White Sox starting pitching depth already eroding

When I listed my 10 preseason candidates for the White Sox starting rotation, I ranked Ky Bush as No. 7.

Cross him off. 

Sox general manager Chris Getz announced on Tuesday that Bush will miss the 2025 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery.

Bush, a 25-year-old lefty, made his big league debut last season. He went 0-3 with a 5.60 ERA in four starts. Bush's ceiling is likely a No. 4 starter, so you may not see this is a big loss.

It's really not, but it is one less pitcher the Sox can use to make starts in a season where they are looking for people to eat innings. Realistically, I thought Bush would start somewhere between five and 10 games this season. Now, someone else needs to take those starts.

Innings are a concern for the Sox because four of their top-five guys in innings pitched from 2024 are no longer with the team. Here are their innings leaders from last year:

1. Chris Flexen, 160 innings
2. Garrett Crochet, 146 innings
3. Jonathan Cannon, 124.1 innings
4. Erick Fedde, 121.2 innings
5. Michael Soroka, 79.2 innings 

Only Cannon remains with the team. Fedde was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals midseason last year. Crochet was traded to the Boston Red Sox this offseason. Soroka left via free agency and is now a member of the Washington Nationals. Flexen remains a free agent.

That's 507 innings walking out the door. Martin Perez and Bryse Wilson were the only two veteran pitchers brought in this offseason. They will not combine for 300 innings, let alone 500.

Maybe it's time to get Flexen on the phone?

When 'just play the kids' doesn't work ...

White Sox fans have been screaming into the void on social media, calling for the team to discard veterans and "just play the kids."

It's understandable, because the team is 20 games below .500 on May 22. The Sox are going nowhere fast in 2024, and it's time to look ahead to 2025 and beyond.

Nobody wants to watch dead-end veterans such as Mike Clevinger, Chris Flexen and the recently DFA'd Brad Keller start games for the Sox. Hell, I don't want to watch these guys, either.

Those types of pitchers are short-timers. They won't be in the majors much longer, and they are just here to eat innings and cross days off the calendar.

Those players are here because "the kids" aren't ready. Fans who wanted to see rookie right-hander Nick Nastrini pitch got their wish Wednesday night, and boy, that did not go well.

Nastrini gave up seven runs in the second inning, plus two more in the fourth, in a 9-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays.

His final line was brutal: 3.1 IP, 7 H, 9 R, 8 ER, 6 BB, 0 K, 1 HR. 

Six walks and no strikeouts? My goodness, it was like the Blue Jays knew what was coming. This is the type of performance that can kill a young pitcher's confidence. 

It sounds as though Nastrini will get another start next Monday, against Toronto once again. Let's keep in mind, the Blue Jays are in last place in the AL East. It's not *that* difficult of an assignment. If Nastrini gets bombed again, I'm not going to be able to make a case for him to stay in the bigs.

If he has to go back to Triple-A, get ready for more Michael Soroka in the rotation, like it or not. That's what happens when you don't have any "kids" who are ready to pitch in Chicago. 

White Sox trade Robbie Grossman to Texas for pitching prospect

The White Sox sell-off of veterans players has begun, perhaps a little earlier than anticipated.

Outfielder Robbie Grossman was traded to the Texas Rangers on Wednesday, in exchange for Double-A pitching prospect Anthony Hoopii-Tuionetoa.

Grossman, 34, batted .211/.329/.268 in 25 games with the Sox. He stood out in the free-swinging Sox lineup as one of the few guys who was willing to take a walk. He drew 13 walks in 85 plate appearances, and he saw 4.45 pitches per plate appearance.

That being said, Grossman was without a home run and had only four doubles, a far cry from his 23-homer peak with the Detroit Tigers in 2021.

Hoopii-Tuionetoa, 23, is a right-handed reliever from Hawaii. He was pitching at Double-A Frisco, where he made 10 appearances this season. He was 1-0 with 0.73 ERA. He had 16 strikeouts and four walks across 12.1 innings pitched. Reports say he's a fastball-slider pitcher, with his fastball velocity averaging about 96 mph.

He will report to Double-A Birmingham.

Texas rookie Wyatt Langford just hit the injured list, so that created a need for another outfielder on the Rangers roster. Grossman was with the Rangers last season when they won the World Series, so they know him, and they know he still has one above-average skill -- his ability to work counts and get on base.

This makes sense for the Sox, too, as Grossman's usefulness was likely to run out once Luis Robert Jr. comes off the injured list. Robert will eventually return to his usual spot in center field, with Tommy Pham shifting over to right field. That would leave Grossman without a role, so perhaps it's best to move him now. The Sox now have turned him into a relief prospect that they can try to develop. Nothing wrong with that.

White Sox 4, Rays 1

Chris Flexen pitched six innings of one-run ball, and Paul DeJong hit a 2-run homer as the Sox salvaged the final game of a three-game series Wednesday night, defeating the Tampa Bay Rays, 4-1.

The Sox trailed 1-0 after four innings, before DeJong put them ahead to stay with his team-leading fifth home run of the season in the top of the fifth.

Rookie Bryan Ramos and Pham added RBI singles in the top of the sixth inning, as the Sox lengthened their lead to 4-1.

Flexen (2-3) allowed only three hits during his season-best outing. He struck out eight and walked one. Three Sox relievers combined for three scoreless innings, with Michael Kopech getting three outs in the ninth for his third save of the season. 

