A couple of updates on the White Sox topics of the month...
Over at The Athletic, Eno Sarris also noticed that the White Sox are short multiple starters -- or at least one name-brand starter -- and prescribed Dallas Keuchel for their problems.
Keuchel’s lack of velocity has turned off many of the more data-driven front offices, but there is data that favors Keuchel as well. For example, over the past three years, only a very few pitchers have shown the same consistent command as measured by Stats Perform’s Command+ stat, which aims to put a number on a pitcher’s ability to shape and place the pitch as he intended.
Keuchel can put his sinker and changeup in almost precisely the same locations, and that seems like a bankable skill even if his fastball doesn’t have great velocity. At the beginning of the contract, Keuchel is an underrated No. 2 or No. 3, and at the end of the contract, the hope would be that the other young pitchers have leapfrogged him and he helps eat some innings at the back of the rotation.
That framing of Keuchel's career curve is probably easier to put a positive spin on in theory, because Chris Sale and Jose Quintana leap-frogging a post-surgery John Danks didn't make Danks' salary any lighter to the people who hated watching him, even if Danks found a way to serve a purpose for a couple of years. Then again, any Keuchel contract wouldn't be tied with the inability to retain Mark Buehrle, so perhaps his decline would be received more charitably.
Anyway, Sarris settles on four years and $80 million for Keuchel, along with one year and $5 million for Gio Gonzalez, "a nice veteran who pitched in a tough park last year."
The Twins and White Sox have proceeded through the rumor mill arm-in-arm when it comes to landing spots for starting pitchers, but Sarris avoids putting Keuchel in Minnesota, because unlike the White Sox, the Twins had chances and all the reason to pursue him over the last calendar year and opted not to, so he proposes a trade from their farm depth for Jon Gray instead.
Farm depth. Alas.
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A week after he came to the White Sox in a trade, Nomar Mazara sat down for an introductory conference call on Wednesday. Unless he stood up for it. Who can say.
Mazara said what the guys who haven't yet tapped into their potential usually say -- change is good, best years ahead of him, etc. But he also pointed to a couple of injuries that prevented him from posting at least one season that looked superior to the others.
In 2018, Mazara pointed to a thumb issue that sapped his power on paper. He hit just five homers in the second half after 15 in the first.
"In 2018, when I hurt my thumb, I came back and played like a month, and that wasn't the right thing to do because I was playing hurt and I think I just made it worse," Mazara said. "It wasn't fully healed. I was probably like 50 or 60 percent playing through that."
He battled the same injury in 2019, along with a late-season oblique strain that interrupted a second-half rebound. He hit .287/.320/.539 after the All-Star break, but only in 34 games.
Mazara already drew Avisaíl García comparisons for his inability to get past 20 homers despite possessing what appears to be massive power, and these ill-timed IL stints only strengthen the likeness.
On a lighter note, Mazara said he's known Eloy Jiménez for a long time (they were both seven-figure signings out of the Dominican Republic), and Leury García as well (they overlapped in Texas). He doesn't have as deep of a connection with Jose Abreu, but Mazara said he's talked to him, and "he's a cool-ass dude."
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Ross Detwiler is back on a minor league contract. If things go well, he'll be 2018 Chris Volstad. If things don't go well, he'll be 2019 Chris Volstad.
