Grading Aaron Bummer's 2023 Chicago White Sox season

The Chicago White Sox had tons of bad pitchers. We’ve been handing out these grades for a while now and most of the pitchers don’t get a letter at the top of the alphabet. It was a tough year for almost the entire staff. There were a few outliers but most of them wish things went differently. 

One of those is Aaron Bummer. You can argue that he was the worst player at his job on the team. He truly had a bad year from the time it started until the time it ended. He just isn’t the guy that they had a few years ago. 

Bummer has nasty stuff and there is no denying it. He still gets tons of strikeouts but he can’t record them without letting up tons of baserunners/runs. It is either strike a guy out, walk him, or let him get a hit off you if you’re Aaron Bummer. 

This season, he went out and had a 6.79 ERA. His WAR was -1.0 which was insanely low. He probably shouldn’t be in MLB anymore if he can’t correct that in the near future. He is just ineffective in almost all of his starts. 

The Chicago White Sox weren't that good and Aaron Bummer was a problem.

Bummer doesn’t get much help from the White Sox either. The defense behind Bummer always needs to be good because he induces a lot of ground balls. Sometimes, with his sinking stuff, it creates infield plays that are difficult and the White Sox are not good defensively. 

It is fair to assume that if Bummer were traded he would find success. Most other organizations would play better defense and provide him with data to better take advantage of his skills. 

2023 Final Game: F

It is sad but Aaron Bummer gets a hard F. This season was nothing other than a failure for him. He didn’t look good, he didn’t have good stats, and the White Sox were worse off because he was there. By the end of the year, it was shocking that he wasn’t cut. 

2024 Outlook: 

It is going to be interesting to see how the rest of Aaron Bummer’s career pans out. As mentioned before, another team might want to take a risk on him as a project. He has good stuff but he needs to be put in a better situation. 

Could he be like Jake Diekman? He regained his form with the Tampa Bay Rays very quickly after being cut by the White Sox. Bummer following in those footsteps would not be surprising at all. He just needs to hope that there is a team besides the White Sox that finds it in them to give him a chance.