The White Sox face some questions about their starting rotation this offseason, with the group’s lack of depth needing to be addressed from the outside. Dylan Cease doubled down on his 2021 breakout to finish second in AL Cy Young voting. He’s a true ace, while Lucas Giolito and Lance Lynn will look to bounce back from uncharacteristically middling seasons to reestablish themselves as above-average arms in the middle of the staff.
Michael Kopech figures to assume the #4 rotation spot, but the club doesn’t have a great option at fifth starter after seeing Johnny Cueto hit free agency. Davis Martin is the in-house favorite for that role, but general manager Rick Hahn told reporters at last week’s GM Meetings the club would look to plug the hole with an outside addition.
One option that does not seem to be on the table is stretching left-hander Garrett Crochet out as a starter at any point next season. Pitching coach Ethan Katz told reporters this afternoon he doesn’t “think starting is in the cards next year” for the hard-throwing 23-year-old (link via James Fegan of the Athletic). Crochet underwent Tommy John surgery this past April. He’s presently stretched out to throwing from 120 feet, tweets MLB.com’s Scott Merkin, but he nevertheless seems unlikely to be on the Opening Day roster just 12 months removed from surgery. Once he’s healthy, it looks as if the White Sox will return him to a bullpen role in which he’s had plenty of success in his young career.
The 11th overall pick in the 2020 draft, Crochet made his big league debut as a reliever with the Sox just a few months after coming out of the University of Tennessee. He mostly stayed in that role for 2021, working 54 1/3 innings of 2.82 ERA ball over 54 appearances. There was some thought the Sox could consider lengthening Crochet into rotation work this past season, but he was diagnosed with the ligament damage in his elbow a few days before the start of the season. He went under the knife just before Opening Day and didn’t pitch this year.
Crochet only made one 3 1/3-inning start during his final season of college. He missed the first few weeks of that season with injury, and the pandemic resulted in the cancelation of the college baseball season almost immediately upon his return to the mound. With no minor league campaign that year, he threw a combined 9 1/3 innings between college and MLB. Factor in his 54 1/3 frames last year, and Crochet has just 63 2/3 innings under his belt since the end of the 2019 campaign.
With such a limited platform, it’s sensible for the White Sox to opt against trying to build him towards a rotation workload at any point in 2023. At the same time, it also raises the question of whether such a move will ever be practicable. Many prospect evaluators suggested Crochet could be better suited for relief work dating back to his time in Knoxville, but the White Sox presumably wouldn’t have drafted him so highly if they didn’t feel he had at least some chance of starting. The unfortunately-timed Tommy John surgery has killed any possibility of that to this point, and Crochet will have already topped three years of MLB service by the end of next season.
Of course, Crochet can be a valuable piece of the Sox’s pitching staff even if he’s limited to shorter stints. He’s already demonstrated the capacity to handle big league hitters, punching out 28.3% of opponents behind an 11.9% swinging strike rate and a fastball that averaged just under 97 MPH in 2021. Crochet only once faced more than eight batters in an outing that year, but Katz indicated the club could deploy him a multi-inning relief role next season.
The White Sox have some experience in building a talented power arm back gradually from an extended layoff. Kopech followed a fairly similar path. He started his first four big league games in 2018 but underwent Tommy John surgery at the end of that year. He spent all of 2019 rehabbing and then opted out of the 2020 season. The Sox worked him back from that two-year absence as a multi-inning reliever, giving him 69 1/3 innings through 44 appearances in 2021. He made the full-time move to the rotation this past season, building to 119 1/3 frames over 25 starts.
Kopech’s year was cut short by injury. Originally placed on the injured list in mid-September with a shoulder strain, he underwent surgery to repair a meniscus tear in his right knee just before the season ended. The initial expectation was the right-hander would be ready for Spring Training, and while that may still be the case, Katz conceded today Kopech’s recovery has involved “a little slower progression than we originally thought.” The pitching coach noted the team still expects Kopech to have sufficient time to build up to five-inning appearances by the end of exhibition play, but any uncertainty on that front would only increase the team’s urgency to add rotation depth this offseason.
