2020 White Sox decision review: Front-line starting pitcher

CHICAGO, IL - AUGUST 05: Chicago White Sox pitcher Dallas Keuchel (60) throws a pitch during the MLB game between the Chicago White Sox and the Milwaukee Brewers on August 05, 2020 at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire)

The White Sox entered last winter in dire need of a proven starting pitcher, and fortunately for them, the free agent market provided plenty of options.

Dallas Keuchel was not the first choice of White Sox fans by and large, although given what the Yankees paid for Gerrit Cole, I’m guessing there wasn’t any topping them.

What’s more notable is that Keuchel wasn’t even the first choice of the White Sox themselves. They first directed their energy and resources toward Zack Wheeler, who reportedly spurned a higher offer from the White Sox to take a five-year, $118 million deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. The Sox regrouped and landed one of the market’s top-six starters by signing Keuchel to a three-year, $55 million contract, with a vesting option for the fourth.

Keuchel might not have been a first choice, but he was a fine choice. He posted a 1.99 ERA over 11 starts, in which he went 6-2 and the White Sox 7-4. A late-season bout with back spasms — and a dud in Game 2 of the wild card series after he returned — is the only blemish on an otherwise terrific first year. The signing showed that the White Sox were indeed serious about 2020, and Rick Renteria probably appreciated that seriousness, at least until he didn’t.

Wart and all, Keuchel’s season fits right into the performances of the market’s top starters, two-thirds of whom delivered in their first seasons on their new deals.

THE FIELD

PitcherContractW-LERAIPHHRBBKbWARfWAR
Gerrit Cole9/$324M7-32.8473531417942.21.4
Stephen Strasburg7/$245M0-110.8058112-0.20.0
Zack Wheeler5/$118M4-22.927167316532.92.0
Madison Bumgarner5/$85M1-46.4841.247131330-0.3-0.5
Hyun-Jin Ryu4/$80M5-22.696760617723.01.9
Dallas Keuchel3/$55.5M6-21.9963.152217422.11.8

Cole might not be able to improve upon his runner-up status in Cy Young voting — he had a little trouble keeping the ball in the park — but he ultimately delivered what the Yankees expected of him in the first year.

Strasburg was one of the first indicators that the Nationals weren’t going to replicate their 2019 magic. He missed the first start of the season with a nerve issue in his hand, and while he said he wasn’t “extremely concerned” about it, he was limited to that one delayed outing before undergoing surgery to repair it.

Bumgarner almost finished his first season in Arizona with zero wins to show for it before picking up a victory in his final start of the season. His fastball was three ticks lower than usual, and he missed most of August with a back strain. He did finish the season with a pair of scoreless five-inning outings, or else his numbers would’ve been even uglier.

Ryu overcame a couple of stumbles in July to post a 1.86 ERA across his 10 starts in August and September, which was around the time the Blue Jays found a permanent home in Buffalo. If you’re looking for a nit to pick, he only pitched into the seventh inning once. That came in his final start of the season, when he threw seven scoreless innings against a Yankees team that torched him for three of his six homers he allowed all season the previous time they met. Otherwise, he basically matched his production with the Dodgers from 2019, when he finished second in Cy Young voting.

That leaves Wheeler, whose season was preceded by doubts about how much he’d participate due to COVID concerns pertaining to the birth of his first child. He ended up working around it and threw 11 excellent starts, completing seven innings in five of them.

What’s fascinating is that Wheeler succeeded in a different way in Philadelphia than he had with the Mets. He maintained his 97-mph velocity, but he brought back a sinker for the first time in a few years, and between that and his four-seamer, he ended up throwing fastballs nearly two-thirds of the time. His strikeout rate plummeted five points (23.6% to 18.4%), but his ground-ball rate surged (43.2% to 55.9%) while he maintained a double-digit pop-up rate.

Basically, despite throwing eight miles per hour harder with the opposite hand, Wheeler looked an awful lot like Keuchel:

PitcherGB%BB%K%HR/FB%IFFB%Pit/PA
Keuchel52.86.616.34.714.03.72
Wheeler55.95.618.47.510.03.74

Keuchel (0.28) and Wheeler (0.38) finished 1-2 in fewest home runs per nine innings among qualified starters, and they were both top-five in ground-ball rate among qualifying starters while finishing bottom-seven in strikeout rate.

