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.