Lucas Giolito
For a long time, Lucas Giolito was the ace of the Chicago White Sox staff. After coming over as the top pitching prospect in baseball in the trade for Adam Eaton with the Washington Nationals, it took him a while to get going in the league.
From 2019-2021, however, he was a good pitcher for this team. Then, he was bad in 2022 before bouncing back again in 2023. From 2019-2021, he finished in the top 11 of Cy Young voting each year.
During that amazing span (2019-2021), he had an ERA of 3.47 and 526 strikeouts over 427.2 innings pitched. Then, things were bad in 2022 as his ERA shot way up to 4.90. From there, he knew he needed a big bounce back.
His 2023 season with the White Sox looked a lot more like his glory years as he had a 3.79 ERA. Unfortunately, things went south for him when the White Sox traded him away. He did not fare well with the Los Angeles Angels as his ERA shot back up to 6.89 with them.
It was a weird move for the Angels to acquire Giolito in the first place but they did what they did and he didn't succeed. It became even more strange when they put him on waivers to save some money to end the season.
The Cleveland Guardians claimed him after that. He was even worse with them as his ERA went up to 7.04 in that uniform. Strangely, he got worse every time he left. It can be hard to play with three teams in one season.
Now, he is looking for his next team. He will be trying to prove that all the bouncing around hurt his game. He was great with the Sox before the trade. Now, they should be looking to bring him back if he wants to come back.