If twitter dies this site becomes 100x more valuable a resource
Elon musk just paid 40 billion for twitter and you think its gonna die? LOL
If you have been following the news and what he has said / tweeted / done, without a doubt something is up….
Whether his intent is to tweak it, take it down to a frame off restoration or scuttle it, this guy lives in an economic stratosphere beyond our comprehension (no I don’t like him, just laying out that the whole thing is “off”)
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I don’t think he bought it to just be a social media app. I think he’s going to make it into the “X App” that he’s said he plans to build.
Forgive my social media ignorance, but what is an “X app”?
If Musk could get rid of all the Idiots on Twitter I’d join. Of course there would only be like 5 people left on it but hey…. ….Baby Steps.
Still has potential.
It’ll be interesting to see when he returns if he’s throwing 101 like 2020 or 97 like 2021. He was effective at 97, but almost unhittable in 2020.
Not a good sign. His lower velocity in 2020 could have been a precursor to his elbow problem. The tommy John surgery might take another mile or two off his fastball like it did with Verlander this year, but he did OK with it.
Anyone who thinks that Crochet should be a starter is a knit-wit.
I’m not sure who thinks he ‘should’ be a starter, but he’s clearly stated that he wants to be one, so teams tend to give young pitchers that chance rather than just throw them in the bullpen for life. I think Katz is probably right to keep him from starting this year coming off tj, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him throwing 2 and 3 inning relief appearances late in the year like Kopech did in ’21.
It’s just a pun.
HA! yeah- my bad, I usually get those – too early on a Friday I guess 🙂
Oh man, that was deep. You misspelled nitwit, but I am not the grammar police. Even when you actually said it was a pun, it took me a few seconds to get it.
Well done, sir!
That was sew clever, Captain!
What a tangled web they weave.
Are you “needling” us? That’s a pun too….
Was the season actually uncharacteristic of Giolito? It’s not long ago that he was the worst pitcher in all of baseball. A more accurate estimation would be that his performance balanced out between the two extremes.
It’s accurate that Giolito was bad in 2018, prior to making major changes to his delivery. It’s also true that the next 3 years he was 6th, 7th and 11th in Cy Young, and his FIP in 2022 was 4.06 and BABIP was 70 points higher at .340, way above league average. While Giolito tends to get in his own head all the time, it’s more likely that last year was a blip and he returns to a mid-3 era and much more consistency.
He is no Dylan Cease and I don’t think he was ever really an ace, but you could do WAY worse than having him as your 3rd starter.
I agree. He seemed to get a lot of his pitches up, making his out-pit h, the change-up, easy to hit. That can be corrected. Since he and Katz live near each other in California, I’m sure they’re working on fixing things this off season.
Crochet and his agent want him to be a starter…big difference in $$.
If his agent has anything but his long term health in mind he should be instantly fired. He doesn’t deserve to be an agent. Or a human being for that matter.
Garrett Crochet makes sense in the bullpen. If healthy, he should be extremely valuable in that role. Giolito should bounce back (to some extent). Lance Lynn basically already has bounced back. His 1st half/2nd half split stats are night and day difference. If the White Sox avoid the injuries they had in 2022, they just need a couple tweaks to the roster (re-sign Andrus to play SS and move Anderson to 2B), and a more legit manager to have a shot at winning the division.
As usual, its going on the cheap with the WS. The lack of a good left handed starter was one of many Hahn screw ups over the last three or four years (i.e, Letting Rodon walk, giving Robert and Moncada long term contracts after one good season). If Crochet is recovered from TJ, why wouldn’t they try starting him unless the real issue is years of control. One last thought: How has using Kopech out of the bull pen worked out?
I get that there are conspiracy theorists everywhere, but why would ‘years of control’ be different for him as a starter vs. a reliever? No one is suggesting he go to the minors?
@Bhurt: but maybe someone SHOULD suggest just sending him down to the minors?
