June 11: The White Sox have officially announced Thorpe’s selection today. Left-hander Sammy Peralta was optioned to open a spot on the active roster. To open a spot on the 40-man, right-hander Dominic Leone was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Leone was put on the 15-day IL about three weeks ago due to inflammation in his throwing elbow and it now appears the Sox aren’t expecting him to return in the near future.
June 9: The White Sox are planning to promote top pitching prospect Drew Thorpe to the majors on Tuesday, manager Pedro Grifol told reporters (including James Fegan of SoxMachine). The right-hander will make his MLB debut against the Mariners in Seattle.
Thorpe, 23, was the headliner of a four player package the White Sox received from the Padres in the deal that sent ace righty Dylan Cease to San Diego back in March. It was the second time Thorpe had been traded that offseason, as the Padres acquired Thorpe from the Yankees as part of the Juan Soto package back in December. As one might expect from a prospect that was part of the return for two superstars in separate blockbusters during the same offseason, Thorpe is a consensus top-100 prospect in the sport. The righty currently ranks #41 at Baseball America and #54 at MLB Pipeline.
Prospect evaluation services universally praise Thorpe’s excellent command, ability to eat innings, and the devastating changeup that he complements with a 92-94 mph fastball that’s generally regarded as average and a average-or-better slider that sits in the mid-80s. Aside from his three main pitches, BA also notes that Thorpe mixes in a high-80s cutter and a low-80s curveball. That arsenal allowed the 2022 second-rounder to tear through the lower minors during his first taste of professional ball with the Yankees last year. Thorpe dominated to the tune of a 2.81 ERA with a 32.4% strikeout rate in 18 starts at High-A last year before earning a late season promotion to Double-A.
Thorpe’s star really began to rise with that promotion. The then-22-year-old impressed with a sparkling 1.48 ERA across five starts. The righty racked up a whopping 44 strikeouts in just 30 1/3 innings of work while walking just five. Punching out 40% of batters faced while walking just 4.5% in your first taste of Double-A action is a surefire way to get plenty of attention, and so it’s hardly a surprise that both the Padres and White Sox front offices coveted Thorpe enough to make him a key piece of the trade returns for their star players.
Upon joining the White Sox organization, the right-hander returned to Double-A for the start of the 2024 campaign and has continued to dominate hitters at the level, with similar surface-level numbers in 11 starts this season to his five-start taste of Double-A last year. Thorpe has pitched to a 1.35 ERA in 60 innings of work this year, though his strikeout rate has dipped to a more pedestrian 25% this year while his walk rate has crept up to 7.6%. Even with those diminished peripherals, however, Thorpe has more than proved himself capable at the Double-A level and figured to be in line for a promotion in the near future.
What’s surprising, then, isn’t so much the promotion but that he will skip Triple-A entirely and jump directly into big league action. The White Sox optioned right-hander Nick Nastrini to the minors earlier today, leaving them with just a vacancy in a starting rotation that lost Mike Clevinger to the injured list and now features only Garrett Crochet, Erick Fedde, Chris Flexen, and Jonathan Cannon. Rather than call up a veteran at the Triple-A level such as Chad Kuhl or Touki Toussaint to fill out the rotation, the White Sox will instead turn to Thorpe in a bold move to get the righty a taste of big league action.
It’s a decision that could come with financial implications for Thorpe, as he’ll be in a good position to earn a fourth arbitration year as a Super Two player if he remains with the big league club going forward without returning to the minor leagues. Thorpe could theoretically earn himself a full season of service time by finishing in the top 2 in AL Rookie of the Year voting this season, although that would be quite the feat given the massive head starts afforded to players like Luis Gil of the Yankees and Mason Miller of the A’s who have been dominating in the majors all season.
What happened to Thorpe pitching in AAA and why thrust him into making his debut with the Mariners and their winning record?
Mariners offense is nit very good and AAA is not a major need for pitchers. The Mariners promoted Kirby, Woo, and Miller without much or any AAA time.