The Sox are 9-28 after completing a 3-3 road trip to St. Louis and Tampa Bay. They will host Cleveland in a four-game set starting Thursday night at Guaranteed Rate Field.

Mike Clevinger coming back to White Sox on 1-year deal

The White Sox and right-handed pitcher Mike Clevinger agreed to terms on a one-year contract Monday, sources told MLB.com.

The team has yet to confirm the signing of Clevinger, 33, who went 9-9 with a 3.77 ERA over 24 starts with the Sox in 2023.

There are significant question marks in the starting rotation for the Sox, who fell to 0-4 with a 9-0 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Monday afternoon.

Chris Flexen started this latest loss, allowing four earned runs on six hits over only 4.1 innings pitched. Flexen walked three, struck out one and threw just 45 of his 85 pitches for strikes.

Among the first four starting pitchers used by the Sox this season -- Garrett Crochet, Michael Soroka, Erick Fedde and Flexen -- only the converted reliever Crochet recorded an out in the sixth inning.

Enter Clevinger, because there are 158 games to go and about 1,400 more innings to pitch this season. I'm guessing Sox GM Chris Getz does not have a high level of confidence that he can get through the year with the arms that are available.

So, he's adding a veteran on a short-term contract. Not that we expect Clevinger to cause the team's win total to increase in a significant way.

The Sox have perhaps the worst MLB roster I've ever seen. It's loaded with mediocre and bad veterans who are just trying to hang on to their professional careers. Most have no future with the Sox, or with any other team.

Clevinger is another such mediocre veteran.

What does the White Sox starting pitching staff look like entering 2024?

Dylan Cease

Please hold your nose as we delve into the state of the White Sox starting pitching staff as the calendar turns to a new year.

The most recent Sox pitching addition? That would be 29-year-old right-hander Chris Flexen, who recently agreed to a one-year contract worth $1.75 million, with an extra $1 million available if he hits certain performance bonuses.

Once upon a time, two years ago, Flexen was a productive pitcher for the Seattle Mariners. He went 14-6 with a 3.61 ERA over 31 starts in 179.2 innings in 2021. He backed that up by going 8-9 with a 3.73 ERA over 33 games (22 starts) in 137.2 innings in 2022.

We'd take either of those two years from him right now, wouldn't we, Sox fans?

Well, don't count on it because Flexen had a disastrous 2023. He pitched in 17 games with the Mariners and got DFA'd in late June after going 0-4 with a 7.71 ERA. He bounced from the New York Mets to the Colorado Rockies, and while in Denver, he started 12 games and went 2-4 with 6.37 ERA.

The only blessing? Flexen once again was durable enough to clear 100 innings -- he pitched 102.1 innings between the Mariners and the Rockies -- and that's not nothing.

However, he allowed more earned runs (78) than he had strikeouts (74), and opponents slugged .740 against his four-seam fastball. Flexen surrendered 25 home runs in 2023.

There's a reason he's available for cheap on a one-year deal, friends. Maybe Sox pitching guru Brian Bannister and pitching coach Ethan Katz have a recipe for Flexen to regain his 2021-22 form, but this signing is nothing but a huge question mark.

So, here's how the five-man rotation sets up, as we sit here on the evening of Jan. 2:

1. Dylan Cease
2. Erick Fedde
   
3. Michael Soroka
4. Flexen
5. Touki Toussaint or Michael Kopech
   

There's still a real possibility Cease gets traded, perhaps sooner rather than later, but he's here for now. After finishing second in the Cy Young voting in 2022, Cease's ERA spiked from 2.20 to 4.58 in 2023. The underlying metrics suggest Cease isn't as good as he was in 2022, but he isn't as bad as he was in 2023, either. 

If you look at Cease's 2021 numbers -- 13-7 with a 3.91 ERA in 165.2 innings, with a 1.249 WHIP and a 12.3 K/9 -- that seems like a reasonable expectation. Maybe with a slightly lower K rate, but you get the point.

Fedde might be the "big free agent acquisition" for the offseason. As we noted earlier on this blog, he had a big season in the Korean League last year.

Soroka, of course, came over from the Atlanta Braves in the Aaron Bummer deal. He was great in 2019, but injuries have limited him every year since. Will he be healthy? And if he is, what are the Sox getting? Who knows?

Kopech is both wild and an injury risk, and he's probably down to his last chance to stick in the starting rotation after a disastrous 2023 that saw him go 5-12 with a 5.43 ERA. Toussaint and Flexen are reclamation projects at this stage of their careers. The Sox were lucky to coax 83.1 innings out of Toussaint last season.

As in any baseball season, a team needs more than five or six starters to get through 162 games. Here are some other guys the Sox might use in 2024:

• Jared Shuster
• Jesse Scholtens
• Nick Nastrini
• Jake Eder
• Cristian Mena
• Davis Martin

Shuster is a change-of-scenery lefty who came over from the Braves with Soroka in the Bummer deal. Scholtens got 85 innings with the Sox last year, and there were diminishing returns as the season moved along. Nastrini is a prospect acquired from the Dodgers midseason last year. Eder is a lefty prospect who came from the Marlins in the Jake Burger trade. 

Mena is a 21-year-old righty who pitched as high as Triple-A Charlotte in 2023. Some have forgotten about Martin, who made nine starts in 2022. He missed 2023 with elbow surgery, but could contribute to the Sox late in 2024.

Add all this up, and two things are true: 1) The Sox have options, but many of them are suspect, and 2) This type of rotation projection gets you picked to finish last, even in the sad-sack American League Central.