Ethan Katz on piecing together the 2025 White Sox rotation
At 21.1 percent, White Sox starting pitching had the fifth-worst strikeout rate in baseball last year, and it would be contractually and socially inappropriate if Garrett Crochet or Erick Fedde walked through that door.
They also had the sixth-worst ERA- (a FanGraphs run environment-adjusted figure) as a group with those two pitching at an All-Star level, which nods to why pitching coach Ethan Katz points to the growth potential in simply getting a lot of guys who were debuting in the majors last year to be more consistent.
“We are not the biggest swing-and-miss group there is,” Katz said in a phone call. “Garrett Crochet was the best in the business at being able to get swing-and-miss. Dylan Cease was the best in the business at getting swing-and-miss. It’s hard [to replace] guys who have elite, elite weapons. But we’re hoping that some of our young guys getting their footing, getting into better counts, we should be able to miss a little bit more bats than we did last year.”
Hope springs eternal in spring training!
One of the problems with lacking pitchers with swing-and-miss stuff is it means you’re relying on the defense. And the Sox don’t have a very good defense. Robert will be good if healthy, we know that. Fletcher is good, but needs to hit enough to earn a spot. Meidroth is probably acceptable, but average at best. If Rojas gets to start, 3B will be covered well. Lee, for being a glove-first C, struggled defensively last year. And AB, AV, and RF’s not named Fletcher were terrible. Pitching to contact only works well if pitchers can keep the ball largely on the ground and have a good defense to back them. By my count, there are only 2 positions the Sox can count on being well-defended, and one of them, 3B, is still up in the air depending on how much leash they give Vargas.
Were I Katz, I’d focus on handing out fewer free passes. Sox gave up 643 walks last year, most in MLB by 42 and just shy of 4 per game. All those extra runners put more pressure on a defense that’s already likely to be below average. It’s like our Little League coaches used to tell us, “Just throw strikes. Everything starts with throwing strikes.”
I don’t know that we can take Robert’s defense being plus as a given any more. Sure, I’d bet on him being more good than bad, but given the number of lower body injuries he’s accumulated in such a short amount of time, I’m not sure that even fully healthy we can expect him to be a Gold Glove caliber defender ever again.
Even if it’s not Gold Glove caliber anymore (I think he still can be), Robert is at least a plus defender in center
He could be, but would it be so surprising if he’s so physically compromised at this point that he isn’t? Like, not just the diminished athleticism, but the hesitance that comes with repeated injuries and playing through pain.
What is Jordan Leasure’s status? He was a potential future piece before it all blew up in his last 5 appearances (4-1/3 IP, 12 H, 3 BB, 0 K, 13 ER). He was shut down mid-July.
I’ve written him off at this point. Going back to college, he’s had more failed seasons than successful ones. Maybe he can reinvent himself with a different pitch mix, but his lack of command will hamper him unless he can figure that out.
Nastrini is in the same boat – since he moved up from Rookie ball and Low-A, he hasn’t had a single season that anyone can consider a success. Again, the lack of command over his pitches is his downfall.
Having said that, the trade for these two is exactly the type of thing the Sox need to be doing. Hopefully the increased presence of analytics in the front office and better hires near the top will return useful players instead of good teams like the Dodgers taking advantage of a bottom-feeder.
Somebody posted a picture of Nastrini’s fastball spray chart on Bluesky and…yuck.
He pitched on rehab assignment in September with Charlotte and the Trackman numbers on his heater looked devastating there (touched 98 mph, 18 IVB, 35% in-zone whiff). The location of his off speed stuff still is inconsistent and his mechanics/arm slot fell of whack a lot in 2024, but dominating fastball is still the first thing I would pick if I were building a single inning reliever. He’s 26 and the consistency/breaking ball development hasn’t been a turnkey process, but easy to see him claiming a larger role.
Thanks. I’d love to see him put it all together. I sure enjoyed watching him in April.
Can’t teach velocity, and he wouldn’t be the first guy with a lightning fastball who developed control late. Hardly a given, but with where the team is at, still worth exploring.
Reading this interview made me wonder if Katz’s dad has an ultimate set of tools.
Pรฉrez signing official. Marinaccio (aka guy I donโt remember them picking up but was mentioned a few times on Sox Machine podcasts) DFAed.
I had to look him up as well, waiver wire pick up from the Yankees.
Marinaccio was someone I was hoping that turned out to be an unpolished gem in the ruff. Bullpen arm that finally figured it out. Heโs very talented, with a good arm. Hope he makes it through waivers, but I doubt it.
Thanks James!
Why is Scholtens still around?
Because at 0.0 WAR in 0 games playing for the league minimum for the 2024 White Sox he was one of their most cost-effective players. Heck, they paid ten times that much for their best catcher (Max Stassi) to provide the exact same production.
Multi-generational curse got him i hear, very sad
Not a big deal but I would have preferred they DFA Scholtens who already had his chance at the bigs and would’ve likely passed thru waivers as he rehabs from TJ.
“It is hard to replace guys with elite, elite, weapons.”
Which is why this team has traded three such pitchers in roughly eight years.
Not only the three I think youโre referring to, Sale/Cease/Crochet. We let Rodon leave, he got better. Gio still has potential to be very good. And the the guy we truly misused, Reylo, turned into a great starter when Atlanta tuned him up properly.
I only didn’t include Rodon because he wasn’t traded and I don’t think there was a chance he re-signed here.
But…. prospects!
Let’s keep our fingers crossed that this rotation ends up being halfway decent.
I think that Katz has been over-rated a bit by many fans. Kopech was dominant with the Dodgers and rather helpless with us this past season.