Letting Rodon leave was incredibly stupid, but it was Reinsdorf’s fault for being so cheap. Shoulder fatigue just needs rest, as Rodon proved this season, but it was an easy way out of paying Rodon the money he deserved. Kopech in the bullpen made sense. after tj surgery, it’s better to limit innings the first year back. a year after returning, kopech was in the starting rotation. I think it’s wise to limit Crochet’s innings in 2023, then go from there in 2024.
Late reply. If Crochet is given a shot at starting and its successful, then he has to stay with the WS in 2023. If he is in the bull pen he can be rotated back and forth to the minors which has been a modus operandi for Hahn for years.
Yes, I like Crochet in the bullpen next season but I do want to see what he could do as a starter after that. I’m not sure Lynn had that bad a season. It took him some starts after the injury to get back into the groove but he pitched well for the most part.
Looking back at the trades Hahn made in 2016, all the main cogs, Jimenez, Kopech and Moncada seem to be pretty fragile. Hopefully they all come back strong but once a player seems to be injury prone it kind of sticks with them until proven otherwise.
Had some lengthy discussions with friends over this since the Sox drafted and then fast-tracked Crochet to the majors. I genuinely believe he would be a better starter than reliever, but the injuries and way the club has handled him have kind of painted him into a corner where it would be quite difficult to stretch him out as a starter. Just my humble opinion, but I feel he could use a fresh start with another team.
Nah. He’ll be 24 in June so they can bullpen him this coming season and maybe start stretching him out the 2nd half and he’ll be a starter at 25. Having said that, I have no idea when he’ll be able to start pitching in 2023. Maybe he’ll only be able to throw 5 or 6 innings in 2024 but he’ll still be young.
They won’t trade him. Too many uncertainties, other than Cease, in that rotation and bullpen.
Ok Mac, there isn’t any certainty that he would even be throwing well enough this year to be trusted. And very soon he’ll be in his arbitration years.
You’re right. There is no certainty how he will pitch. Hell, there’s not certainty how any of them will pitch. If he can come back by the All-Star break then they have to break him in slowly I would guess.
And frankly, I don’t trust Bummer anymore. Graveman scares me. Ruiz scares me. With a new manager and coaching staff I just feel things will settle down with their team and Crochet will eventually be a big part of it.
Frankly, I don’t even pay attention to arb years. His can’t amount to much with the time he’s missed.
Agent…It would be foolish to give up on him so soon. We haven’t even seen him pitch yet post-tj.
Has there ever been a “fortunately timed” Tommy John surgery? Wow, really?….
Yes. Tommy John. Because he was through without it. LOL
Excellent.
It’s the smart play. Why ruin a 23 year old arm off TJ surgery. Let him take as much time as he needs. Foolish to ruin a 23 year old, especially one this good. Well Played.
Right. I don’t care if he’s 25 or 26 when he becomes a starter. Even at 26, if things pan out, the Sox could have a good starting pitcher for 8 seasons. I can live with that. It’s ALL the great unkown!
If this organization cared half as much about winning as LA, Houston, or NY did, imagine what this White Sox roster would look like by Spring Training 2023. Hell, give me the GM job for a month, with absolute trade authorization and about $50MM additional funds to play with. I’d build you a 98+ win juggernaut consistently for the next 3 or 4 years.minimum. It’s really not that hard. The problem with the MLB, and professional sports in general, is there’s too many franchise owners sandbagging wins and being obstacles to success instead of facilitators.
@chisoxcity Yeah you nailed it. I think Hahn has been bad the past couple years, but if any GM is given the constraint that they are not allowed to sign any good free agents, success is literally impossible. I said a while back that as long as Grandal had the biggest FA contract they gave out during the rebuild, this team would never win. I said that not expecting Grandal to remain the biggest contract they gave out, and here we are 3 years after they signed him and it won’t likely change this winter either. They’re set to lose Abreu, who had the highest WAR other than Cease on the team, and who was maybe their best hitter vs RHP the past 3 years – and only position player who was healthy in 2021 and 2022. And he will be gone, making a team that cannot hit RHP even worse in that respect. Good luck with all that…
Do we really know how many decisions Hahn has made? Honestly? I’m quite sure he didn’t want an old drunk like LaRussa to lead his young Latin Club. I find it hard to believe that. I also find it hard to believe that any GM would just walk away from an arm like Rodon without at least a QO. I don’t think Hahn is really control of anything and that Reinsdorf and Williams are running this crapshoot and Hahn is just there as the fall guy. Hahn should just move out of this s**tshow now, While he still has some of his reputation intact. I’m sure he can make minor decisions, But all the big ones rain down from over him.
