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Lucas Giolito

Latest On White Sox Rotation

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Lucas Giolito suffered a “freak minor injury,” pushing his start back from yesterday to Tuesday and allowing the White Sox to keep Michael Kopech in the rotation for one more go. He delivered with his longest and most-impressive outing of the season, using 87 pitches to get through five innings, striking out ten, giving up four hits, zero walks and one run in a win against the Rangers.

White Sox manager Tony La Russa believes in Kopech’s long-term potential as a rotation arm, but he’ll go back to a hybrid role out of the bullpen for now. Per the Athletic’s James Fegan, La Russa said, “This is definitely not the time to think about moving Michael into the rotation. Michael Kopech is going to be a top-line starting pitcher. But right now it made sense to get him in condition and add more and more pitches. More importantly, the fact that he has competed so well shows that he has guts when he goes out there; he keeps his cool and concentration. I don’t have a crystal ball, but if he pitched — and I use the (Adam) Wainwright experience from ’06 — he can pitch in the bullpen all year long and maybe next year win 20 (games), or maybe later on he pitches this year as a starter.”

Kopech has made a pair of spot starts this year in his first game action since 2018. He’s also come out of the bullpen four times for a total of 15 2/3 innings – already a big-league career-high – with a sparkling 1.72 ERA/1.25 FIP. He’s striking out batters at an elite 46.6 percent rate while allowing a very strong 6.9 percent walk. It’s early, of course, but even out of the pen, the lanky 24-year-old with electric stuff is proving to be a weapon for the White Sox.

Kopech has come a long way since being a centerpiece of the Chris Sale trade back in 2016. It’s somewhat amazing that he’ll turn just 25 years old this upcoming Friday. Fegan detailed Kopech’s journey back to the Majors for a piece well worth a read here in the Athletic.

Injury Notes: Crawford, Longoria, Rendon, Nola, Giolito

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The Giants made Brandon Crawford a late scratch from yesterday’s lineup due to quad tightness.  Evan Longoria also missed his second consecutive game with hamstring tightness, after the same issue forced him to make an early exit from last Thursday’s game.  To add some extra infield help, the Giants called up Jason Vosler from the alternate training site prior to yesterday’s game (reliever Jarlin Garcia was placed on the 10-day IL with a left groin strain).

San Francisco has more infield depth than most clubs, though even the Giants’ roster has been stressed with Crawford and Longoria both hurting and Donovan Solano already on the injured list recovering from a calf strain.  Mauricio Dubon is the top choice to fill in at shortstop if Crawford has to miss any more time, while Wilmer Flores has been handling third base in Longoria’s absence.  It also creates an opportunity for Vosler, who made his MLB debut last night.  The 27-year-old was a 16th-round pick for the Cubs back in 2014, and Vosler has spent his minor league career in the Cubs and Padres farm systems, also spending time at San Diego’s alternate training site in 2020.

The latest on some other injury situations from around baseball…

  • Anthony Rendon could return to the Angels’ lineup tomorrow or Tuesday, manager Joe Maddon told The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya and other reporters.  Rendon hit the 10-day IL due to a left groin strain back on April 12, so the third baseman will likely end up missing only slightly more than the 10-day minimum.  Anaheim’s already-strong offense will be even more dangerous with the addition of a former All-Star in Rendon, who is entering his second season with the team.
  • Austin Nola could return to the Padres lineup next week, manager Jayce Tingler told reporters (including Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune).  Nola has been out since mid-March after fracturing his left middle finger in Spring Training, though Nola is playing games at the Padres’ alternate training site.  San Diego has relied upon Victor Caratini and top prospect Luis Campusano to handle catching duties in Nola’s absence, though neither Caratini or Campusano have been very productive at the plate.
  • Michael Kopech will start for the White Sox today rather than originally-scheduled starter Lucas Giolito, who told reporters (including Vinnie Duber of NBC Sports Chicago) he has been “pushed back a couple of days” due to a cut on the middle finger of his throwing hand.  As Giolito explained in self-deprecating fashion, he suffered the minor injury because “I thought that a glass water bottle I had was twist-off, and it wasn’t twist-off.”  The team decided to hold Giolito out of today’s start just to be cautious, and the right-hander expects to pitch Tuesday when the White Sox open a series against the Tigers.

White Sox Discussing Extensions With Lucas Giolito, Andrew Vaughn

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The White Sox have been “engaging” with ace Lucas Giolito and top prospect Andrew Vaughn about possible contract extensions, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports.  For now, no deal appears imminent with either player.  Both Giolito and Vaughn are represented by CAA Sports.

