Carlos Rodon returns to White Sox on one-year deal

Carlos Rodon

Carlos Rodon had a disastrous relief outing in Game 3 of the playoffs against the Oakland Athletics. The White Sox non-tendered him when the season was over, and at the time, it was reasonable to believe that Rodon had thrown his last pitch for the Sox.

Wrong. On Saturday, the Sox brought him back on a one-year, $3 million contract. 

I'm not sure what the purpose of this move is, but the Sox will probably tell us it is to bolster the depth of the starting rotation. And it's not wrong that the Sox could use more depth in that area.

You can feel pretty confident in the top three pitchers in the rotation: Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel and Lance Lynn. But then you've got the inconsistent and unproven Dylan Cease, the enigmatic Reynaldo Lopez (who was injured in 2020) and Michael Kopech -- who hasn't thrown a competitive pitch since 2018 -- competing for the other two spots.

So, yeah, it makes perfect sense to bolster the depth. But why would any person have confidence that Rodon is the answer? Here are the innings pitched totals for the oft-injured left-hander over the course of his career:

• 2015: 139.1
• 2016: 165.0
• 2017: 69.1
• 2018: 120.2
• 2019: 34.2
• 2020: 7.2

And here are Rodon's ERAs over that same period:

• 2015: 3.75
• 2016: 4.04
• 2017: 4.15
• 2018: 4.18
• 2019: 5.19
• 2020: 8.22

Rodon is getting worse and less reliable all the time. He's had surgeries on both his shoulder and his elbow during his time with the Sox, and while the quick ramp-up during the pandemic-riddled 2020 season certainly did him no favors, it's hard to give Rodon the benefit of the doubt when he's gotten injured every other year, too.

Some people have noted that Rodon's velocity returned in 2020, and that could be a reason for optimism going forward. It's not wrong to say that Rodon was consistently hitting 96 mph with his fastball the last time that we saw him. However, in his last three outings -- a meltdown against Cleveland, a game against the Cubs the last weekend of the regular season, and the aforementioned crapfest in Oakland -- Rodon threw 60 pitches and only got two swings-and-misses.

The velocity is there, but is the stuff? 

And you know, the Sox had other options for rotation depth. If they wanted to stick with somebody they know, Jose Quintana was a free agent this offseason. Sure, Quintana had injures in 2020, as well, but as recently as 2019, he made 31 starts and threw 171 innings -- two benchmarks that Rodon has never reached in his career. 

Alas, Quintana signed a one-year deal worth $8 million with the Los Angeles Angels. 

Left-hander James Paxton remains a free agent and could have been an option for the Sox. Paxton also had injury problems in 2020 that limited him to five starts. But, again, as recently as 2019, Paxton made 29 starts, won 15 games and posted a 3.82 ERA. Rodon has never made 29 starts or won 15 games in a season, and he hasn't had an ERA below 4.00 since 2015. Just sayin'.

Lastly, I don't know why the Sox didn't consider right-hander Garrett Richards, who was hurt for most of 2019, but made 10 credible starts for the San Diego Padres in 2020 -- he went 2-2 with a 4.03 ERA in 51.1 innings.

Richards signed a one-year deal worth $10 million with the Boston Red Sox.

Granted, these pitchers all cost more than the $3 million that Rodon is going to make in 2021, but the Sox tend to get what they pay for when they make these sorts of moves.

If Rodon posts 10 reasonably good starts sometime in 2021, I'd take that right now. I'll be pleasantly surprised if he does. Nothing against the guy -- I think he truly wants to get healthy and turn around the negative narrative of his career -- but in a win-now 2021 season, I can't trust him in any role with the Sox.