The White Sox used a franchise-record 56 players at the MLB level in 2023, a fact Ted's Saturday Sporcle tortured everybody with.
Those players have to come from somewhere, which means the Charlotte Knights really had to scramble for contributors over the course of the 2023 season, especially on the pitching side. The Knights used 51 different pitchers, beating the record they set the year before:
- 2014: 35
- 2015: 30
- 2016: 29
- 2017: 38
- 2018: 36
- 2019: 31
- 2021: 38
- 2022: 50
- 2023: 51
This is another reason Rick Hahn and Kenny Williams should've been fired, and another reason to question why Chris Getz got promoted instead of joining them.
The Knights came into the season with questionable depth, and injuries/call-ups wasted no time bleeding them dry. They hung in there for most of the first half, finishing middle of the pack at 35-40, but eventually the bottom fell out in the second half, and the Knights lost 56 of 74 games to make a run at 100 losses, which would've been particularly ignominious considering the shorter schedule.
Just like the big-league club, the offense was the main culprit. Everybody expects the Charlotte pitching staff to give up runs at the most homer-friendly ballpark in the International League, but the Knights usually score runs themselves. This year, they did not.
| Hitters | Age | R/G | BB% | K% | AVG/OBP/SLG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte | 27.5 | 4.52 | 9.0 | 21.3 | .257/.330/.402 |
| League | 26.3 | 5.50 | 11.8 | 22.7 | .261/.356/.438 |
For context, the Knights were just as bad in 2022 from a team standpoint (58-92), but they averaged 4.9 runs per game, which was one-tenth away from league average. If they're bottom of the league in scoring, something went terribly wrong.
Speaking of things going terribly wrong, here's that pitching staff.
| Pitchers | Age | R/9 | BB% | K% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte | 27.2 | 6.83 | 12.8 | 20.9 |
| League | 26.9 | 5.70 | 11.8 | 22.7 |
The less said about it the better, which means we've already said enough. Let's focus on the individual performances instead.
Hitters
José Rodríguez: Rodríguez got two cups of coffee with the White Sox and didn't receive a plate appearance in either, because Pedro Grifol makes up for being passive around veterans by being a stickler to guys with fewer than two years of service time. Rodríguez did come around to score after entering a game as a pinch-runner, so he's running 1.000, even if he doesn't have a batting average yet.
Around those promotions, Rodríguez had a disappointing season on the whole, but the .272/.292/.437 line requires some context. Between the return from the broken hamate -- ask Andrew Benintendi how that can linger -- and the enhanced-grip baseball in the Southern League, Rodríguez was out of sorts for the first month, month and a half. He hit .174/.211/.298 over his first 128 plate appearances, with an uncharacteristic 36 strikeouts over 28 games, and he'd only succeeded in five of his first nine stolen-base attempts.
After a multi-homer game against Rocket City on May 21, Rodríguez essentially returned to his pre-injury performance at Birmingham. He hit 307/.337/.521 with 14 homers, 14 doubles and a 23-for-25 performance on the basepaths over his final 60 games in Birmingham, and that earned him his long-awaited promotion to Charlotte. His Triple-A career started slowly, but he finished the season with 10 hits over his last six games, boosting his line to .253/.270/.379 over the 19-game pilot run.
If you're looking for optimism, Rodríguez continues to show more power even as he climbs the ladder, as he set a personal best with 21 homers. It seems to come with a cost, as his strikeout rate remained elevated even after the return to the standard baseball. He also succeeded on just three of six stolen-base attempts at Charlotte, which makes me wonder if his non-elite speed will eventually meet a ceiling.
He doesn't turn 23 until May, so there's no reason to rush to a verdict yet. He just doesn't help the immediate picture at second base, nor does he figure to have much in the way of trade value, so you just have to be comfortable with uncertainty.
Adam Hackenberg: The White Sox added a pair of catchers to the organizational depth chart at the trade deadline, with Korey Lee reporting to Charlotte before a promotion to Chicago, and Edgar Quero spending the remainder of the season with Birmingham. Adam Hackenberg was caught in between, but he seem to pay it no mind with his production.
Hackenberg endured an elevated strikeout rate during the first half of the Southern League season to post his best work in the OBP department, and when the league returned to the standard baseball, Hackenberg surged. He hit .344/.544/.531 over his first 10 games before the White Sox bumped him to Charlotte at the end of July. That gave him about two solid months at Triple-A, and he kept his head above water, hitting .259/.328/.393 with three homers, six doubles, and 11 walks to 30 strikeouts over 125 plate appearances.