Because the White Sox season does not matter at all. They won’t contend for anything before 2026 at the earliest.
More like 2027. At the earliest.
Oooh, look who had a crystal ball, or just a need to be contrarian.
white sox will very likely be in the cellar for two and a half years, and it doesnt take much more than common sense to see that. 4 very young teams in the division above .500, and the white sox are still in give everyone away mode
Nah man. I’ve got Grey’s Sports Almenac 2000-2050.
Dodgers aren’t winning the world series this year.
Log – You left part of your cane in my DeLorean.
pohle – Plenty of people said the exact same thing last year about the Royals when they lost 106 games and finished last.
How do you know the ChiSox won’t increase their spending like the Royals did this year?
One reason why…..Jerry Reinsdork.
blackandorange
Oooh, look who had a crystal ball,
===========================
1-I hardly think this needs a crystal ball.
2-It’s an opinion board. If you don’t like opinions, you might be in the wrong place.
I couldn’t afford a DeLorean, so I converted my 1998 Oldsmobile Eigjty-Eight into a time machine. So jokes on you. *Dr. Evil* exaggerated laugh. I got Memphis Raines to steal it from the CarMax I sold it to several years ago.
The Sox Triple-A park in Charlotte is an absolute bandbox, and has often served as a detriment to pitching prospects, as their confidence levels get reduced to nothing when normal fly balls become no-doubt homers. With that said, Charlotte’s a great place to promote hitting prospects.
It is a bit risky to do this, but the White Sox have had some success when having starters spend little or no time in Charlotte — Chris Sale and Carlos Rodon to name just two. Thorpe has much more minor league experience than those two had when they received their promotions, for what it’s worth.
If it were up to me, I’d have left Thorpe toil in Birmingham and, with hopefully a new manager who knows how to run a team and gets the best use from his pitching staff next year, he could acclimate with the White Sox beginning in Spring Training.
This is indeed a risk, but if it goes well with Thorpe, I’d imagine they’d also do the same with Mason Adams (because they’re both command/control guys without high-octane stuff). Noah Schultz has been great, but he’s on an innings limit this year so he likely wouldn’t receive a promotion this year anyway.
I checked a few and you are likely correct. I withdraw my objection.
@EricC – good stuff and agree for the most part. Although – I’m all-in on seeing how good Thorpe can be, and possibly giving Ky Bush (from Giolito trade last year) and Adams a similar look. I’d leave Schulz down for the reason you stated, but think he could be in the rotation as soon as mid-2025.
I’d even consider Eder if he can string a few positive starts together, as he has great stuff and is 25 (the others on the list are all 23/24, so no reason not to see how they can do now with this Sox team).
In the bullpen, I wouldn’t mind seeing Cousin, Coffey, Adler, Schoenle, Hoopii-Tuionetoa, maybe 2nd round pick Dalquist.
The bottom line is there are some intriguing arms in the minors (mostly in AA), so it’d be great to see most/all of them this year after the trade deadline when they trade Fedde, Kopech, Wilson, Brebbia, etc. Buy some hitting in the off-season and let this next crop go (led by Crochet).
Here are the park factors for AAA ballparks last season. baseballamerica.com/stories/minor-league-baseball-…
Really cool graphic @Pads Fans. If I had more time (i.e. if I retired) I’d love to see if the correlation EricC referred to is a thing. I’m not sure there’s a good way to control enough of the factors to really get good analysis, but it would be fun to see if data suggest that the AAA park factor has an impact on how the players perform in MLB.
Typically players that are higher rated prospects go straight from AA to MLB or after limited time in AAA than lower ranked prospects so would be hard to do that analysis.
Teams are increasingly calling both pitchers and hitters to the majors from AA. One speculation is the automated strike zone in AAA creates a false environment.
How does automated strike zone create a false environment? And I’m probably wrong but doesn’t one have to challenge the ball or strike? Just asking for my friend
Games Tue/Wed/Thu the computer calls the ball/strike. Games Fri/Sat/Sun, the umpire calls it but the challenge is available to the pitcher, catcher, and batter.