Also like Keuchel, Wheeler had his own injury scare that cost him a start, but it was of a goofier nature. He ripped his middle fingernail on his pitching hand while stepping into a pair of jeans. He came back to throw three decent starts, although he gave up 10 runs over 20 innings and the Phillies lost all three games.

Nevertheless, Wheeler’s first year in Philadelphia looks like a success. Some Sox fans might have been rooting against him since he rejected their team, but it’s a better reflection of the White Sox’s talent evaluation if both he and Keuchel look worth the investment, rather than the Sox appearing lucky to avoid another dud. I don’t know if the Sox knew they effectively settled for the same guy when they turned to Keuchel, but either one would have done the job.

(Photo by Zach Bolinger/Icon Sportswire)

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ParisSox

I love this free agent acquisition hindsight analysis. More please!

MrStealYoBase

Seems like Bauer is going to throw the one year deal thing out the window and cash in. Can’t blame him, but definitely changes the calculus for the White Sox.

I was happy with Stroman sad an option anyways.

asinwreck

Bumgarner has a chance to be to the Diamondbacks what Jaime Navarro was to the White Sox. Veteran pitcher cheaper than the top of the market (in 1996, Roger Clemens) who is a multi-year disaster from day one.

Eagle Bones

Nick Pollack at PitcherList has talked about this all year: Wheeler’s pitch mix changes are really confusing. Not that he was bad, but he has the stuff to go fourseamer up, breaking stuff down and just dominate and he refuses to do it. Curious if what he did with this allocation was more on him or the Phils (as well as what he would have done if he ended up with the Sox).

Eagle Bones

Funny enough, you could say this same thing for Stroman since his first year. When he came up, he was a lot more fourseam / curve with a ton of Ks (not the velocity that Wheeler has, but he was definitely a power pitcher) and then all of a sudden he turned himself into a sinker / slider guy and the Ks disappeared. I loved him coming up and kept waiting for him to even out his pitch mix a bit, but it never happened.

lifelongjd

Awesome article!

Although Bauer and Stroman might be sexier, I think a reunion with Jose Quintana may be the best option for the Sox. Obviously a familiar face and has some miles on his arm, but most importantly he’s a workhouse that (usually) takes the ball every 5th day and battles to a quality start. There’s a lot of uncertainty at the back end of the rotation that is hard to project for a full season for a multitude of reasons, and signing Q can really go a long way to help mitigate the risk. Having Cease, Kopech, and Dunning compete for 2 spots sounds much better than slotting them into rotation spots with no back up plan.

Plus, it would no doubt twist the knife into Cubs fans and the front office, which is always an added benefit!

shaggy65

I just don’t see Q being the right choice. I love the guy, but he’s a bargain-basement option in a time when we should be shopping on the Mag Mile. Get a potential top-line starter or don’t bother getting one at all.

jhomeslice

I agree with the sentiment of your comment. I maintain that they will have a very hard time winning a championship if Grandal is their biggest free agent signing during their rebuild. They have to get a bigger guy somewhere, and pitching is their greatest need. Obviously there are better starters than Q, and they really should go balls out on Bauer if they want to bring down the house and make themselves AL favorites basically overnight. I can’t see how they would not be if they got him.

But, if they decide to spend on RF rather than pitching and somehow got Springer or Ozuna, Q might make sense because they would not have the budget to get a top starter. And Q would still give them much better depth than they had. I’m not sure what happened to him, but assume he has a good chance to do better upon a return to the Sox than he did with the Cubs.

GoGoSoxFan

Coop’ll fix him. . . oh, wait.

phillyd

I think that last paragraph is a good take to have as a Sox fan. I would expect Wheeler to be better going forward, but it is still looking like a good signing for the Sox.

Off topic. I haven’t been a part of the Reinsdorf bashing before, but I am finally ready to hop on the train if the reports regarding his reasons to block Steve Cohen’s purchase of the Mets is true.