All of the talk of trading Liam Hendriks earlier this winter has been erased and replaced by concern, thoughts and prayers as he undergoes treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, but those conversations did condition White Sox fans to the idea of building a bullpen without him.
With pitchers and catchers reporting to Arizona less than a month from now, that practice will have to be put to use. Rick Hahn said the White Sox wouldn't issue an update on Hendriks' potential 2023 timetable until Opening Day, which means that spring training usage patterns will be designed with a different closer in mind.
With Hendriks, the pecking order of the big-picture bullpen was pretty much set, because you don't spend $40 million on a bullpen for uncertainty.
- Closer: Liam Hendriks
- High-leverage: Kendall Graveman, Reynaldo López
- Medium-leverage: Aaron Bummer, Joe Kelly, Garrett Crochet
- Low-leverage: Jake Diekman, José Ruiz
You can quibble with the labels a little bit. Bummer will probably be expected to retire lefties in important situations until Crochet gets up to speed, and maybe Crochet won't even start the year in Chicago as he finishes his recovery from Tommy John surgery, but you get the point. Graveman and López gained some benefit of the doubt after their performances last season, while everybody one notch down needs to repair their track records for one reason or another.
At the bottom, if José Ruiz is the worst reliever around, you have a decent bullpen. If Diekman is the worst reliever in a bullpen, you have a questionable use of $4.5 million.
Now that Hendriks is out indefinitely, that big-picture bullpen is cloudier.
- Closer: Kendall Graveman
- High-leverage: Reynaldo López, Aaron Bummer
- Medium-leverage: Joe Kelly, Garrett Crochet
- Low-leverage: Jake Diekman, José Ruiz, ???
There is again room to shift some players between labels, but now there's a real debate to be had at the top of that list, and an actual question mark at the end of it. These arguments aren't going to be solved by vigorous discussion in January, but it's good to establish parameters for the possibilities while waiting to see what their 2023 forms have to offer.
The back end of the bullpen
Before we get into the discussion about using guys without much closer experience in the ninth inning, allow me a small lecture, or just scroll past the gray box.
AN ASIDE ABOUT SAVE PERCENTAGES
I've seen some dismissing Graveman as closer material because he went 6-for-12 in save situations last year. Here's where you should disregard save percentage for non-closers, because setup men get charged with blown saves for games where they were never going to see the ninth inning.
In this case, five of Graveman's six blown saves came in the seventh and eighth innings he was attempting to bridge for Hendriks. He did blow one traditional save opportunity on July 27 -- the meltdown in Colorado -- but he converted his five other traditional save opportunities without issue, along with a two-inning save that became his game to finish when the Sox pushed the lead out of Hendriks' range in the top of the ninth.
Graveman's 5-for-6 performance in normal save situations for the White Sox in 2022 matches what he did for Seattle in ninth/final innings in 2021 (10-for-12). That's not great, but it's also not abysmal. Basically, 83 percent gets the job done until somebody can do the job better.
(Besides, if you don't like Graveman's 6-for-12 performance in save situations, you're going to hate López's 0-for-5!)
There's a reason to doubt Graveman that ignores save percentage and the "closer mentality" argument that goes along with it. He allows an above-average amount of balls in play for a closer, which sets the stage for an uncomfortable experiment when accounting for the crackdown on shifting.
López's method of attacking hitters stands a better chance of holding up, at least in theory. He features a similarly shrugworthy strikeout rate as Graveman, but he generated twice as many popouts as Graveman, and those are just about as good as strikeouts. (You might flash back to Gordon Beckham hugging Conor Gillaspie's calves, but catchers sometimes fail to block third strikes, right?)
But I'm not going to pound the table for López before the season simply because his stuff has fluctuated greatly, and closer conversations can be cruel. All it takes is a a blown first save opportunity to immediately sow doubt about whether a guy has the right mentality, and I'd rather spend López's early outings confirming that he still possesses the bully fastball that worked so well for him in 2022 before burdening him with all the extra pressure closers face during and after games.
Ideally, either pitcher is fine until he isn't, and maybe they'll have to share the load regardless because of Graveman's issues throwing back-to-back days. The hope is that they won't have to exactly fill Hendriks' shoes, because the combination of a more dynamic offense and a resurgent Kelly-Bummer-Crochet medium-leverage crews makes padding leads a far easier proposition for these White Sox. Hendriks' absence couldn't have been foreseeable in this specific manner, but the Sox should have been planning to make life a little easier for their high-leverage guys even if the entire Plan A bullpen remained intact.
The front end of the bullpen
If the noteworthy incumbents of the White Sox bullpen are all forced to take one step up the leverage ladder, it stands to reason that a vacancy would open at the bottom. The White Sox just selected Nick Avila in the Rule 5 draft and are forced to keep him on the 26-man roster, lest the Giants buy him back. Wouldn't that give him an inside track to the White Sox bullpen, assuming he doesn't look completely overmatched in the spring?
Maybe. There's no point in losing Avila if he looks just as capable as a Matt Foster type. Foster has an option remaining, as does Jimmy Lambert and the recently added Gregory Santos. Tanner Banks has two, and Crochet has all three of his remaining, if the White Sox would prefer to let him work his way back into competitive pitching in the minors.
There are lots of different ways to play with a couple of bullpen spots during the first weeks of the season depending on how the Cactus League unfolds. Perhaps Avila looks every bit like Rule 5 material, and the White Sox return him to the Giants in the self-addressed stamped envelope without protest. Perhaps Avila is needed regardless of performance because the injury bug has eaten through the bullpen like an Emerald Arm Borer.
But in a world where all relievers in the non-Hendriks picture are present and accounted for, Lambert looks like the guy who could make best use of the roster spot. He handled medium-leverage work reasonably well last year if the options above him wobble, and should Kelly/Crochet/Bummer leave little real work to be done, Lambert can resume throwing multiple innings of garbage time, because the Sox lack a traditional long man.
In any scenario, so much of the bullpen's integrity rests on that trio of Kelly, Crochet and Bummer, because closers only matter if leads get to them. Hendriks' absence means they're more important than they used to be, but they were always going to factor into the team's success. The margin for error is merely narrower than it was a month ago, but at least that's something all White Sox relievers should be used to.
