The Chicago White Sox are sneaky.
Maybe their offense isn’t sneaky but their starting pitching staff is a bit sneaky. They are sneaky good! Several starting pitchers have stepped up and played well for the White Sox throughout the season. Of course, you have the usual suspects, Erick Fedde and Garrett Crochet, but one other has come up and started to show us something.
That player is Chris Flexen.
You hear a lot about the other two pitchers previously mentioned, as well as Mike Clevinger, but you don’t hear a lot about Flexen. Flexen is quietly becoming a solid pitcher who can be relied upon to hold the opponent down on runs and strike them out regularly and earn a win.
According to Baseball-Reference, through Flexen’s game against the Washington Nationals, he has a record of two and three in nine games played (seven started). His ERA is 4.46 and he has a WHIP of 1.264. He has allowed 37 hits and 20 earned runs to go along with five home runs. Flexen has struck out 30 batters total so far in 2024.
The better Flexen does, the better and more appealing he becomes to suitors who might be interested in a trade for him at some point. The White Sox have mentioned that they are interested in trading off some of their pieces and if Flexen does as well as it’s hoped, he could become an important trade piece for the Sox. The White Sox are building towards the future and Flexen could help them build that way if there is a suitable trade partner with a good enough trade package out there to take him.
If the White Sox wanted to think about contending in the near term, they could keep Flexen and allow him to continue pitching for the Sox. But if general manager Chris Getz holds to his word, he may not want to keep anyone who could bring the team additional players and get Flexen on the trade block as soon as possible.
He was a welcome addition to the White Sox. No one knew that he would be as good as he has been so far this season. The White Sox certainly probably didn’t think that Flexen would be as good as he has been. Now, Flexen is not light’s out. He still has his struggles but he’s getting better and the White Sox are doing better with him in the lineup.
The White Sox starting pitching is not at all that bad. Almost every single player has probably increased his trade value with the way that they have been performing as of late. The Sox may be able to trade off some of these pitching pieces and get some additional talent for their farm system. It appears as if this is what they want to do to rebuild the team. Bring in young talent to develop and then build a team, for the future, that they can win with.
Flexen might be a piece that gets traded off and used for additional talent. We will see as the trade deadline continues to approach, what the White Sox are going to do.