The White Sox have activated left-hander Carlos Rodon from the 60-day disabled list and designated righty Chris Beck for assignment, Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times was among those to report.
The 25-year-old Rodon will make his season debut against the Red Sox on Saturday after missing the first couple months of 2018 while working back from arthroscopic left shoulder surgery. Rodon underwent the procedure last September to repair a “significant” case of bursitis that helped limit him to 69 1/3 innings. However, he looked strong during his four-start rehab assignment, including three outings with Triple-A Charlotte, where he pitched to a 1.42 ERA with 22 strikeouts against five walks in 12 2/3 innings.
Rodon hasn’t been nearly that dominant during his major league career, but he has emerged as a solid starter since going third in the 2014 draft. Overall, Rodon has recorded a 3.95 ERA, 9.22 K/9, 3.76 BB/9 and a 45.1 percent groundball rate across 373 2/3 innings. He’s currently making a $2.3MM salary in the first of four potential arbitration-eligible seasons.
Beck, 27, has been a member of the White Sox since they selected him in the second round of the 2012 draft. He debuted in the majors in 2015, the same year as Rodon, but hasn’t been nearly as successful as his teammate. Beck has registered a 5.94 ERA with 6.09 K/9, 4.96 BB/9 and a 42.1 percent grounder rate in 119 2/3 innings (97 appearances, one start). He opened 2018 with 23 2/3 innings of 4.18 ERA ball and 6.08 K/9 against 4.18 BB/9 prior to his designation.
I got a chance to be at his rehab start and he looked really good
It’s about time they cut Beck. Maybe the genius (Cooper) lost his touch
Troll
There were a couple of other options the White Sox might have pursued rather than designating Chris Beck for assignment. In order to open a spot on their 40-man roster for Carlos Rodon. They could have transferred one of their three position players from the 10-day disabled list to the 60-day DL and made it retroactive to the initial placement date of the first list. Two of those players went on the DL last month, Leury Garcia (5/24) and Nicky Delmonico (5/19) and are nowhere near returning to the active roster. Avisail Garcia was placed on the 10-day DL on April 24th and if transferred to the 60-day list retroactively would still be eligible to return to active duty later this month which might be near his return target date with no further rehab setbacks. The White Sox could have also chosen to DFA a few other players including a couple of pitchers off of their 40 man roster. There are also a couple of relievers on the 25-man active roster who could have been degignated but probably felt that Beck would have the best chance of clearing waivers in order to be outrighted to AAA Charlotte.
The main reason that Beck was odd man out is because Carlos Rodon will apparently replace veteran southpaw Hector Santiago in the starting rotation. Santiago can now replace Beck as one of the White Sox long relievers or be used in more high leverage situations later in games. The White Sox also have RHP Chris Volstad available for long duty in the pen. I do believe that the White Sox still see enough in Beck that they would prefer retaining him in their system or they could have simply asked release waivers on him. He did fill a useful role for the White Sox pitching staff this season and wasn’t DFA’d based on poor results.