Since AAA has three person umpiring crews, they each get one game a week behind home plate with each system.
Tell your friend that full ABS is used in AAA for Tuesday-Thursday games, challenge system Friday-Sunday. Walk/strikeout rates are still skewed compared to previous norms.
In AAA on weekends they use the challenge system and on Tuesday through Thursday they use the ABS system exclusively. They are off on Mondays. Either way it makes for a more consistent strike zone.
“False” isn’t perhaps quite the right word, although I’m not sure it’s the wrong word either. In one sense the automated zone creates a more true and consistent zone, at least in theory, but it’s false because it’s a strike zone both hitters and pitchers won’t face in the majors. Automated balls and strikes create a different type of zone, a tighter one. Pitchers can’t expand the zone, catchers can’t steal strikes through pitch framing, umpires can’t have their own personal zone quirks that pitchers can identify. Certain type of sweeper pitches that cross in and then out of the zone might be less effective as hitters know to not even offer at them. Many pitchers had difficulty in AAA last year as they adjusted, with some showing improvement when called up to the majors. Conversely, hitters coming from AAA found the MLB pitchers more challenging as the “true” strike zone they had in AAA was gone. Anyway, this is not my theory. I saw it referenced a few times last year, Perhaps it’s no longer the case this year with a modulated schedule using the automated zone, but it perhaps might explain why a number of top prospect hitters have had a tough introduction to the majors this year.
They will face it in the majors as soon as 2025, but more likely in 2026. Absolutely.
The strike zone is two dimensional in AAA. It is measured at the front of the plate. If it is in the strike zone at the front of the plate, it’s a strike.
The drop in BA and OPS for players getting called up from AAA to the major leagues for the 1st time is almost identical in 2024 to the last 3 seasons.
The difference between AAA and AA is likely not nearly as big as between AAA and MLB. Perhaps they think if you dominate in AA you’re already showing you are good enough as you’d likely spend another 2 months dominating in AAA. Best to get them up when they are pitching great. Who knows for sure how they’ll be doing in AAA a month from now. It’s a momentum wave. When the player is on it they should be fast-tracked to big leagues.
PCL is an extreme hitters league. AVERAGE OPS is over .800 and AVERAGE ERA is over 5.40.
International League is at least closer to neutral overall with JUST a .772 average OPS and 4.95 average ERA, but the AL farm teams in that league play in 3 of the most hitter friendly ballparks in baseball in Charlotte, St Paul, and Omaha.
The White Sox AAA team plays in a park that is even more hitter friendly than Coors, the Great American Bandbox, or the mile high AAA ballparks in Albuquerque and Salt Lake, especially for power hitters.
Getting a true strike zone every time, all the time, is a benefit. Ask the players. They have been exceptionally clear about that.
It’s about freaking time!
He doesn’t need to be called up in June, I guess the Sox could not wait for September
Oh well, start the clock…
No change to the service time clock by calling up now or in September. Same arbitration start and FA start times. If it was April or early May, sure
Yea basically use him this year or wait another year to promote him to get the service clock started.
Happens pretty much all the time, since I’ve been following baseball. Heck some although rarely go straight from college to The Show. 50/50 chance he sticks, we’ll see.
It’s not all that rare anymore. Neto, Schanuel, Langford, Waldron and Skenes are all recent examples of player debuting the year of or the following year of being drafted and probably a few more later this year. 3 years of college is the equivalent of three years in the minors with better competition, coaches and facilities. There is a trend High draft picks coming out of college making it to the bigs quickly.
College competition is not better nor are the coaches. At major universities some of the facilities might be better than the lowest rungs of MLB farm systems, bur by and large your statement is very inaccurate.
Go watch D1 baseball gm, u will see sum of sloppiness errors u ever saw on routine plays. In Low-A ball they make that routine play like they’re supposed to. Big difference between college n getting paid as professional to produce. Avg college SS/2b are kicking balls left n right on simple plays where they don’t get their glove down or rush the throw. Not to say minor leaguers don’t committ errors but watching the 2 play its obvious the polish that’s been applied by the pros. Everything is bang bang, nice n clean w/a purpose. They’re better prepared n have more talent than most college kids.
