Erick Fedde is on the White Sox and is getting effective results, so in that sense it's like 2024 all over again.
Through seven outings and 38 innings, he's posted a 3.79 ERA with a 4.03 xERA based on the quality of contact he's yielding, which is not out of the realm of the 3.11 ERA and 3.77 xERA he compiled in 121⅓ innings in 2024, and Miguel Vargas is making it look like the 2026 White Sox are benefitting from both showings.
But he's also clearly not the same Fedde as '24. His contact (83.3 percent) and strikeout rates (15.5 percent) better resemble his difficult 2025 season than his past Sox tenure, and while he's doing an OK job limiting hard contact overall in a way that xERA appreciates, eight home runs allowed in a short time frame is why his FIP (5.77) is two runs higher than his ERA and portending trouble on the horizon.
Moreover, while Fedde's cutter and sinker -- two fastball varieties that moved in opposite directions -- dominated his four-pitch mix two years ago, every post-start interview this season has been some version of retelling how he leaned on his sweeper through his outing. Restoring the action and deception on the pitch has been the first real breakthrough of his spring efforts to make his delivery more linear, but now he's just throwing the low-80s bender a career-high 37.8 percent of the time, way more than anything else in his arsenal.
| Pitch Type | 2024 Usage | 2026 Usage |
|---|---|---|
| Sinker | 30.0% | 24.4% |
| Cutter | 30.8% | 25.7% |
| Sweeper | 20.3% | 37.8% |
| Splitter/Change | 18.9% | 11.3% |
It's not getting a lot of whiffs (22.1 percent miss rate is down three points from '24), but opponents are currently batting .155 against it. So how it slots in with his delivery changes, leaguewide trends away from fastball usage, all that high-minded theory is for the birds; Fedde is mostly trending this way because it's been getting him through outings.
"The name of this game is get outs and go on to the next one, so whatever can get me outs, I'm just sticking with that," Fedde said. "We chase success. When you're having success with something, you're going to lean on it. I think that has some affect on it. I feel like in any count, I can throw [my sweeper] for a strike, so that's definitely a reason to use it. It's just seeing a lot of the swings I'm getting on it and I'm getting a lot of outs on it, so just continue to do what's working."
For someone who had a '25 season as rough as Fedde's, there's a clear logic to just running the play that works until the game tells him otherwise, but the White Sox are certainly cognizant of the need to get some corresponding offerings going, if only to sustain the effectiveness his sweeper has had.
"It is a really good pitch for him," said pitching coach Zach Bove. "He feels a ton of confidence in it, so we're going to lean on that. But it's just understanding when is too much, right? The big thing for him the last couple starts has been the sinker, command and execution. We feel like if we get that dialed in, it not only makes the sweeper better, but it takes stress off that pitch."
When Fedde was a first-round pick all the way back in 2014, it was off the strength of his long, lean and projectable frame and good command of a mid-90s sinker, which he threw over half the time when he first debuted in the majors. He's old enough to note that the slurve he threw at the time probably was a sweeper, before there was a common name to describe it, so the way he's pitching at the moment doesn't register as an absurd evolution from where he's first started.
Instead, he just wishes the younger version of himself had the confidence to build his attack plan around what the hitters are telling him, which is what he's all about now.
"In '24, I faced the Tigers the second time, and they came out and scored two on me in the first," Fedde recalled. "Their plan had completely changed from the first time I faced them, they're looking all out, away instead of the first time they weren't. And then we started throwing hard in for the rest of the game. And I don't think I gave up a run after the first inning. If you're talking about telling your 25-year-old self something, it would be read the swings a little bit. Those guys have coaches, those guys have plans, they're coming out there usually with a game plan against you. It's how quickly can you identify it?"
From that first-hand experience, Fedde is pretty sure the proliferation of sweepers that have kept his head above water thus far won't be the exact formula that carries him through the rest of the season. So while the sweeper's success rate might be the defining for Fedde's next outing, the mid-week work focuses on building out other escape routes that he'll need for more repeat encounters, like Tuesday night's visit from the Royals.
"At times the delivery, it's a little out of whack on the sinker, and really the changeup," Bove said. "It's just finding maybe some different feels, cues with th sinker and the changeup to make sure those pitches have the right movement, but also the execution piece. Because if he can execute [the sinker] back door, to the righties, and then up and into the lefties, it helps kind of spread the plate out more."
