When the White Sox traded Gregory Santos to Seattle, it marked the third time he'd been traded in his young career, and the third time he'd been traded by a team that employed Brian Bannister as its director of pitching. Twice is a coincidence and three times is a trend, and Baseball Prospectus' Alexandra Whitley took it a step further by speculating about a sort of professional torment.
On the night of September 19, 2023, the news broke that the White Sox were hiring Bannister as Senior Pitching Advisor. (Surely that isn’t a promotion.) Hours later, Santos was placed on the Injured List with elbow inflammation, ending his season. Bannister, I can only assume, couldn’t stand the thought of watching Santos throw another pitch, and right before he would have to see just that, with pitchers and catchers reporting soon, Santos was traded again. He has had three front office and coaching jobs, and traded Gregory Santos three times. This cannot be coincidence; it can only be malice.
If nothing else, it's fun to imagine Bannister as James Mason's Phillip Vandamm in "North by Northwest," harassing Gregory Santos' Roger Thornhill at every stop across the country. Although acting on a personal grudge against a formerly fringe reliever doesn't seem worth charting a life's work around, one could argue that it makes more sense than leaving the Giants to join the White Sox to begin with.
But even if Bannister never left San Francisco, Santos' first week of spring training shows why it made sense to trade him for Prelander Berroa, Zach DeLoach and the 69th pick in the 2024 draft, even though Santos had five years of team control remaining, over which he could theoretically increase his trade value. Ryan Divish of the Seattle Times reported that Santos is experiencing an early setback in his spring program, and apparently not in a way that harkens back to Mike Sirotka.
Santos isn’t dealing with elbow issues. He felt some soreness in the lat/teres major area after throwing a bullpen here in Peoria. Mariners decided to dial it back and slowplay him to spring. https://t.co/RSuUTy5p6R
— Ryan Divish (@RyanDivish) February 15, 2024
Even if Santos finished out the year with the White Sox without the elbow issue, there were reasons for durability concerns. His 66⅓ innings in 2023 represented a career high, because he'd never even thrown 50 in a season. Likewise, his 60 appearances blasted past his previous high-water mark of 35. His workload eased up over the final two months, as his final 14 appearances were spread out over a span of 39 games, but he still couldn't quite get to the finish line.
If the Sox's learned experience from watching Santos up close is "this guy might not be able to hold up," then knowing they could get a potential Santos replacement (Berroa), extra draft capital (the 69th pick, worth $1,074,100 in 2023) and a guy who immediately becomes Charlotte's most promising outfielder (DeLoach) was probably enough of a haul, because any season-opening slowdowns for Santos could have them kicking themselves. From James' conversation with Bannister on Friday morning, the White Sox are trying to convert on a number of "upside surprises" in their pitching staff this season, whereas Santos coming off both a breakout season and an injury could represent the other side of the cliff. It's the same process that led to the Sox dealing Tommy Kahnle in 2017, except they didn't water down Santos' value with expensive, market-value contracts.
Likewise, if the learned experience leads the Sox to have no such fears about Dylan Cease aside from the standard caveat that pitchers can always get hurt, then it makes sense to hold onto him the way Rick Hahn resisted dealing José Quintana for anything less than the right price. It took an extra three months and some uncharacteristic wobbles from Quintana, but the Cubs finally met it, and that's how the White Sox acquired Cease to begin with.