No AAA?
No AAA.
The Braves move up players all the time from AA. Bring him up and have him grow, regardless of performance. The WS have only 2 staters. No pain, no gain, even if he does poorly!
WS actually have 3: Flexen has exceeded expectations
It’s a good move if they think he is ready.. we now will find out if the people making these decisions are ready as well..
Pretty much seems like only White Sox organization gets called scrutiny? Seems to me like so far the Crochet from reliever to Starter has worked out fine.
Also the returns for dead weight Lynn, Graveman and Kelly seems to be panning out. Nastrani, Leasure, and Corey Lee all looking like keepers. If Eder and any of the Braves 5 produce a return this rebuild could take a lot less time than people think. Just jettison the hapless Grofo and press reset
They gotta draw up interest with these types of moves. I agree with making sure prospects get in some AAA but this kid seems ready to make the jump…
This kid seems ready to make the jump? That’s what they said about Neo..
I see what you did there
No one makes the jump there first time
May as well. Thorpe seems like a true prospect and will eventually make a good trade piece.
Trade Piece? Yeah okay. Cubbies fan here again
Nah, Cubbies only absorb the likes of Q or Nicky Sticky Madrigal
Pads fan pulling for the guy and the Sox. Feel your pain Chi Sox fans. There will be better days ahead!
I don’t have much thought on the White Sox one way or the other but I hope the best for Thorpe.
Agree I hope he does well. Seems like a good dude.
It’s going to suck being a White Sox fan for a while, but seeing the prospects come up, especially the highly touted ones, brings a glimmer of hope to a lost season.
Good thoughts all around. Good luck to the Pods- hope Cease gets to pitch big games for yas!
Only after the team is sold. Ownership is the biggest problem on the southside.
Last thing Drew must be on a very strict pitch count. We are going nowhere this year so we must be very very careful..
Why a strict pitch count? He’s thrown way more innings than Crochet last year, he should be able to get at least another 100 innings this season. Gotta use their arms while you can just don’t want high pitch count games, keep it under 100 stressful pitches and you’re good. Even when these guys are babies they get hurt.
He threw 139 innings last year. Probably not much of a pitch limit on him.
Like i said before
Tms are rushing their best arms
Pitchers dont even throw in AAA anymore. AAA is now just for ineffective major leaguers & veteran garbage
Godspeed, Drew.
Interesting, but Im not sure of the point, it must mean the Sox are trying to do a quick turnaround on the rebuild.. Old miser Jerry must be pressuring Getz on getting the team better so he can try to extort a new stadium out of Chicago.
Also, whats the over/under on when he needs TJS?
I mean its another guy with a slider, so its only a matter of time ( though it sounds like his primaries are Fastball and changeup, so maybe it will take longer for his ligament to go boom). My guess is by end of the season he needs TJS if not the spring training next season. Unfortunately its almost a given now with pitchers.
Maybe they are doing a rebuild on the fly approach. Getting TJS has been an epidemic the last few years for pitchers and some position players.
@nrd Whether he’s in AA, AAA, or MLB he ll be pitching. UCL ligaments do not only get damaged at the the MLB level.
@Tigers3232 I never said it could not happen only in one level or another,
He has nothing left to prove at AA, so I think this is more of a tryout for after the Sox trade Fedde and possibly Crochet. Someone needs to finish the rest of the year, and he’s as ready as anyone.
I think we should keep Crochet and trade Moncada and Robert jr. we should get a hall for Robert jr, not so much for Moncada.
Aside from Lee, Leasure, and now Thorpe, I’d be willing to deal anyone and everyone from the current roster. Nobody will take on Moncada’s deal, probably not Eloy’s, either, but they won’t compete before Robert and Crochet are FA’s, so why keep guys who won’t improve your odds at a title of someone will give you guys who might later help you win? Only argument to hold either Crochet or Robert is to improve their trade value for this off-season: Crochet to have less of a small sample size and Robert to prove he’s healthy.