There's a decent foundation here, as Hackenberg is a true catcher who blocks and throws well enough, even if his receiving has never stood out. The question is whether any of his tools are strong enough to withstand the adjustment to the majors. He's a strong guy who manages the strike zone well, but he's never hit more than eight homers in a season because a lot of his better contact goes into the ground. He's either one coach away from being a lot more effective, or he's just not fluid enough with his swing to get the barrel where it needs to go on a reliable basis. The good news? He's still a year away from requiring 40-man roster consideration, so he made the progress everybody needed to see.
Yoelqui Céspedes: Here's a guy who didn't make the progress everybody needed to see in his age-25 season, at least in Birmingham. He hit .214/.315/.326 with the Barons, with 135 strikeouts against 49 free bases over 110 games. The baseball probably didn't do him any favors, but he also didn't experience any real rejuvenation during the second half of the Southern League season.
Nevertheless, the White Sox promoted Céspedes to Charlotte in order to make room in the outfield for guys like Terrell Tatum and Wilfred Veras, and the change of scenery seemed to help. He hit .362/.362/.443 over his first 11 Triple-A games, striking out just seven times over 11 games. It's probably enough to justify a season-opening return to the Knights due to the lack of outfield depth, because Céspedes plays defense and runs well enough if he could ever make the Adam Engel late-blooming adjustments, but if the White Sox weren't moved by it and decided to move on, I'd understand.
Oscar Colás: Colás shed his prospect status by accruing 263 MLB plate appearances, which frees everybody from the obligation of having to put a number on him. If you're wondering what he did after Pedro Grifol sent him to his room in September, he went 2-for-22 with four walks and eight strikeouts over six games with the Knights to end the season. He only appeared in one game of the last series against Memphis, so perhaps everybody just wanted to call it a season.
Pitchers
Cristian Mena: Last year's breakout pitcher in the White Sox organization had a confounding follow-up in 2023, but the confusion wasn't all bad. While most Southern League pitchers got a boost from the tacky ball, Mena spent most of the time wrestling with the strike zone. In his last 11 starts of the first half, he walked 35 batters and hit four more over 47 innings, the major contributor to a 6.51 ERA. That put him in perilous territory when the return to the standard baseball loomed.
When the second half started, Mena was ... fine. He averaged six innings and two walks a start over seven games, which is where his in-game stamina and control usually puts him. If there was any sign he missed the old baseball, he struck out just 39 batters, but he still managed to post a 3.00 ERA around the extra balls in play. There were some pitchers who struggled to maintain a feel for pitching despite the advantages of the stickier cover, and maybe Mena was one of them.
The White Sox then gave him a taste of Triple-A to end the season, and while it was more bad than good, that's usually the case for players learning how to pitch at Truist Field. He still finished with the most innings (133⅔) and strikeouts (156) in the White Sox farm system, and he won't be able to drink legally in the United States until late December. He's still way ahead of schedule.
Nick Nastrini: While Jake Eder slumped and Ky Bush continued working through things, Nastini was the one pitcher who lived up to the billing after joining the White Sox at the trade deadline. He posted a 4.17 ERA over eight starts split between Birmingham and Charlotte, and while he got into some trouble with walks here and there, he also struck out 54 batters over 41 innings, showing some real swing-and-miss potential with his fastball-slider-changeup combination.
He finished with 114⅔ innings, two shy of the career-high he set with the Dodgers organization in 2022, so there aren't any durability concerns at present. The question is pretty much about whether he can contain his control lapses to throw five-plus innings on a reliable basis, but he'll turn 24 in February and still has a full year before the White Sox have to make a 40-man decision on him, so he's in a good place.
Davis Martin: Martin lost his rookie eligibility last year, but he was supposed to be a part of the White Sox's minor-league depth in 2023, except he only made three starts before tearing his UCL. He underwent Tommy John surgery in May, so he probably won't be back in action until the second half of the 2024 season.
Sean Burke: Besides Martin, Burke was the other high-minors hope to supplement the five-man rotation earlier than later in 2024 season. He had shoulder problems in spring training that effectively delayed his ability to pitch regularly until May and just when he started throwing five innings with regularity, he made his last start on June 10, and spent the rest of the season on the injured list. Ironically, that was just after Matt Zaleski declared him "definitely fully healthy."
