Chicago White Sox: Grading Jimmy Cordero’s busy year
What grade does Jimmy Cordero deserve for his busy 2020 season?
Jimmy Cordero began his career with the Washington Nationals in 2018. He made his way over to the Toronto Blue Jays in 2019 but was traded to the Chicago White Sox in the same season. He has now played with the White Sox longer than any other team in only two years but he is starting to become well known. He hasn’t been as good as he would have liked but a lot of it doesn’t feel like his fault. Rick Renteria overused him so bad in 2020 and it looked like it affected his numbers.
The Chicago White Sox, along with all of Major League Baseball, were forced to play a short 60-game season because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Out of those 60 games, Renteria used Cordero in 30 of them. It was a remarkable amount of games to use one reliever. It makes even less sense when you consider his numbers and some of the other names in the White Sox bullpen.
His numbers were probably skewed the wrong way because of his usage but at the end of the day, his 6.08 ERA and 1.575 WHIP are awful numbers. He had a -0.9 WAR but the team still decided to give him 26.2 innings over 30 games. They were a playoff team and one of the best teams in the American League so they get somewhat of a pass but they can’t be doing that next season.
2020 grade: C-
Cordero’s numbers are bad that he deserves a D for this season but he gets bumped up to a C- because of his usage. He probably could be an effective reliever if he is used the right way over the course of a full season.
2021 outlook:
The Chicago White Sox are certainly going to have him back next year so they need to figure out a plan for him. There is no way that he needs to be playing in half of the games under any circumstances. There are some great arms in this bullpen around him and they might not even be done adding.
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2021 will be a big year for Cordero because he should (hopefully) be given a humane amount of innings and be put in a better position to succeed. If he does that and still has the WAR and ERA that he had in 2020 they might cut ties with him. Hopefully, it works out for him because that would also be great for the team.