They’ve got a nice group of infielders on the way with Montgomery, Ramos, Gonzalez. All of which have or will be up later this year. If they unload Crochet and Robert for some outfielders and utility guys, they aren’t far off from being entertaining.
They wouldn’t target utility types for those guys. Their AA team is stacked with starting pitchers, but they definitely need OF and relievers. I think one of the three you mentioned moves to the OF at some point, so they could use a long-term answer at 2B as well.
@atljack: ‘ . . .not SO much for Moncada’?
Ha ha ha, yeah Jack, ‘probably’ not thaaat much’. Ho ho , my side hurts!!
Smart move to bring Thorpe up now, because they will have to bring up a couple more starters after the trade deadline.
white Sox defense on stolen bases not as good as my 12 year old defense many years ago..
I mean, this team just broke a 14-game losing streak, a new franchise record too, so no their defense is atrocious. Watching Gavin Sheets make plays at 1B is nauseating…
Word on the street in Bridgeport Chicago is that the Sox suck ass. Yes that’s what is being said. You heard it here first baseball fans
Clever! Got any more?
How about this one…. Little boy blew…. He needed the money !!! Bhahahahaha
Better
On another note: Grifol has to go, leaving in a guy, on a 32 at bat hitless streak, in to hit with the bases loaded and two outs in the 6th, when you have two other hitters hitting better on the bench (including Lee, the backup catcher), is just another example of his ineptitude. If you want to show these players winning matters, they are not getting that with Grifol.
IMO Thorpe was the key piece in the Soto deal. San Diego kept insisting on King, but losing Thorpe hurts the Yankees more. Yankees could use Thorpe right now. I’m surprised SD gave up on him after getting him.
I don’t know if I’d call it SD giving up on him. He was the key piece in them acquiring Cease.
Use Thorpe for what? He wouldn’t even be the Yankees 8th starter. The Yankees had to give up someone and lucked out the Padres wanted King more than Schimdt.
Would you rather Juan freaking Soto or Drew Thorpe pitching in AA and who profiles as a backend starter cause he throws 91mph?
But that’s not really the trade. Given a choice between one year of Soto, or:
6+ years of Thorpe
2 years of King
Whatever marginal contribution from Brito and Vazquez
$33M in additional CBT space
I would take the SD side every time. And it is pretty rare for me to say that about Preller trade.
Maybe Lee wasn’t available. But the L is on him.
I agree with you nrd1138.
Martin Maldonado is 7 for 99 which is a batting average of .071. He has a .124 On Base Percentage. The Mario Mendoza line of .199 has been replaced by the Maldonado line of .071 which may continue to drop as long as Manager of the Year Pedro Grifol is in charge.
What type of injury does 60 day IL recipient Max Stassi have? Better yet give 29 year old minor league veteran Chuckie Robinson an opportunity behind the plate. He outplayed Maldonado in spring training.
It may be time to promote catcher Edgar Quero from Birmingham too. Quero has raised his average to .273 and Thorpe has pitched to him.
Maldonado must go and Reinsdorf needs to pay him to leave.or make him a bullpen catcher.
Gil has over a year of service time, but is eligible for ROY.
“Currently a player is considered to be a rookie, and thus eligible for the award, if the player has accumulated in prior major league seasons:
Fewer than 130 at bats or
Fewer than 50 innings pitched
Fewer than 45 days on the active roster, excluding time on the disabled list, in military service, or time when the rosters are expanded (currently after September 1).”