Giolito will be paid $4.15MM in 2021 as per an arbitration-avoiding contract with the White Sox back in January, and the right-hander is under arb control through the 2023 season.  Vaughn’s MLB service clock has yet to start, so an extension would make him the third White Sox player (after Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert) in as many years to sign a multi-year contract before making his big league debut.

At the start of March, Giolito said “there haven’t really been discussions about an extension” with the team, though it appears talks have picked up to at least some extent.  To some extent, Chicago has time on its side given that Giolito is controlled through 2023, yet naturally the Sox would love to lock up Giolito now before his price tag could continue to rise.  If Giolito pitches as well in 2021 as he did over 249 innings in 2019-20 (3.43 ERA with an impressive 32.7K% and 8.6BB%), the White Sox could be looking at an extension worth tens of millions more by this time next year.

Looking at other extensions for pitchers who had between three and four years of service time, Giolito would surely be looking to top the four-year, $45MM deal Aaron Nola signed with the Phillies prior to the 2019 season.  That contract covered Nola’s first arb year — he and the Phillies were approaching a hearing — and also contained a club option that gives the Phils control over a second of Nola’s free agent years.

The White Sox could make the case that Nola was a more proven commodity with 569 MLB innings at the time of his extension and hadn’t suffered any major arm troubles, whereas Giolito already has a Tommy John procedure under his belt.  Of course, Giolito’s camp could counter that prices have simply gone up in the two-plus years since Nola’s extension, and that Giolito’s durability isn’t a concern after he averaged 175 IP in 2018-19 (and obviously Giolito could have banked many more innings if the 2020 season wasn’t shortened).

Both Jimenez and Robert signed six-year contracts with two club option years attached, with Jimenez receiving $43MM in guaranteed money prior to the 2019 season and Robert $50MM guaranteed in January 2020.  It’s probably safe to guess that White Sox GM Rick Hahn is proposing a similar framework to Vaughn’s representatives, so a full eight-year stint would keep Vaughn (who turns 23 next month) on the South Side through his age-30 season.

Selected with the third overall pick of the 2019 draft, Vaughn demolished Pac-12 pitching over three years at Cal, then got his pro career off to a quick start by batting .278/.384/.449 with six homers in 245 combined plate appearances at rookie ball, A-ball, and high-A ball.  His 2020 minor league season was wiped out by the pandemic, but Vaughn’s bat is considered so ready for prime time that he is expected to play an important role for the big league team this coming season, projected for the bulk of DH at-bats and occasionally spelling AL MVP Jose Abreu at first base when Abreu needs a DH day.

A pre-career extension would allow Chicago to install Vaughn on the Opening Day roster without any of the service-time machinations that teams often deploy to keep top prospects in the minors for just long enough to gain an extra year of control.  Like Jimenez and Robert, Vaughn is a consensus pick as one of the game’s best minor leaguers, ranking high on top-prospect lists from Keith Law (who ranks Vaughn 10th), MLB Pipeline (14th), Baseball Prospectus (14th), Fangraphs (14th), and Baseball America (21st).

Lucas Giolito On Potential Extension

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After a difficult start to his career, White Sox right-hander Lucas Giolito established himself as a bona fide top-of-the-rotation starter over the previous two seasons. The 26-year-old now looks like a long-term cornerstone for the franchise, though it doesn’t appear either side has aggressively pursued a contract extension.

“There haven’t really been discussions about an extension, which is fine,” Giolito, a CAA Sports client, told James Fegan of The Athletic. “I think the organization knows that I value myself. I know kind of what I’m worth.”

Fortunately for the White Sox, they’re in no imminent danger of losing Giolito, who has three years of arbitration control remaining. However, they have shown in recent years that they’re willing to lock up their core players for the long haul. To name a few prominent examples, the team has signed shortstop Tim Anderson, third baseman Yoan Moncada, and outfielders Eloy Jimenez and Luis Robert to extensions dating back to 2017. Giolito certainly ranks up there with that group in terms of his importance to the club.

This year, Giolito will earn $4.15MM, which is a major bargain for what he has brought to the table dating back to 2019. While Giolito was one of the worst starters in baseball in 2018, during which he logged a 6.13 ERA/5.37 SIERA in 173 1/3 innings, the light bulb has since gone on for the former star prospect. Giolito notched a 3.43 ERA/3.55 SIERA with a 32.7 percent strikeout rate against an 8.6 percent walk rate across 249 innings over the prior two seasons, and he finished seventh in the American League Cy Young balloting a year ago.

