3 Reasons To Not Like The Chicago White Sox Starting Rotation
It lacks an ace and is cheap with the potential to be terrible.
The Chicago White Sox starting rotation no longer has an ace after Dylan Cease was traded last week.
It is a rotation of castoffs and a converted reliever who will be the Opening Day starter despite making his last start in college. That's right, Garrett Crochet is getting the start on March 28th when the Sox host the Detroit Tigers. The man has only pitched in 73 innings during his three-year career and missed 2022 after Tommy John surgery, but he is getting the honor usually reserved for a team's best pitcher.
The White Sox do not have any good starting pitchers. Michael Soroka's career was trending towards being a top-of-the-rotation pitcher but then injuries wiped out the past two-and-a-half years of his career. Chris Flexen has had two solid seasons in 2021 and 2022. He also had three horrible seasons with the New York Mets before that and was terrible in 2023.
Erick Fedde won the KBO's equivalent of the Cy Young last year. He also had to go to South Korea because he was practically exiled there after a horrendous tenure with the Washington Nationals. Manager Pedro Grifol still has not given a solid indication that rookie Nick Nastrini has won the fifth starter job.
Hey, it is a rebuilding year no matter what ownership thinks, and we have seen bad rotations last decade as the franchise tried to build a winning ball club. This rotation might be the worst of them all and the Sox once had James Shields at the top of the rotation when Lucas Giolito was the worst pitcher in baseball during those painful rebuild seasons.
It is shaping up to be a tough rotation to watch. There are three reasons, in particular, to not like this rotation this season...
1) It lacks a pitcher you want to see every five days.
No one in this rotation makes you want to drive down to Guaranteed Rate to see pitch. Crochet is having a good spring, and he is intriguing to see if he can develop into a starter. The man throws heat. He is also going to cause some headaches for Grifol with how much rest he might need.
Grifol said White Sox will need fifth starter on April 3 v Braves, Sox' sixth game. Opening Day starter Garrett Crochet would pitch on 4 days rest April 2, but Day 2 starter Michael Soroka would be on three days rest April 3 and will pitch April 4 at KC.
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) March 21, 2024
The lack of depth is a major reason Crochet is even in the starting rotation to begin with. Ideally, he would be getting stretched out at Triple-A Charlotte. Since Touki Toussaint and Jared Shuster were awful this spring, the Sox cannot afford to be without Crochet.
Soroka could return as a good starter if he stays healthy, but he is a pending free agent. The hope is he returns to form and then is flipped at the deadline. It is not out of the question for a pitcher to go to Korea and Japan after a disastrous major league and come back to a revival. That is what you have to hope for when it comes to Fedde.
Still, these are guys that are probably the fifth starter on a championship team or even coming out of the pen in long relief. Instead, we have to bide our time until top prospects such as Drew Thorpe or Jake Eder are hopefully ready to take on some major-league innings.
Although, seeing how Nastrini pitches is intriguing.
2) The rotation is another example of ownership being cheap.
Jerry Reinsdorf told us he owed the fans to have things get turned around quickly. That is the reason he did not conduct a GM search and instead just promoted an unqualified Chris Getz.
Did Getz turn around and spend big bucks to achieve that because that is how you turn things around fast? Nope.
The White Sox have been notorious for not spending a lot on starting pitching. When they have, they go out and make bad signings like when they added Dallas Keuchel. In a rebuild year, there was plenty of bargain-pitching free agents Getz could have loaded up on and then turned around and traded at the deadline.
Instead of going to the discount rack, he went to a garage sale with how much money had been spent on the rotation.
A Crochet, Soroka, Fedde, Flexen, Nastrini rotation would cost White Sox $13.79 million in salary this season.
— Daryl Van Schouwen (@CST_soxvan) March 20, 2024
When the pitching depth showed it would not be here during spring training, Getz has done nothing toward adding another arm. There was speculation he would sign Michael Lorenzen, but he is on his way to Texas. Heck, there was even a rumor Mike Clevinger might be brought back.
Yet, we are about to enter the season with this cheap starting rotation that has no real good backup plans if someone gets hurt or struggles. It is also going to be a headache to manage since Crochet might require six days of rest in between starts. Hey, if the rotation somehow succeeds, ownership can brag about how cost-effective it was.
3) The projections do not look good.
When it comes to fWAR, this rotation is projected to finish at 8.2. Only the Colorado Rockies and Washington Nationals are projected to fair worse and the Oakland A's are forecasted to finish with the same number as the White Sox.
The projection means the Sox have no real value in the rotation when it comes to their starters. Thorpe is predicted to have the best fWAR on the staff and we do not know if he will start the season in the big leagues.
The staff ERA is projected to finish at 4.74 and the FIP is 4.86. Not great Bob!
These are just forecasts and someone is bound to exceed expectations. Then again, someone is bound to do even worse.
It just would be nice to have a rotation that at least has some value because then there is someone to trade at the deadline. Instead, we have to hope Flexen and Soroka exceed expectations. The rotation could have been constructed better, but then again you can say that for the rest of the roster.
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