White Sox bring back Miguel Gonzalez on one-year deal

Miguel Gonzalez

The White Sox moved to improve their starting pitching depth Thursday by signing Miguel Gonzalez to a one-year contract worth $4.75 million.

With Carlos Rodon likely to start the 2018 season on the DL, the Sox needed a stopgap veteran to eat some innings and at least get them through the first half of the year. They are turning to a pitcher they are familiar with in Gonzalez.

The 33-year-old veteran spent most of the 2016 and 2017 seasons on the South Side. He made 45 starts with the Sox and went 12-18 with a 4.02 ERA over that span.

Gonzalez was traded to the Texas Rangers for infielder Ti'Quan Forbes on Aug. 31. He made five September starts in Texas and went 1-3 with a 6.45 ERA before becoming a free agent.

Best guess on the Opening Day rotation as of now: 
James Shields
Gonzalez
Lucas Giolito
Reynaldo Lopez
Carson Fulmer

Presumably, Rodon will return at some point. Prospects Michael Kopech and Alec Hansen could make their big-league debuts sometime this season. Until then, somebody has to pitch. Might as well be Gonzalez.

The Sox designated outfielder Jacob May for assignment in order to make room for Gonzalez on the 40-man roster.

And as always, we would be remiss if we didn't include this number in a blog post such as this:

White Sox trade Miguel Gonzalez to Rangers for Ti'Quan Forbes

Miguel Gonzalez

Hours after he received a no-decision in the White Sox's 5-4 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Thursday, right-hander Miguel Gonzalez was traded to the Texas Rangers for minor league infielder Ti'Quan Forbes.

Forbes, 21, was the Rangers' second-round pick in the 2014 draft. He has played both shortstop and third base, and he has split time between Class-A Hickory and High-A Down East this season. His slash line is not that impressive: .236/.283/.345 with 11 home runs and 45 RBIs combined in 131 games between the two levels.

I've read that Forbes is described as a "slow developer," and he's still a young player -- having been drafted out of high school. In fact, he just turned 21 on Aug. 26, so he would have been one of the younger guys in his league at age 20 for most of this season.

This kid is pretty much a lotto ticket, and it will be at least a couple years before we know whether he amounts to anything. Hell, for all I know, this will be the last time I ever write about him on this blog.

But, really, you can be expecting much return for Gonzalez, who is a free agent at the end of the season. There are about 30 games left to go, so the Rangers are looking at getting five, maybe six, starts out of Gonzalez, who is nothing more than a league-average starter.

What is that really worth? Apparently, it's worth a longshot prospect such as Forbes.

Credit Gonzalez for pitching well enough the second half of the season that he had some value to a contender. He allowed three runs over six innings Thursday, which represented his fifth consecutive quality start, and eighth quality start in nine second-half appearances.

Gonzalez is 2-0 with a 1.85 ERA over his past five starts. If you're the Rangers, and you're four games out of the wild card on Sept. 1, and you're getting increasingly desperate for pitching, you could do worse than Gonzalez in the middle or at the back of your rotation.

From the Sox perspective, well, this probably keeps the struggling Derek Holland in the rotation the rest of the year. Reynaldo Lopez is coming off the disabled list to start Friday night, and now he'll take Gonzalez's spot instead of Holland's.