Had Mike Clevinger's White Sox career not opened under the cloud of a league investigation into domestic abuse allegations, his signing could've registered as a triumph. The White Sox jumped the market to enter the one-year-pitcher lottery and, performance-wise, emerged with a winning ticket. He made 24 starts, cleared 130 innings, and while his bat-missing stuff from before all the injuries didn't return, he compensated with improved control, resulting in a FIP-defying 3.77 ERA. That feels like a 70th-percentile outcome when playing this particular game of chance.
Had the White Sox not lost 101 games, perhaps Clevinger's performance could have re-framed the discussion about his presence. That kind of season from a fifth starter could tip scales into October for a team on the bubble. One could try to negotiate the internal dissonance by saying that as long as he was around and not finding similar trouble after the league concluded its investigation without imposing disciplinary measures, one member of the 26-man roster should do what he can to help the other 25 get to where they want to go.
But Clevinger's reputation did precede him, and the White Sox were an abject disaster on the field, so while Clevinger's production was worth the contract, there just wasn't much of a point to it.
Even the way the White Sox structured the contract worked against them. Perhaps Clevinger could've been moved at the deadline, or shed via waivers in August for savings, if the White Sox just issued him a standard one-year, $12 million contract. Instead, they paid him in the form of a one-year, $8 million deal with a $12 million mutual option or a $4 million buyout. That's mainly just a fancy way to defer $4 million, but in this case, it deterred shoppers like an adjustable-rate mortgage.
A Clevinger on a standard one-year, $12 million deal would've been owed $4 million after the deadline. With the buyout, Clevinger would've been owed $6.7 million or thereabouts, the equivalent of a $20 million deal over the course of a full year. The surplus value evaporates in that context, especially since nobody knew how he'd rebound from the bicep issue that cost him a month and a half, nor if he'd be worth a postseason start at his best.
So Clevinger spent the whole season with the team, delivering the most watchable starts on average for a team whose fans tuned out, and the guy who signed him -- and struggled when pressed on it by the national media -- was fired.
At least the Sox didn't miss out on a better pitcher by hastily landing Clevinger. Of all the pitchers who settled for a one-year or two-year deal last winter, Clevinger posted the best combination of innings and effectiveness, for whatever that's worth.
The Field
| Pitcher | Deal | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | K | ERA | bWAR |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Clevinger | 1/$12M | 24 | 131.1 | 121 | 16 | 40 | 110 | 3.77 | 3.3 |
| Free Agents | Deal | GS | IP | H | HR | BB | K | ERA | bWAR |
| Quintana | 2/$26M | 13 | 75.2 | 75 | 5 | 24 | 60 | 3.57 | 1.6 |
| Stripling | 2/$25M | 11 | 89 | 104 | 20 | 16 | 70 | 5.36 | 0.1 |
| Manaea | 2/$25M | 10 | 117.2 | 104 | 14 | 42 | 128 | 4.44 | 0.3 |
| Heaney | 2/$25M | 28 | 147.1 | 143 | 23 | 60 | 151 | 4.15 | 1.4 |
| Smyly | 2/$19M | 23 | 142.1 | 147 | 26 | 56 | 141 | 5.00 | 0.0 |
| Lyles | 2/$15M | 31 | 177.2 | 176 | 39 | 45 | 120 | 6.28 | -1.3 |
| Syndergaard | 1/$13M | 18 | 88.2 | 104 | 22 | 19 | 56 | 6.50 | -1.2 |
| Kluber | 1/$10M | 9 | 55 | 69 | 17 | 21 | 42 | 7.04 | -0.8 |
| Gibson | 1/$10M | 33 | 192 | 198 | 23 | 55 | 157 | 4.73 | 0.9 |
| Boyd | 1/$10M | 15 | 71 | 69 | 11 | 25 | 73 | 5.45 | -0.2 |
| Greinke | 1/$8.5M | 27 | 142.1 | 158 | 25 | 23 | 97 | 5.06 | 1.0 |
| Cueto | 1/$8.5M | 10 | 52.1 | 51 | 17 | 15 | 39 | 6.02 | -0.2 |
| Lorenzen | 1/$8.5M | 25 | 153 | 138 | 20 | 47 | 111 | 4.18 | 2.0 |
| Hill | 1/$8M | 27 | 146.1 | 165 | 23 | 58 | 129 | 5.41 | -0.6 |
| Davies | 1/$5M | 18 | 82.1 | 98 | 10 | 39 | 72 | 7.00 | -1.5 |
Basically, only four pitchers come close:
*Michael Lorenzen was only an All-Star because he was the best the Tigers could offer, but he still posted a 3.58 ERA while making every single start during the first half, which was good enough to be sent to the Phillies for 20-year-old A-ball infielder Hao-Yu Lee, which is the kind of prospect the Sox would've been happy to get for Clevinger.
*Kyle Gibson tied for the league lead in starts with 33, and finished sixth in the AL with 192 innings. The rate stats weren't impressive -- for Gibson, they seldom are -- but pair it with Baltimore's offense, and it was good enough to go 15-9. He also topped 100 wins, 100 losses and 10 years of service time for his career. M-I-Z.
*Andrew Heaney couldn't quite replicate his high-fastball success with the Dodgers over a full season with the Rangers, but his regression still proved useful to the eventual American League champions.
*José Quintana missed the first half of the season due to a stress fracture and benign lesion in his rib, but he returned for the second half and looked like a pitcher who's worth another year and $13 million for 2024.
The rest of the field merits a shrug at best, including a couple of San Francisco signings (Ross Stripling and Sean Manaea) who didn't click with Brian Bannister's former organization. Meanwhile, I was so distracted by Jordan Lyles' Year of Wearing It (6-17, 6.28 ERA, three complete games) that I missed Zack Greinke going 2-15, which isn't the way a Hall of Fame career should end.
A number of these pitchers will populate this year's starting pitching free-agent pool, but fortunately there are far more compelling names above them. Maybe the Sox sign one of them as a fifth starter, but there are better candidates to fill the second through fourth spots.