Players Avoiding Arbitration: 1/15/21

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The deadline to exchange arbitration figures is today at 1pm ET. As of this morning, there were 125 arbitration-eligible players who’d yet to agree to terms on their contract for the upcoming 2021 season. Arbitration is muddier than ever before thanks to the shortened 2020 schedule, which most believe will lead to record number of arb hearings this winter. Be that as it may, it’s still reasonable to expect dozens of contractual agreements to filter in over the next couple of hours.

We’ll highlight some of the more high-profile cases in separate posts with more in-depth breakdowns, but the majority of today’s dealings will be smaller-scale increases that don’t radically alter a team’s payroll or a player’s trade candidacy. As such, we’ll just run through most of today’s agreements in this post.

I’ve embedded MLBTR’s 2021 Arbitration Tracker in the post (those in the mobile app or viewing on mobile web will want to turn their phones sideways). Our tracker can be sorted by team, by service time and/or by Super Two status, allowing users to check the status on whichever groups of players they like. You can also check out Matt Swartz’s projected arbitration salaries for this year’s class, and we’ll do a quick sentence on each player’s agreement at the bottom of this post as well, with the most recent agreements sitting atop the list.

Today’s Agreements (chronologically, newest to oldest)

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How Much Would It Cost The White Sox To Extend Lucas Giolito?

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The White Sox have already reached new agreements with a host of players of late, with Yoan Moncada recently joining Aaron Bummer, Luis Robert, and Jose Abreu just this winter. Tim Anderson and Eloy Jimenez inked deals previously. So … what’s one more?

The starting rotation is noticeably underrepresented from the ranks of the extended core. While a few hurlers could become candidates in short order, there’s probably only one who’s really primed for a deal: Lucas Giolito.

Giolito’s path is remarkably similar to that of Moncada. They both came over in back-to-back trades in the 2016-17 offseason — each of which, somewhat ironically, involved White Sox stars (Chris Sale and Adam Eaton) who had loads of trade value thanks to their own early-career extensions. There were some growing pains and moments of doubt for the long-hyped Giolito and Moncada. Then came 2019 …

While the White Sox weren’t all that competitive as a team last year, they had some exceedingly promising outcomes from individual players. On the pitching side, nobody came close to Giolito, who was one of the top dozen or so starters leaguewide. He completely reversed a miserable 2018 season, vaulting to new personal highs in velocity (94.6 mph average fastball), swinging-strike rate (15.0%), and K%-BB% (24.2%).

There’s not much to dislike about Giolito’s effort. He didn’t excel at limiting the long ball, but was slightly better than the league mean in homers allowed (1.22) and homers-per-flyball rate (13.6%). Statcast indicated that Giolito largely deserved the outcomes, crediting opposing hitters with a meager .275 wOBA and .280 xwOBA. Giolito dominated opposing lefties in 2019. There were health concerns when Giolito was drafted, but he already got Tommy John surgery out of the way and has mostly been healthy since. (He ended 2019 with a mild lat injury and is now dealing with a pec issue, but both seem rather minor.)

The question, really, is one of faith. Giolito is only 25 years of age and has a top-shelf pedigree. The results finally matched. So do the White Sox let things play out through arbitration — like Moncada, Giolito is still a full season shy of arb qualification and four campaigns removed from free agency — or chase yet further upside with yet another extension?

That may depend upon the cost. While Giolito was a first-round pick, he fell to the 16th pick of the 2012 draft. He still got a big signing bonus, but at just under $3MM it was less than a tenth of what Moncada commanded. For a pitcher that has already dealt with some health issues, and hasn’t yet reached that first big payday, there’s definitely greater sense in selling away some earning ceiling in exchange for security.

Giolito wouldn’t be the first starting pitcher to do so. In fact, this stage of a career — just before arbitration — is quite the popular time for hurler and team to line up on a deal. Jon Lester’s 2009 pact with the Red Sox — five years, $30MM plus an option — proved a market-setting contract. The total guarantee has crept up a bit in some cases in recent years and we’ve seen various ways of tweaking the model, but that’s still the core structure of many such contracts.

In this case, the White Sox would probably be thrilled to slot Giolito into that five-year, mid-thirty plus option(s) sort of a deal. There’s really not all that much risk. Sure, you’d always rather pay less for more, but even one more elite season or a couple of good-but-not-great efforts would justify that sort of cost. And there are loads of scenarios where the organization could clean up. The team just promised Bummer, a non-closing (for now) reliever, $16MM. Doubling that (plus change) for a high-end starter is more or less a no-brainer unless the club has some inside cause for concern.

