The White Sox are still reeling from Elbowgeddon. Over at FanGraphs, Dan Szymborski totaled the projected hit from Tommy John surgeries for Carlos Rodón, Michael Kopech and Dane Dunning, and found that the White Sox are now missing a third of the WAR they were expected to generate before succumbing to their UCL tears.
And the Sox can't even really make use of the one benefit severe injuries offer, either. With Rodón and Nate Jones done for the season, the Sox have more flexibility with their 40-man roster via the 60-day injured list, but they have no natural candidates to take those spots.
The one-two punch of Ervin Santana's DFA and Manny Bañuelos' shoulder injury eradicated the immediate depth, and a series of unfortunate events wiped out the Triple-A candidates who were previously poised for an audition of some sort. As it stands, there are no universally acceptable candidates to promote if Bañuelos has to miss any extended length of time.
James Fegan relayed the specifics on Jordan Stephens (fractured left hand) and Spencer Adams (back spasms), although they both had major problems even before they landed on the shelf. They were saddled with the misfortune of starting with pedestrian stuff at Triple-A during a season when the International League adopted the major-league ball and offenses exploded.
The conditions are so rough that even when reaching for organizational pitchers like Jordan Guerrero or journeymen like Donn Roach, the lines are uniformly comical:
| Starter | G/GS | ERA | IP | H | HR | BB | K |
| Stephens | 6/6 | 9.48 | 31.1 | 50 | 8 | 10 | 23 |
| Adams | 5/3 | 8.00 | 18 | 35 | 4 | 8 | 10 |
| Guerrero | 8/8 | 7.82 | 35.2 | 67 | 6 | 20 | 41 |
| Roach | 6/6 | 10.25 | 26.1 | 45 | 7 | 9 | 18 |
That's why the White Sox reached into another team's minor-league depth for Justin Nicolino, and into the independent leagues for Ross Detwiler. And that's how, after striking out 10 over six innings on Tuesday, Detwiler somehow looks like the best immediate cannon fodder when he just got here.
Detwiler peaked in 2012, when he went 10-8 with a 3.40 ERA over 27 starts for the Nationals as a 26-year-old. In the five seasons and six organizations since, Detwiler is 7-20 with a 5.20 ERA. He doesn't get grounders at an above-average rate, his fastball didn't even average 90 mph with the Mariners last season, and he doesn't throw a cutter.
He'd likely take a beating. The difference is that nobody would feel bad if a Detwiler type had to take a beating. It's an extra paycheck for him when it looked like he wouldn't get one again.
People would feel bad if Dylan Cease were to show up underequipped, and perhaps multiple kinds of "bad." Some might feel like the White Sox hung him out to dry by making little effort to stock their pitching depth up top, because ideally a team doesn't want an emergency to force its hand. Also, and it'd be another blow to the façade of the rebuild if Cease needed time to look like he belonged in the big leagues.
But unlike everybody else the Sox could call up, Cease would be the only one who would stand to gain from struggling. Everybody else would stagger and collapse, leaving another random junkballer to pick up the colors. If the Sox are only going to get four or five laborious innings from a pitcher no matter which way they turn, Cease could at least use the experience for something. John Danks made the most of a trying rookie season in 2007, coming back with a cutter to combat the hard contact. The following year, Danks was a prominent part of a postseason team after a 90-loss season.
Given that Cease's last two outings have been compromised by rain, I understand why the Sox might want to let him have at least one normal one before calling him up. But maybe there aren't normal nights to be had in Triple-A under these conditions. And unlike Kopech, Cease has already had a Tommy John surgery. If he becomes the latest pitcher to succumb to the UCL menace, then the Sox have bigger problems on their hands than service time. Add it all up, and if Charlotte is going to be such a meat grinder, maybe this is the time to attempt a promotion that would seem premature in other seasons.
While we're thinking of starters, three more technically valid ideas that would be more inspired than Detwiler:
Dallas Keuchel: He's right there if the White Sox want to improve their rotation, especially since Dylan Covey needs to be replaced, too. With three weeks until the draft, the Sox might already have that second-round money spent. When considering a second-round pick like Adams, Keuchel would figure to contribute more to a team.
James Shields: Ken Rosenthal wrote about Shields last week, noting that he and Keuchel are the only pitchers who didn't find jobs after 200-inning seasons. Unlike Keuchel, money isn't getting in the way -- teams just don't want to guarantee him a job. The White Sox rotation is what it looks like when innings are taken for granted.
Kyle Kubat: In 2012, the White Sox promoted a relatively obscure lefty from Birmingham after nine successful starts when the rotation needed help. He went on to throw four consecutive 200-inning seasons, make an All-Star team and get traded for Cease and Eloy Jiménez. Kubat is three years older than Jose Quintana was at the time, but Kubat's having that kind of randomly great season, going 4-0 with a 0.84 ERA over seven starts between Winston-Salem and Birmingham so far. His spray chart says he's been a little lucky on fly balls, but the addition of a slider gives him something to point to besides crafty lefty fortune:
Dash pitching coach Matt Zaleski began encouraging Kubat to throw the slider in games when he joined the organization. The pitch gradually improved and came to life during the offseason, when the southpaw was able to find its potential in the strike zone.
"He's one of those guys, if he throws a fastball in, he's got a slider to [throw off a right-handed hitter's] back foot if he wants ... after that fastball in," Zaleski said. "The tunneling of pitches for him, having a four-pitch mix with four solid pitches, is what allows him to get early contact, strikeouts and ground balls."
Would trying Kubat be a reach? Oh, almost certainly, but if all non-Cease pitchers have the same roulette-like odds of success, going with Kubat feels like betting a $10 you found on the ground.
