For all Lucas Giolito has accomplished during his remarkable turnaround, he hasn't quite able to show that he can log 200 innings a season. He was on a 195-inning pace for 2020, but prior to that, he'd topped out at 177 innings in 2019.
While Dallas Keuchel led the league with 232 innings during his Cy Young season in 2015, he's struggled to turn in a complete season since. He's only made 30 starts in one of his last five seasons, and while his last two seasons were abbreviated for reasons beyond his control, he had to miss a turn with back spasms during 2020's two-month schedule.
Enter Lance Lynn, whose durability the last two seasons was a major point of emphasis during the Zoom call announcing the White Sox's acquisition of his services.
Rick Hahn stressed it:
"In Lynn, we feel we're able to serve both those masters, in getting a guy who not only -- again, I'm very cautious of the baseball gods when I speak like this -- but a guy who traditionally has been able to provide you reliable bulk innings and, in a normal season, provide you with a reasonable projection of 200 innings of us, but also provides front-end quality based on what he's been over the last couple years."
And Lynn said the same thing when discussing his preparation during an uncertain winter:
"For me it's status quo, just like it was during the pandemic last year. My goal is to get myself, my body and my mind right to lead the league in innings, starts, pitches thrown and all that good stuff."
Lynn may not look like the model of durability, but indeed, he leads all of baseball in those categories since the start of the 2019 season (runner-up in parentheses):
- Innings: 292.1 (Shane Bieber, 291.2)
- Starts: 46 (tied with Aaron Nola)
- Pitches: 4,961 (Trevor Bauer, 4,852)
Lynn addresses deficiencies big and small with the White Sox rotation. The Sox maybe didn't need a pitcher of Lynn's caliber, but they could use somebody with Lynn's ability to complete six innings, and most starting pitchers who make that routine are getting Cy Young votes nowadays. If he can deliver on his past performance, he lowers the demands made on whatever other starter candidates the White Sox acquire this winter, along with Michael Kopech, Dylan Cease, Reynaldo López, as well as the bullpen.
Hahn said the White Sox's interest in Lynn goes back to Lynn's late 2017 improvement with the Minnesota Twins and New York Yankees, but during that period of intentional losing, the Sox weren't willing to spend anything close to the three years and $30 million on a pitcher, which is what the Rangers signed him for. Instead, the Sox had to send a well-regarded prospect in Dane Dunning to acquire Lynn on the last year of that deal.
PERTINENT: Lance Lynn is a great start, as long as White Sox don't stop short
I don't think anybody foresaw Lynn turning in a pair of Cy Young finishes, but Lynn made his improvement on the Zoom call sound relatively simple.
"I learned the things that I was good at, and always been good at, how to use them more."
After a laugh, and another question, he elaborated:
"It was crazy. I've had a pitching coach I've used in (Indianapolis), Jay Lear, since I was 12 years old, and we knew that my four-seam spin rate was good, and I was like, "Well why don't we just throw everything off that?" And he goes, "Yeah."
"Then when I moved to the rubber where it felt comfortable, where I could repeat everything, and then everything else played off that, instead of trying to manipulate sinkers and stuff like that, it was going back to doing what you do, what feels confident, what you can repeat and then make everything else work off that."
Lynn can still sink and cut it, and between that, his durability and his build, he strikes me as a little bit of a Bartolo Colón, who succeeded into his 40s with his command of his fastball variety. Hahn said he wouldn't discuss the possibility of an extension at the moment, but if they did lock him up into his mid-30s, perhaps it's because they see something similar.
Lynn doesn't speak with a whole lot of enthusiasm and inflection, but he sounded beyond boilerplate excited to join the White Sox and reunite with Tony La Russa, under whom he had a successful introduction to the big leagues.
He broke in as a rookie in the St. Louis bullpen, posting a 3.12 ERA with 40 strikeouts to 11 walks over 18 games and 34⅔ innings. He also pitched in 10 of the Cardinals' 13 final postseason games, as part of a deployment that Lynn said would fit in today's game.
"I think a few things have changed over the past nine years, but he was kind of ahead of his time when he was doing his thing. I remember when I was a rookie and we were in the playoffs (in 2011), he used the bullpen more innings than the starters, but that was just because we had to.
"He was doing it because he could feel the game. He knew what guys were capable of, and he put guys in the best situations. So, if you're able to do that with all the stuff that we have at our disposal now that weren't there 10 years ago, I think you're looking at the ability to have a lot of success, and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes."
(Lynn wasn't asked about La Russa's DUI charge, and Hahn once again dodged comment, maintaining that the White Sox wouldn't offer any statement until the legal process is resolved. Here's where I'll note that we're approaching $700 raised for the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists through purchases of the Hall of Famer Baseball Person t-shirts, and we're down to our final 11 shirts.)
Add it all up, and it seems like Lynn should work out. Standard caveats regarding pitcher health apply, a point Rick Hahn acknowledged in a quest to avoid karmic retribution, but the White Sox have the right idea behind this rental pitcher, and Lynn very clearly understands the terms of the arrangement.
"Right now, I'm on pace to be ready for a normal spring training, and do everything I can to be prepared to throw 200 innings, 33, 34 starts, and on into the playoffs, because that's why they got me."
(Photo by Andrew Dieb/Icon Sportswire)
