Dan Jennings was a bright spot for a bullpen that struggled. The White Sox should definitely resign the left hander. He is arbitration eligible.
The Chicago White Sox didn’t have much going for their bullpen this season. But Dan Jennings proved to be a bright spot. The left hander is arbitration eligible and his return could definitely help boost a struggling bullpen.
The 29 year old made a career high 64 appearances and pitched a total of 60.2 innings. He fared extremely well for the Sox, allowing just 18 runs and one home run in 2016. That would good enough for a 2.08 ERA, the third best of his career.
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According to MLB Trade Rumors, Jennings arbitration number is $1.2 million. That would definitely seem like a bargain for a guy who has pitched as well as he has. And that would be a small price to pay for a guy who finished two seasons with an ERA under 2.00. The bullpen has been an area of concern for the Sox all season. Jennings was a rare bright spot.
It’s clear he is best served as a left-handed specialist. Left handers hit just .217 against him. Right handers fared much better, hitting .285. With all the specialization in baseball, it wouldn’t be a bad thing to lock this guy up for a few years. And since the arbitration number is low, it would seem the Sox could lock him up at a relatively cheap price.
It just wouldn’t make sense for this team to let Jennings walk. He almost single-handedly kept the bullpen from imploding, although we could argue that already happened. However, he has a great track record of pitching well. This team started the season with Zach Duke in their bullpen but he was traded at the deadline. That meant Jennings had to step up and he stepped up in a big way.
By not resigning him, they would be getting rid of their most consistent relief pitcher. And they will need him in their bullpen next season. This gives them a really solid left hander and someone who they can rely on to get outs.
This organization is in a peculiar situation. The front office clearly didn’t put a good product on the field. Their manager resigned and now they are starting a new era of baseball on the south side. Rick Renteria is a seasoned manager, who will hopefully not make the same mistakes Robin Ventura did. One thing Ventura did was overuse the bullpen. A bullpen that didn’t have much depth.
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Jennings gives them a solid seventh or eighth inning option. Now, the Sox just need to figure out how to build out more depth, so they can turn this trouble spot into a bright spot.