Can you tell us specifically how you would build this 98+ win team for the next 3-4 years by Feb?
Yeah that would be a good trick. The only way to have done it would have been to sign Springer two years ago (or Harper several years ago), plus Semien and Schwarber a year ago. And to have kept Rodon. Even that might not have made this a 98 win team. Too late now. They’d need to sign Judge plus Trea Turner, and maybe De Grom. Nothing can save this team now, unless Jerry dies or sells the team. But even then, unless an owner like Cohen takes over, there is no guarantee of better. Cubs will be better in a year or two, and likely to surpass anything the Sox do because they are capable of signing real players.
As had been noted before, for ALL that went bad with the Sox this past season they still ended up at .500! I don’t know about 98 wins but with some more talent at a few positions and IF the team can stay relatively healthy AND with a new manager and coaching staff, the Sox would be capable of 92-93 wins. And then we get to watch them in the playoffs!
@MacD Cueto was their 2nd best starting pitcher last year. He will be gone. Ditto Jose Abreu. He had the highest WAR of all their position players, and was about their best hitter vs right handed pitching the past 3 years – something the rest of the team does horribly. Not to mention that he was also literally their only position player to stay healthy in 2021 and 2022.
So they are set to lose their 2nd best starting pitcher and best, least injury prone position player. Even if a couple guys have better years with better health, they will just be treading water trying to make up for the loss of those two guys. We know they will have terrible defense, again, and awful hitting against RHP. Cease is a good bet to take a small step back from his amazing season.. 82 or 83 wins would be close to overachieving, 92-93 is pure fantasy.
Again, they need more talent, no doubt. It’s well noted what positions need upgrades. We don’t know if Cueto will be back or not. I wouldn’t give him 2 years though.
My feeling is with the bad season they had the next can be better with some tweaks. Lynn should be better, Giolito better be better, Kopech should be good to go and I don’t see Cease taking a step back.
Abreu is just in a difficult situation with Vaughn ready to step in at 1B. They could trade Vaughn and re-sign Abreu but that would be stupid, I feel.
the big question mark is are the Sox willing to make the right moves whether it’s trading or free agency?
I still think IF they do it right there’s no reason why they can’t win 10-12 more games next season. That amount of wins is only fantasy if the Sox screw up the offseason.
Its clear that Abreu is gone which is kind of strange given that JR has been in love his first basemen (Thomas and Konerko) for years. So everyone has to be reconciled to having another slow right handed hitter at first and hope that he hits enough that we won’t be crying that the Sox would be better with Abreu. Anderson at short. Moncada at third but with a very short leash that gets pulled if he’s hitting 205 in May. Then it should be time to give Burger a real shot. Jiminez has to the left fielder and hope he doesn’t kill himself out there. Robert in center should be good if he wants to play in Chicago.. I can’t figure out catching will get fixed because no one will want Grandahl. That leaves (wait for it) “second and right”. Maybe Oscar and Rodriguez will both become stars?
Ahh, another White Sox off season and the same status by the die hard fans.. ‘if this…’ ‘if that’..’if this’… ‘if that..’ No team that is ‘built to win it all’ has that many, if any, ‘ifs’ in their preseason analysis. Im tired of seeing the Sox ‘will be good’ If the team stays healthy, if Giolito can have another bounce back year, if Kopech reaches his potential… If Crochett has a good bullpen season, IF vaughn is their guy at 1st, if Eloy is good at DH, if Robert reaches his potential, if Lynn can have a good year, if Cease can do it again…. If they can find another ‘good starter’ , if they can get some sound defense, if Anderson can stay healthy, if Moncada can stay healthy, if they can get anything out of Grandal next season…If Hahn can actually get a good 2nd baseman and an OF without one leg into retirement.. if if if if…if if….