Three Pitching Prospects Who Should Make The Chicago White Sox Opening Day Roster
These young arms are having a good spring training and might as well start their major-league careers now during a lost season.
The Chicago White Sox are about to start a season where every indication has this team losing more than 90 games.
You get those projections when your team has a ton of former Kansas City Royals on it, three projected starters in the batting order that are usually automatic outs, and a starting rotation where a converted reliever with 73 career innings was just named the Opening Day starter.
That's right, Garrett Crochet gets the honor normally given to the rotation's ace. Now Crochet may one day develop into a top-of-the-rotation pitcher, but right now he still needs to prove he can get through five innings.
Such is life for a team that lost 101 games last season and is trying to rebuild yet again.
That does not mean the season will be completely hopeless. The Sox front office has amassed some good prospects during the roster teardown with a few of them being ready to play in the majors right now.
Three pitching prospects are having a good spring training and should be given serious consideration to make the Opening Day 26-man roster.
Jordan Leasure
He was part of the return the White Sox got in the Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers before last year's trade deadline. Leasure is ranked as the 18th-best prospect for the Chicago White Sox according to MLB.com.
He has been amazing in the Cactus League this spring. Leasure has thrown six-and-a-third innings and has given up no runs. He has allowed just two hits, walked three, and struck out seven.
I think Jordan Leasure breaks camp with the White Sox. I feel confident in that call, although my opinion and a 15-0 record will get you a Michigan football national title. But Nastrini certainly has made a strong case for March 28 as well.
— Scott Merkin (@scottmerkin) March 17, 2024
Leasure's fastball can reach 100mph on the radar gun but it is usually somewhere between 96 and 98mph. He has been a reliever during his entire minor-league career with 176 career strikeouts over 117.1 innings pitched.
His stuff has the potential to be a really good closer someday. Leasure has earned the right to get his major-league career started right now to see if that can be the case.
Nick Nastrini
Nastrini was the other pitcher obtained in the Lynn and Kelly deal. He is rated as the 8th-best prospect in the White Sox farm system.
Nastrini is having a strong spring too as he has allowed just one earned run in nine innings pitched. He threw in four games for Triple-A Charlotte after he was acquired by the Sox and posted a 4.12 ERA. It would not hurt to get him some more innings at Triple-A since those were the only four games he pitched in.
At the same time, the Sox rotation does not have a good option to be the fifth starter right now.
Nick Nastrini with a 0.82 ERA and 0.82 WHIP this spring and that goes down to a 0.69 ERA when you factor in his one B game start in between ST games.
— Elijah Evans (@ElijahEv8) March 18, 2024
Even without his best stuff today command wise, he got through 4 scoreless. Simply no reason for him not be in the rotation.
Michael Kopech has been banished to the bullpen permanently. Jared Shuster has been sent to minor league camp after a bad spring. Touki Toussaint has had a terrible spring. Brad Keller is a non-roster invitee, but he has never been very good at the major league level.
Service time be darned, the Sox need a fifth starter and right now Nastrini has earned the job.
Drew Thorpe
Thorpe was the top prospect the White Sox got back in the Dylan Cease trade last week. He is Chicago's third-best prospect and second-best pitching prospect behind Noah Schultz.
He has made it to Double-A so far, but his 2023 season was so good in the minors that he won MiLB Pitcher of the Year.
Drew Thorpe: 2023 MiLB Pitcher of the Year; .98 WHIP, 2.52 ERA, 182K to 38BB's. 3 pitch mix. His FB is said to be the red flag due to his velo, but it has run and does not get squared up on often due to his ++ Change and ++ Slider with variation. Last A+ start below (Cont) pic.twitter.com/E9Xo1f8yIb
— FutureSox (@FutureSox) March 14, 2024
He was having a good spring training with the San Diego Padres. It was going so well there was some speculation he could make the team.
However, his first spring training start with the Chicago White Sox went terribly as he allowed eight runs on 10 hits (three of those runs came via home run) with two walks to just one strikeout. His spring training ERA ballooned to 7.45.
It is just one start, so nothing to panic about. Thorpe just said it came down to having location issues. Before that awful outing, he pitched seven scoreless innings for the Padres.
Thorpe has one of the best changeups among any pitching prospect. He was brought in to be a part of a rotation that will hopefully someday feature young talented pitchers like Nastrini, Crochet, Schultz, and either fellow prospects Jake Eder or Jairo Iriarte.
Since Crochet can probably not pitch no more than four innings, it would not be a terrible idea to have Thorpe on the roster to maybe take a few innings after Garrett wears out. The Sox do not have great options in the bullpen to eat up two or more innings right now. You got Tanner Banks and Toussaint...yikes!
Yes, there are service time issues, but the Sox should not be concerned with that since they have control of Thorpe's service rights for six years.
Pitching platoons normally is not the best idea, but you can make an exception in a lost season.
manual