The White Sox have signed right-hander Daniel Ponce de Leon to a minor league deal, reports Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter link). He’ll head to Triple-A Charlotte as rotation depth.
Ponce de Leon has pitched in parts of four big league seasons. All of his MLB experience has come in St. Louis. A Cardinal draftee, the right-hander debuted in 2018. He remained with the Cardinals through 2021, working to a 4.33 ERA over 147 2/3 innings in a swing capacity. Ponce de Leon punched out a solid 23.2% of opposing hitters but had trouble throwing strikes consistently. He walked batters at a 12.7% clip overall and doled out free passes nearly 14% of the time in his final two seasons there.
Since being cut loose by St. Louis, the 31-year-old has bounced around the league. He signed minor league deals with four different teams last season. Ponce de Leon initially caught on with the Angels but was released in Spring Training. He bounced to the Mariners, Nationals and Tigers to close out the year. He had a tough season at the top minor league level, allowing a 6.52 ERA in 116 innings between those three affiliates. He struck out more than a quarter of opponents but walked 11.4% of batters faced and was quite homer-prone.
Rough 2022 season aside, Ponce de Leon brings a fair amount of upper level experience to the Chicago system. He misses a decent number of bats and can operate in a long relief or starting capacity if the Sox need to call upon him. They haven’t had to dip beyond their top five of Dylan Cease, Lucas Giolito, Lance Lynn, Michael Kopech and Mike Clevinger to this point in the offseason. The depth behind that group is questionable, though, with Davis Martin, A.J. Alexy and non-roster players like Ponce de Leon and the recently outrighted Jonathan Stiever among the potential considerations.
Maybe he can rediscover the fountain of youth.
It’s an idea worth exploring
SELL THE TEAM JERRY!!
How long is their ‘window of opportunity’ going to be open?
He fits Reinsdorf’s budget. He’s using the Sox as a tax loss.
Rather Vasco De Gama or Amerigo Vespucci
There’s actually a soccer team named Vasco De Gama. If it doesn’t work out with the Sox (and it won’t) Maybe he can go form a soccer team and have the de Leones face the de Gama’s. Hot ticket.
Maybe when he all grows up, little Ricky Hahn can trade Ponce De Leon for Chico Bobby Bonilla. Whose walk up music is that great 90s tribute amalgamation, Milli Bobby Brown.
Vasco de Gama sounds like the male snipping procedure gone terribly wrong that will make a vas deferens in one’s life.
Dumpster Divin’ Rick.
I see great things
If he was an artist with paint and canvas maybe. Baseball nah……
The Rick Ross of painters naturally
His control is spotty, his stuff is great, but man, he punched his ticket out of St. Louis when he got into a shouting match in the dugout with Molina after Ponce got hit hard.
I think most Cards fans had been rooting for him until then – he had a horrible incident in the minors where he was hit in the head by a line drive and his life was in danger for a while. To make it back from that was something. I hope the last couple of years have taught him some humility.
Yep, if you are going to mouth off to Molina you had better know your stuff better than him. Daniel is a headcase with decent raw ability that already crossed an industry MAN. The chances of him pulling out of this tailspin are pretty much next to nothing.
Alexy was promising as a rookie, maybe he can get back on track
Was shopping at target and ran into Daniel in the bathing suit section. Wasn’t sure if it was him at first. I actually had his baseball card in my back pocket. I asked for his signature and he signed without hesitation. He actually treated me to a discounted bag of Easter jelly beans. What a hell of a guy
Niice. Always swell when your heroes turn out to be nice guys in public. Which reminds me- Easter candy. CVS run. Bless you MLB trade rumours for refocusing my day
Always wanted ATL to pick this guy up. IYKYK.
After 13 games last year Sox were 6-7.
1 game up on Grifol this year. Yeah TLR was to blame.lol