid situation and very little of their current everyday lineup will matter when the team does. May as well bring up likely bad bullpen guy to join Gomez/Minaya and jump up in draft. Tied w/Marlins and just 1gm worse than Padres for 3rd spot. That goal can be achieved on the fly while also allowing a key bullpen arm like Hamilton to get valuable MLB experience. Last bit of tanking for top 5 pick level of bad. Next year suspect that mindset will lessen b/c tanking at outset of next year would cross line of too many pitchers getting used to losing and a culture. Mix of decent FA bullpen acquisitions and bold IF + Eloy arrival early after extra year date kicks in should be nice transition until Cease/Dunning ready for promotion into a less tankish rostered club.
The White Sox could have evaluated Carson Fulmer or Tyler Danish in the bullpen first hand at the MLB level for the final three weeks of 2018 as well. Most South Side fans would agree that either would not significantly improve their chances for winning any extra games down the stretch. Those same fans, including yourself, would concur that when ranking the chances of any of the trio to be impacting pen contributors come 2020, it would be as follows:
1-Fulmer
2-Danish
3-Scahill
Fulmer still isn’t any good. He probably would’ve been the best bet if they really wanted to lose.
Fulmer awful and Vieira for that matter. They need these younger ‘project’ guys to prove they can consistently stop walking so many hitters in minors before earning promotion. Otherwise, it’s predictable walks followed by get me overs that get crushed by pros. That is no way to develop arms or build confidence with pitchers you’re hoping to salvage at least as useful BP pieces.
Fulmer’s command vastly improved once he was converted from a starter to a reliever at AAA Charlotte in mid-July. His BB/9 dropped to 3.4 in the bullpen compared to 6.6 as a starter. Fulmer’s SO/9 in the bullpen was 9.0 compared to 7.9 as a starter. His SO/W ratio improved to 2.67 in the bullpen compared to 1.20 in the rotation. As a reliever Fulmer also allowed fewer hits than innings pitched with his WHIP improving to 1.292 from 1.855 as a starter. His ERA dropped more than 2 ER/9 in the bullpen. baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=ful…
Fulmer also had his initial success as a reliever and closer at Vanderbilt before becoming their ace pitcher in his final two seasons when the Commodores reached the NCAA finals, winning the championship in his sophomore season. Many scouts believed that Fulmer might have a better opportunity for success as a reliever in MLB due to his high octane delivery. During the past two months in AAA he just might be proving them right.
I’d temper the “disastrous” statement given the 5.64 was largely because of that one game which who was clearly pitching injured. Plus he had rain delays on 3 of his home starts. Give the guy break.