Sabathia and Wagner both got voted into the HoF. I’m not really a believer that Buehrle should be a Hall of Famer (even though he was one of my favorite players), but his career was pretty similar in a lot of ways to Sabathia. I think Wagner getting in is just dumb.
And one moron didn’t vote for Ichiro. What in the world?
I prefer to think of it as 99.7% of increasingly fickle human beings agreed he’s a Hall of Famer.
I always took you for a glass half full guy.
I’m a naturally cynical and pessimistic person and sometimes I do my best to fight against my immediate impulses.
The one delightful aspect to Ichiro’s vote total is it pairs him with Jeter. Why is that delightful? Because it allows me to quote this anecdote:
Heโs more than a little similar, heโs actually better in a lot of ways than Sabathia. 59 WAR over 16 years for Buehrle, 62 over 19 for CC. Better defender. More consistent. The only thing CC has is strikeouts. So because Buehrle induced weak contact and stayed in games longer heโs punished. CC has the wins advantage but if Buehrle stuck around 3 more years getting 12 wins per season they would be about even there. Both 1 ring.
Meanwhile Billy Wagner gets in. HoF is pretty much a joke. Itโs not news I know.
You forgot that CC also played for the Yankees.
I think that’s a bit of an over-simplification. Sabathia certainly had a better peak than Buehrle, and yes, more strikeouts, but also had impeccable control in his prime, twice leading the league in K/BB. In his later years he had to deal with diminished stuff (whereas Buehrle never had stuff to diminish) but he made adjustments to stay relevant until the very end and was admirably durable in his own right.
Also, I’m willing to give him bonus points for calling out Tony La Russa and the “weird-ass Minnesota Twins” after the Yermin Mercedes 3-0 homer debacle.
CC also has a Cy Young Award and four other top-five finishes. Sabathia has the superior peak argument.
Maybe, but Buehrle has the 14 consecutive 200-inning seasons. Christy Mathewson, Warren Spahn, Gaylord Perry, Greg Maddux, Phil Niekro and Don Sutton are the only others to do this. Buehrle is the only pitcher whose entire MLB career occurred in the bullpen-happy 21st century to accomplish this feat.
Plus, Buehrle had the perfect game, the additional no-hitter, the heroic save in the World Series the very next game after a seven-inning start and a better career ERA+ than Sabathia.
If Buehrle had pitched 10 years for the Yankees and Sabathia had pitched his entire career for the Sox while compiling same numbers that they did, the Hall of Fame voting would have been much more favorable to Buehrle and much less favorable to Sabathia than it was today.
The East Coast bias is very real.
Buehrle was a rock; steady and reliable in a way that was uncanny and that we are unlikely to see again.
Sabathia was dominant and, for much of his career, similarly reliable. Buehrle is definitely underappreciated, but I don’t think Sabathia is comparatively overappreciated or that his inclusion somehow implies Buehrle needs to be elected alongside him.
Jim has talked about it multiple times that Petitte and Buerhle are much more similar comps, and I tend to agree. I’ve always thought CC a tier above those guys, even when he was with Cleveland.
If AP gets in, I think the case for MB has to be taken seriously. (Full transparency – I personally don’t think either is a HOFer)
Well, here we are in the midst of another offseason in which teams on the coasts are doing things and the Sox signed Austin Slater. Donโt be mad at the east Coast. Be mad at the Sox owner who is OK with being irrelevant.
I do hear the superior peak argument. Itโs valid. I just think the voters are wildly inconsistent in their application of those rules. CCโs peak was maybe 6 dominant years. He was ok before it. Pretty much fall off the earth after it. But then we hear Andruw Jones isnโt in because he played his way out of it? Jonesโs peak was greater and his fall off shorter. Jones was more of an elite player for longer.
While I hear the peak argument, the Cy Youngโs arenโt as meaningful to me because they are subject to the same bias as the hof process. I just plucked the 2010 voting, and it highlights the issue. CC and Verlander had pretty much the same year. You could argue Verlander was better with more complete games, strikeouts and a lower whip. CC finished 3rd. Verlander finished 11th with 1 vote. Verlander was behind Jokim Soria, who closed games for the 95 loss Royals. Buehrle had 2 – 5+ war seasons and a 6 war season, never even got down ballot consideration.
To think that Johan Santana had two CY Awards and better peak than CC. Yet, he was one and done.
Santana got done dirty. Should never have been a one and done. But longevity matters a great deal, which is something he unfortunately didn’t have.
Led the League (maybe even the Majors) in walks at least two years running. Could never get any of the multiple bullpen pitchers through the years to have at least one very good season like most other teams seem to get โluckyโ on. Lopez and Kopech immediately pitch well after being traded. Iโm not holding my breath for any of the Sox young pitchers to dominate under Katzโ tutelage. I guess, just like in life, itโs who you know and not how you do, proving loyalty can be a bad trait at times. I will say the Sox lead the League in loyalty. Think Daryl Boston.
Tony La Russa played a big role in retarding Kopech’s and Crochet’s development by his insistence on using both to fulfill his bullpen fetishes. Tony also moved Lopez into a swingman (2021) and then a reliever (2022), after five seasons as a starter. Lopez regained lost ground once he returned to his starting role in Atlanta.
On the flip side, Katz did a lot for their four biggest recent successes (Giolito, Cease, Rodon and Crochet). Not sure why he gets such a bad rap, especially considering the Sox dumping everyone Katz turned around. I consider Katz as one of the best White Sox coaches during my lifetime.
I can’t think of a single significant contribution Daryl has performed. Seemed to be Jerry’s personal rehabilitation project. Katz came in from the outside, recruited by Giolito. His signing and stay is the opposite of Boston’s post playing career tenure with the White Sox.
Pretty sure Boston is close friends with Kenny Williams.