White Sox need to get moving on starting pitching
The Chicago White Sox have had a solid offseason so far, but if they fail to acquire a couple of quality of starting pitchers this offseason they could be in trouble.
While, in all likelihood, they will achieve this goal before Opening Day, Madison Bumgarner signing with the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers trading for Corey Kluber diminished the amount of talent left on the free agent market.
That leaves 2019 NL Cy Young candidate Hyun-Jin Ryu as the best starter on the market. However, the White Sox have so far not been connected to the southpaw.
Dallas Keuchel is a pitcher who the team has expressed interest in this offseason that could fill one of their rotation needs.
Other pitchers who would make sense to sign are Julio Teheran and Wade Miley, although there are some reasons to be concerned about the latter as detailed by our own Samiya Green.
Keuchel very well could end up being the right move at this stage for their first starter brought to the south side given that Ryu is likely going to see his market expand with Bumgarner, Gerrit Cole, Stephen Strasburg, and Zack Wheeler off the board.
But, they need to act fast because if they continue to wait, the White Sox might be the team that fails to land a good pitcher.
Obviously, free agency isn’t the only method to acquire a pitcher as they can always turn to the trade market.
However, that might require relinquishing prospects which the White Sox would probably rather keep going into 2020.
If they can secure one of Keuchel, Ryu, or Teheran, then the White Sox can move into phase two of the starting pitching market which would consist of arms like Homer Bailey, Alex Wood, Rich Hill, and a familiar face in Ivan Nova.
The second pitcher doesn’t need to be as much of a sure thing as the first one given that the team does have a lot of young pitching options already.
If they can just add two arms behind Lucas Giolito, it would allow Dylan Cease, Reynaldo Lopez, Michael Kopech, and eventually Carlos Rodon to fight for the final two spots in the rotation.
By midseason, the hope would be that at least two of those four options have proven to be capable pieces of the rotation. Hopefully, three of them would establish themselves enough to maybe kick the second starter they signed out of the rotation at some point.
Next. Three Needs White Sox Must Still Address. dark
Nonetheless, the White Sox can’t bank on their current starting rotation options going into 2020 and they need to act quickly to sign a starter before the market dries up.