All that points to an argument that Giolito really shouldn’t be slotted into the classic form of Lester and progeny. After all, lower-ceiling lefty Marco Gonzales just got a $30MM guarantee over four years with a single option. Giolito looks more like German Marquez, who recently commanded $42MM+ on a four-year term while giving up one option year.

Then again, perhaps Giolito can present a case for something more akin to the deal inked between Blake Snell and the Rays. That accord included over $49MM of new money and only required Snell to hand over control over one would-be free agent season — one less than the other two deals just discussed — thus leaving him more future earning upside. Snell’s Cy Young Award gave him a boost, to be sure, but his pact also came together on the heels of a weak market for free agent pitchers. We just saw Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg blow the top off of the rotation market.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one shakes out, if indeed serious talks occur. Maybe Giolito will get a Snell-like agreement but fall a bit short in terms of guaranteed cash. Or perhaps he’ll look to build upon the Marquez deal, giving up that extra season of control (in Giolito’s case, his age-30 season) to boost the up-front cash promise. Regardless, I’ll go ahead and guess that a contract would land in the realm of a $45MM guarantee.

Photo courtey of USA Today Sports Images.

Health Notes: White Sox, Leake, Perez, Dominguez

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The White Sox opened camp with a series of unwelcome injury developments, as each of Yasmani Grandal, Lucas Giolito and Gio Gonzalez are all dealing with minor injuries (link via Daryl Van-Schouwen of the Chicago Sun Times). Grandal injured his calf in the weight room last week, and an MRI revealed a minor calf strain. Giolito is working through a strained muscle in his chest, and Gonzalez is battling some discomfort in his left shoulder. However, GM Rick Hahn expects all three to be good to go by Opening Day and referred to the injuries as “minor.” Grandal clearly isn’t overly worried about his status, as he joked with reporters that he was merely trying to get out of some running drills in Spring Training (Twitter link via MLB.com’s Scott Merkin). Giolito, meanwhile, is already throwing from 120 feet and said he’s “zero percent” concerned about his injury.

Some more health/injury notes from early on in camp…

  • Diamondbacks right-hander Mike Leake is undergoing an MRI after experiencing soreness in his left wrist following a fall at his home, manager Torey Lovullo told reporters today (Twitter links via The Athletic’s Zach Buchanan). Lovullo described the MRI as precautionary in nature, so it doesn’t seem as though the organization is overly concerned at the moment. Leake, 32, landed in Arizona following a deadline swap with the Mariners and pitched to a 4.35 ERA in 60 innings (10 starts). Leake fanned just 27 hitters in those 60 frames but was quite stingy in terms of issuing free passes as well, surrendering just eight bases on balls. The ever-durable righty made at least 30 starts for the eighth consecutive season in 2019, eating up 197 innings between Seattle and Arizona.
  • After missing the 2019 season due to Tommy John surgery, Royals stalwart Salvador Perez is ahead of schedule and expected to be ready for Opening Day, new manager Mike Matheny told reporters (link via MLB.com’s Jeffrey Flanagan). Perez is already throwing to second base without issue and is slated to meet with his doctors tomorrow for another check-in. Interestingly, Matheny suggested that Perez would not only see some time at designated hitter early in the season but also at first base, as the Royals look to be cautious with his throwing workload.
  • Phillies right-hander Seranthony Dominguez managed to avoid Tommy John surgery last year after an elbow scare, and he now appears to be on track for Opening Day, tweets Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Dominguez resumed throwing in December and has now thrown three bullpen sessions — including one earlier today. The 25-year-old was lights out in his debut effort back in 2018 and took a step back in limited action in 2019 before hitting the injured list. In 82 2/3 innings between those two seasons, he’s pitched to a 3.27 ERA with 11.2 K/9, 3.7 BB/9 and 16 saves.

Winter Meetings Previews: Royals, White Sox

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In advance of the winter meetings, let’s take a moment to quickly preview a couple teams from the American League Central…