-Bref
Sox have had a good history advancing pitchers with little or no time in the minors: as other posters noted- Sale, Rodon and Crochet come to mind. Brian Bannister has done a bang up job with pitching development: the Birmingham 6 man rotation has been stellar to date
Nice to see organizations not obsessed with service time manipulation. Not the way the Sox proceed as evidenced by their proactive strategy of locking up core members long term by buying out option years. Sometimes it backfires when players get hurt: see Moncada, Yo, Jimy, Eloy. But more often than not it works spectacularly well: Sale, Robert, Eaton. Especially with pitchers, makes sense if they have the makeup to learn on the job in the show and minimize any unnecessary wear and tear in the minors. Sox have had an excellent track record of young pitcher development under only 2 pitching coaches over the last 2 decades: Cooper and Katz. The 1 thing the organization does well!
Strange bedfellows. Pressly? If closer or set up guy gets hurt, he slides in. Not cheap and performance is off this year, but… And next year is mutual deal with a 2 million buyout.
Great idea, lose years of service time rushing their top prospects during 100+ loss seasons, which next year most certainly will be as well. Then they can trade Thorpe in 3 years when he is playing for hopeless teams and it is obvious they won’t win during his window of team control either. Shrewd.
AAA is mainly used for aaaa players or players that made it to the majors and were sent down to make some adjustments. Almost every team does this now. So skipping aa really isn’t a surprise at all.
Even more so for teams that have their aaa club in small parks or parks with high elevation.
I don’t know why the writers or even some readers seemed surprised by this anymore.
Why not? This kid has to be excited about this move. Give him a chance- Good Luck Drew- hope all turns out well. If it does there will be people on here saying trade him while he has value. This could be a Great move.
Good luck to him on that team. Poor guy
Coming from an fan of an organization that has never won a world series here to cast stones.
Thorpe is a right handed Eric Lauer. When he has pinpoint control, he will do well. Even dominate an occasional game. When his command is off even a tiny bit he will get pounded.
That’s an interesting comp. I hope he can translate to MLB hitting. I don’t mind not having a ton of strikeouts, but would like him to keep that walk rate low, and have a high groundball percentage.
If a player came via AJ Preller, promote that player immediately. You can field a playoff team with the players Preller has traded away and you’d be hard pressed to count on one hand the amount of players that didn’t pan out for the acquiring team.
Can you name the players that DID pan out?
I can name 17 that didn’t off the top of my head from last 4 major trades before Cease
Luis Patino
Blake Hunt
Francisco Mejia
Cole Wilcox
Joey Lucchesi
Hudson Head
Drake Fellows
Jackson Wolf
Ismael Mena
Reginald Preciado
Yeison Santana
Zach Davies
Taylor Rogers
Esteury Ruiz
Dinelson Lamet
Jarlin Susana
Robert Hassell
CJ Abrams is hitting .245 with a .702 OPS and sinking fast this season and is below league average with a .691 OPS and 86 OPS+ since the trade. His only real value is on defense.
Gore is proving to be a #3 starter with injury issues. His 4.14 ERA and only 40 starts in 2.33 seasons is slightly below average.
Gasser just got hurt and might need TJ. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Bednar started out nice in Pittsburgh, but have you seen this season?
Yeah, Preller is pretty good at this trading thing. Might not want to take his prospects because if he doesn’t think they are that good, they probably are worth less than you think they are. .
“What’s surprising, then, isn’t so much the promotion but that he will skip Triple-A entirely and jump directly into big league action.”
More crappy writing by Deeds. “Then” adds nothing to this sentence. It’s ostentatious at best.
Nice lineup tonight with 2 players hitting 071. Can’t make things like this up.
Watched this kid pitch his 1st two seasons at Cal Poly while my youngest was going to school there. Great control seemed to be his calling card, but when it deserted him in a few games in 2021 he did get beat up a bit. He should be a good back of the rotation starter in the majors like most guys that have to rely on command instead of velocity. Back then I thought the kid my daughter was dating would end up being better, but what do I know.
I mean he only sits in the low 90s and is more of a throwback pitcher who gets guys out with control and his changeup.
My point was that he doesn’t have an margin of error. If a pitcher throws 96-98 and is missing his spots, he can still not get hit hard. A guy that throws 90-91 and is missing his spots gets lit up.
Thorpe might end up having a better year than Cease