The White Sox are no stranger to swinging and missing when it comes to reclamation projects in the rotation, but that can be said for most teams. It just might feel like an acute White Sox issue since they had more success with it in the past, and Fernando Tatis Jr. is somewhere else because the Sox missed on their first two attempts to shore up their rotation in 2016.
At any rate, Ervin Santana joined the pile of previously loved starters to fall out of the rotation in short order, even if they were owed a significant amount of money.
| Pitcher | Year | Salary | IP | Last start |
| Ervin Santana | 2019 | $4.3M | 13.1 | April 24 |
| Miguel Gonzalez | 2018 | $4.75M | 12.1 | April 17 |
| John Danks | 2016 | $15.75M | 22.1 | April 28 |
| Mat Latos | 2016 | $3M | 60.1 | June 7 |
| Felipe Paulino | 2014 | $1.75M | 18.1 | April 18 |
While Santana has plenty of company, he does stand out in terms of being healthy. Gonzalez and Paulino's White Sox (and MLB) careers ended on the disabled list, although Paulino's ERA might've been more inflamed than his shoulder. Santana is closer to Danks and Latos in that the Sox didn't see any chance of a stuff resurgence, but the Tatis reference above shows how desperately the White Sox sought improvement.
With Santana, there was no specific pressure to cut him loose. With Manny Bañuelos occupying a fixed rotation spot, the White Sox no longer have an obvious sixth starter. The White Sox said they sent Dylan Covey down to Charlotte to stretch him out, but I sensed it was a euphemism...
... and sure enough, he made a random two-inning relief appearance for Charlotte on Saturday.
That said, Covey is pitching better than anybody not named Dylan Cease, and even Cease has gotten touched up his last two starts as Triple-A's adoption of the streamlined major-league baseball has messed with pitching lines all across the International League.
If the Sox wanted to run Santana out there one more time just as fodder, I wouldn't have wanted to watch it, but I would've understood the point, at least until Lucas Giolito shows he's past his hamstring injury.
Instead, the White Sox showed a surprising unwillingness to humor Santana, and even while he was on the roster. Rick Renteria pulled Santana from his last start one out shy of five innings, even though Santana had thrown just 71 pitches and retired 10 of his last 12. After the start, Rick Hahn cut Santana loose.
Maybe they could've crafted Santana into an underpowered but usable righty in a couple more weeks, but they've seen what kind of interest that generates on the market. Gonzalez yielded Ti'Quan Forbes in 2017, and Shields spent all of 2018 in Chicago. Scott Feldman is a fun case to point to, but he gave the Astros a couple average seasons after the Jake Arrieta trade, so he didn't have that end-of-career scent on him. Also, the need for any starter isn't as crucial at a time where bullpens get mixed into earlier innings on purpose.
The Sox acquired Santana hoping he'd throwing 93 mph once fully recovered from his finger injury. When Santana barely cracked 90 and needed to survive on sliders, the Sox already knew they didn't get the guy they wanted.
If Giolito is fully functional, then hell yeah, Bañuelos is a way better use of the lone remaining rotation spot. He's the primary purpose for turning the page, with the hopes that the Sox can close the door on their random veteran fifth starter phase for a while. If Giolito or anybody else has to go on the DL, the Sox will really have to scramble for innings, but they'd be doing the same thing if they had Santana. The only difference is that they wouldn't care about Santana's feelings during repeated shellings. Going from veterans to rookies requires a little more sensitivity.
Assuming the White Sox rotation isn't found wanting for replacement-level innings from a veteran who can take a beating, then there isn't much of an issue with the failed Santana experiment in isolation. I just wouldn't put it entirely out of mind, because other pillars of Hahn's offseason haven't yet established themselves as good ideas, either. Santana isn't a one-off as long as Yonder Alonso bats under .200 and Jon Jay remains a White Sox only in theory. Under these conditions, Santana is more rule than exception, and his $4.3 million salary is part of a $16 million that could've been better spent during an offseason where every dollar counted.
