Talking over the pitching staff near the end of February, the White Sox were still only official about Martín Pérez, Davis Martin and Jonathan Cannon being in the rotation. But pitching coach Ethan Katz couldn't suspend the disbelief.
"What he did in those four big league games last year was phenomenal," said Katz. "The stuff is there. He has some of the best stuff in camp, in our organization too. He's got power spin, but the changeup has really [grown]. He showed it in San Diego in one of his last outings and it's something we've really been harping on getting more involved. We've added the sinker, which has been a nice weapon, gotten some ground balls. We're getting a couple things going to change it up, but if he pitches the way he pitched last year, we'll be just fine."
The White Sox don't have a Garrett Crochet lying in wait on their pitching staff this spring -- at least we don't think, since it's not like everyone saw Crochet's 2024 coming -- but in naming Burke as their Opening day starter, the team has once again surprised by opting for the highest upside arm in their rotation, undeterred by the just 19 innings of major league experience.
"I know there are other guys too in the staff that were all kind of eyeing this role," Burke told reporters on Sunday. "You guys see all the talent we have in terms of pitching. I definitely didn’t think anything was going to be given to me coming in here. I wanted to be sharp. I wanted to be on top of my game coming into camp and show I was ready to go pitch in the big leagues. I feel like I’ve done that and then they kind of see that too."
Crochet was so personally buoyed by his shift to starting that leading a rotation during his first year in one quickly felt normal. Such responsibilities don't need to be foisted upon Burke before he grows into it. Pérez's experience and leadership was specifically targeted in the offseason. Martin has had a relatively flawless camp from the team's perspective, is a prime example of the organization's ability to build arsenals around the absence of a dominant fastball, and was heavily considered for the Opening Day role himself.
But when healthy, which he has been over the last nine months, Burke does have that sort of fastball could anchor a front-end starter profile. He averaged 95.3 mph on his four-seamer over his four September outings last season, with his long limbs creating near-elite extension (7 feet on average) and near-elite carry (18.6 inches of inverted vertical break). It's not coming out of some uniquely low or flat angle to make it play up or anything, but Burke has the ability to power his way out of bad situations and choppy execution that won't be readily replicated in the Sox rotation until the likes of Noah Schultz, Hagen Smith and Grant Taylor are around.
And he's been open about learning to build around it, after a long stretch of shoulder issues in 2023 taught him how fraught life can be without your best velocity. Burke's breakthrough to the majors coincided with adding a seam-effects changeup to add a pitch that moves glove side and complements his mix of breaking balls, and now he's added a two-seamer this spring in acknowledgement that he needs to be able to conserve pitches with weak-contact outs to provide starter-level length.
"It's where baseball is going," Burke said. "Start with Gerrit Cole in the playoffs. With the Astros he was a big four-seam guy with breaking balls [off it], but now even he is starting to add a cutter and two-seamer. [Tyler] Glasnow, he's another big four-seam guy who is adding a two-seamer. I think it's the direction that starting pitching is going."
It's fair if Burke's ascent feels like it snuck up on you a bit. He wasn't even in big league camp last year, still ramping up after receiving an offseason injection to address shoulder inflammation that had produced his nightmare 2023 season. Burke was No. 30 on MLB Pipeline's list of top-30 White Sox prospects until the most recent update, and with good reason, as he had been an oft-injured prospect with a career ERA over 5.00 (where it still lies) until emerging from months of rehab work with an impressive finishing kick to 2024.
Thus another Crochet parallel is that Burke's lack of recent professional innings could lead to a taper of his workload at some juncture of the year. While he's reached 108 innings in a season before, it was back in 2022, and Burke has thrown 108⅓ innings combined in the two years since. Katz tabbed the right-hander for a slow buildup in spring, and the close watch of his health won't ease now that he's off and running.
"Probably not as strict because he was a starter before, but definitely the communication has to be at an all-time high," Katz said. "For pretty much all of our guys we have to really have to watch them, but especially with Martin and him. But the experience we got with Crochet with him going from a very small workload to do what he did last year, there could be some minor moments to give him a blow throughout the season."
This is not a typical choice. Just late last July, Burke walked five batters while not getting out of the first inning against Triple-A Nashville, and his place in the majors seemed too distant to project. The White Sox coaching staff believes very sincerely that Burke has the upside to be someone that is eventually trusted to start a playoff game, but to rise to such a honor at such a relatively early stage of his development reflects the state of the team. There is little to no one in the building coming off a sustained run of reliable and successful production, and looking at Burke’s traits and projecting better days than what he’s enjoyed in the past is what is being done up and down the roster. And the honor Burke has received will look measurably different; he’s starting a game between two teams coming off of their worst seasons in franchise history, in front of what will assuredly not be a sellout crowd.
It won’t quite feel like the big-time stage that Opening Day starter implies. But Burke most looks the part of someone who could head up a more anticipated season’s opening one day, and the White Sox need as much as ever to provide a glimpse of a better future.
