Michael Kopech is the Pedro Grifol of closers.
That sounds like a casual insult or unnecessary sideswipe, but treat it as a thematic pairing covering a pitcher and a manager who see the initial option as the only option. When it stops working as imagined, their instinct counterintuitively leads them to double down. If they were quarterbacks at the Senior Bowl, both would slide down draft boards because every time they face pressure, they never advance beyond the first read.
Since giving up a pair of stunning homers to the Orioles on May 25, Kopech has an even 9.00 ERA spanning 17 games. He's given up 19 hits, along with nine walks and two hit batters. Five of those hits have left the yard, so the league is hitting a Frank Thomas-like .312/.405/.574. He's even balked twice, and for the exact same reason (catching a spike).
As you might expect, this hasn't been a recipe for high-leverage success. Kopech's failure on Sunday, which ended when Jake Burger torched him for a walk-off homer, means he's converted only three of his last seven save opportunities, and he's been the losing pitcher of record in five of those games.
In most cases, you'd think the pitcher would try something different. Garrett Crochet only needed to ditch back-foot sliders to figure out the mix that would put him on a course for his first All-Star Game. Jonathan Cannon's tried a slew of different ideas to make lefties uncomfortable, ending up with a four-seam fastball/changeup combo as the most promising option. Somebody like John Brebbia needs to lead with his slider no matter what, but he and Ethan Katz were able to identify what mechanical flaw wasn't allowing him to hit his spots with it.
With Kopech, he just keeps throwing fastballs. Lots and lots of fastballs. Pretty much only fastballs, including 18 out of 20 against the Marlins on Sunday.
And what's more troubling is that even he doesn't think it's a good idea.
“It’s coming down to what we talked about a lot lately in-house,” Kopech said. “I need to mix my pitches and not just rely on the fastball so much. It’s difficult to do that when I fall behind and my best pitch is my fastball. I have to get back in the count.”
Kopech has tinkered with his primary secondary offering over the course of the season. He opened the season with a bullet-spin slider, but by May, it seemed like he'd figured out a 95 mph cutter that would serve the purpose of looking like his fastball without moving like his fastball. When it comes to application, however, his cutter is only slightly more prominent than his gyro circle forkball, unless that was the pitch he hazarded throwing on both of his balks.
The end result is that Kopech's repertoire is less of an arsenal and more of a cry for help, but Grifol has afforded him no relief. He's pitched six consecutive games in high leverage, bringing to mind Reynaldo López handling the toughest part of every lineup despite a flat fastball and a bout of dead arm the April before last. Grifol eventually gave in and moved him to earlier innings, but the prolonged stretch of high profile failures made him harder to trust and easier to part with. He finished the season with a 1.63 ERA over his final 49 games for three teams, and now he's an All-Star for Atlanta ... as a starter.
Just like López, it's unclear who benefits from this undying, unshakeable faith. Kopech sounds lost. Potential stopgap options like Brebbia aren't afforded an opportunity to showcase some added value, whether for his current team, the trade market, or free agency afterward. Viewers continue to be collateral damage.
If Grifol's handling of Kopech last year is any indication, a demotion is inevitable, but maybe not without one more vote of confidence. One start before the White Sox moved Kopech to the bullpen, Grifol said:
“Him not being a starter is not anywhere close to what we’re thinking and anywhere close to what he should be thinking.”
And upon announcing Kopech shifting to the bullpen for the rest of the year, Grifol said:
“He’s starting next year. You’re not going to read into anything. He’s a starter. He’s going to be a starter. We’re building him to be a starter for next year and that’s how we’re going to approach it.“
It turns out that Kopech isn't a starter, and he also isn't a closer. The problem is that he doesn't even look like an effective pitcher of any stripe, and that leaves the White Sox nowhere else to go when they haven't even tried anything yet.
