After months in the baseball purgatory that is rehabbing at the team complex in Arizona, almost a year removed from his last Triple-A appearance, and with a relatively rare chance to pitch in front of his grandparents, White Sox prospect Sean Burke only had one special request for the Charlotte Knights clubhouse attendant: He needed a different number. Any number. Just not the No. 45 he wore last season.
"I'm not going to be picky, but it just can't be the same number as last year because last year's number has bad mojo," Burke said in a phone call. "He texted me back 'What do you got on No. 99?' I was like 'Let's roll with it, I'll be different.'"
Enjoying how the No. 99 looked draped over his 6-foot-6-inch frame, the 2021 third-round draft pick struck out eight in three electrifying innings of work last Friday night. After shoulder soreness and diminished velocity dominated a 2023 season that was expected to see his major league debut, Burke topped out at 98.5 mph with his fastball and generated whiffs with four different pitches.
With how much time he spent facing swing-happy complex hitters in rehab outings on backfields, Burke's command wasn't quite where he hopes it will be soon. He was built up to four innings, 60 pitches on the backfields, so he's hoping to add an inning per start over the next few weeks. But after a year of feeling out of whack, Burke's signature curveball was there when he reached for it. He finished the game healthy, he felt strong.
"It was an awesome night," Burke said.
The White Sox fan base that wound up growing familiar with Jesse Scholtens last year was supposed to spend that time getting acquainted with Burke. Even when he was still the farm director last year, Chris Getz spoke openly about expecting Burke to emerge as a call-up option for the Sox rotation. That was especially true when Davis Martin went down with Tommy John surgery early in the year, but the version of Burke that the Sox were excited about didn't survive spring training intact.
Burke underwent Tommy John surgery when he was at the University of Maryland, and health concerns are part of why he slipped to the third round despite a more athletic and compact delivery than his towering frame would suggest. But he'd never dealt with shoulder pain before. His start to the 2023 was delayed, and when he returned, the low-90s velocity was only part of the story of how off he was, racking up a 7.61 ERA at Charlotte with 27 walks in 36⅓ innings.
"It's tough to find good things out of last year," Burke said. "It was a little bit of a struggle because I had never dealt with [shoulder pain] before. I didn't know what was going to help it or hurt it. A lot of it, too, was some trial and error, just trying out different methods of rehab and seeing what was working and seeing what wasn't. I think that definitely added some time to the process, whereas looking back now with the information I know, I probably could have bounced back a little bit quicker. But with hindsight, it's easy to say that."
Ultimately Burke got an offseason injection his shoulder aimed to address the inflammation, with a six-week break from any throwing that ended in mid-January. His present state of being up to 60 pitches is where he's at in the build up from that. Burke said it's tough to take good things out of 2023, and spending a season trying to push through not feeling right to chase an opportunity he felt was within his grasp. But in speaking to the 24-year-old at length and listening to him talk about his shoulder care program at length, there are three reasons why I'd disagree.
"I'm really understanding that if I want to do this and do this for a long time, I really have to take care of my body," Burke said. "Be super-detailed oriented about how I'm taking care of my body, what I'm putting into my body. I wouldn't have put as much of an emphasis on it this offseason if I didn't have these injuries this past year. I made some changes to my diet, some changes to the supplements I'm taking, how I'm working out, how I'm warming up, how I'm recovering."
As the results clearly bear out, Burke's work on a bullet spin slider or refining his changeup didn't overcome the absence of his best stuff or command last year. But the experience drove home a point that might taken longer to appreciate if he was sitting 98 mph all season.
"Even though last year was probably the worst year of baseball in my life, I was able to take away, 'This didn't work and why didn't it work?'" Burke said. "Talking to my coaches and different pitching guys about this, we see now in the game that fastballs are kind of the worst pitch in baseball no matter how hard you throw them. You see guys who throw 100 mph get banged around with their fastball. Last year, not really having the best fastball taught me to rely more on my offspeed stuff. That's something I put a big emphasis on this spring is even when I have my best fastball, lowering my fastball usage percentage a little bit."
And with all the turbulence in the White Sox rotation, with mutiple members likely to be traded by the end of next month, Burke could easily feel like he's right back in a spot to get the call-up he thought was possible last year. And sure, he'd like that very much. But that's not quite the way he'd like to approach it this time.
"The hardest thing on me mentally was knowing if I was in a position to go out and be myself, that could be a possibility," Burke said. "But then having all the injuries and the struggles happen to me, and I'm sitting on the couch late in the season and I'm not even pitching, and that was racing through my mind all the time. That got me in a tough spot mentally.
"But getting back home, seeing my family ... this is the first time I went home to Massachusetts, spent some time with my parents, spent some time with my friends, my trainers from back home for a good chunk of the offseason. I was able to get out of my head and focus on being more positive, being around my family and friends. Going into this year I'm in a much better spot. I'm really not trying to worry about getting called up and what goes on with that. My main priority is taking things day by day, staying healthy and trying to have success with where I'm at."