  • The Kansas City Royals will look for value buys on the free agent market, per Lynn Worthy of The Kansas City Star. Given the sale of the team and the managerial transition underway, the Royals have more justification than usual for patience this offseason. With Kansas City, however, there’s often a sense that internal valuations of the talent on hand differs from those of the general public. The Royals continue to present the idea that they are happy with their core, an impression bolstered by the “moon, sun, and stars” type packages the Royals are demanding for players like Whit Merrifield, Danny Duffy and Ian Kennedy. Senior VP of Baseball Ops & GM Dayton Moore refined his fence-walking trick recently while saying both, “…we’re very encouraged with where we are based on how our players performed individually last year,” and also, “I think we’ve got to upgrade everywhere, really.” Pitching is definitely a target, and Moore has been active in trade discussions already, enough to have a sense of where trades might happen – though from Moore’s comments, it seems the Royals are disinclined to be major players on the trade market unless opposing GMs become more amenable to Moore’s ask(s). They do have four open spots on the 40-man roster and should be active in the Rule 5 draft, per The Athletic’s Alec Lewis.
  • After being spurned by Zack Wheeler, the White Sox remain in the hunt for starting pitching, per MLB.com’s Scott Merkin. Chicago was also among the teams in on Jordan Lyles before the righty signed with the Rangers, tweets the MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Their rotation candidates are currently made up of high-ceiling but largely-unestablished youngsters, fronted by 2019 breakout superstar Lucas Giolito. Speculatively, Dallas Keuchel fits nicely from a culture perspective as the perennially-attention-starved White Sox have already added Yasmani Grandal from the nobody-believes-in-us free agent pool – and they like playing with a chip on their shoulder on the southside. As for position players, Chicago boasts close to a full house now that Grandal and Jose Abreu are officially on board. With prospects Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal expected to play a large portion of 2020 in the big leagues, they have one of the more intriguing groups on that side of the ball. Still, there’s definitely room to tinker around the edges, especially in the outfield, where Luis Alexander Basabe, Daniel Palka, Leury Garcia, Adam Engel, and Luis Gonzalez make up the flexible collection of candidates to join Eloy Jimenez and Robert in the outfield.

Lucas Giolito Done For Season

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White Sox ace Lucas Giolito was diagnosed with a mild lat strain after going for an MRI on Monday, James Fegan of The Athletic tweets. That type of injury normally takes three to four weeks to recover from, Fegan notes, so the right-handed Giolito’s year is over.

Season-ending injury aside, 2019 will go down as an enormous step forward for Giolito, who finally began to live up to the immense hype he garnered as a prospect. Giolito, whom the White Sox acquired from the Nationals in December 2016 as part of the teams’ Adam Eaton blockbuster, found himself among the majors’ worst starters as recently as a year ago. The 25-year-old turned the tables this season, though, as he fired 176 2/3 innings of 3.41 ERA/3.44 FIP ball with 11.62 K/9, 2.9 BB/9 and 5.1 fWAR to reestablish himself as one of the league’s most coveted arms.

While Chicago’s way out of contention yet again as the playoffs near, its hope is Giolito will help lead it back to relevance a year from now. Giolito’s among a few highly talented starters who could help the White Sox accomplish that goal. Michael Kopech should be back from Tommy John surgery by then, and Carlos Rodon figures to return from his own TJ procedure. Meanwhile, the promising tandem of Dylan Cease and Reynaldo Lopez will be a year older and maybe a year wiser when it comes to retiring opposing hitters.

White Sox Haven’t Discussed Extension With Lucas Giolito

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A long-term deal between right-hander Lucas Giolito and the White Sox “hasn’t been talked about at all,” Giolito tells Daryl Van Schouwen of the Chicago Sun-Times.  “I know that’s kind of like the new thing, organizations coming to young players. But I haven’t thought about it myself, and I don’t know where the White Sox are at, either. Just keep playing, play well, and all that stuff takes care of itself,” Giolito said.

It isn’t surprising that the club has yet to broach a deal with Giolito’s reps at CAA Sports, as players in general prefer to stay away from in-season extension talks for fear of distraction.  Needless to say, the Sox don’t want to do anything to throw Giolito off during what has been a breakout season for the 24-year-old.  Giolito has a 2.74 ERA, 10.97 K/9, and 3.59 K/BB rate over 85 1/3 innings for Chicago, with a 14.6% swinging-strike rate that easily tops his previous career high of 10.1% (in 2017), and a drastic reduction in the home run issues that plagued Giolito over his first three seasons in the big leagues.  The righty has only an 0.8 HR/9 in 2019, as opposed to a 1.6 HR/9 in his 240 innings prior to the current seasons.

There isn’t any particular rush for the White Sox to seek out an extension, as Giolito isn’t eligible for arbitration until after the 2020 season and free agency until after 2023.  Plus, it could be that the front office wants to see just a bit more positive evidence before making a big financial commitment given how Giolito struggled last season, though MLB success has long been predicted for the right-hander.  If it weren’t for elbow problems that eventually required Tommy John surgery, Giolito might have very well been the first pick of the 2012 draft, and was still taken 16th overall by the Nationals.  After returning to health and becoming a staple of top-prospect rankings (Giolito was a consensus top-five prospect prior to the 2016 season), he was part of the trade package the Nationals sent to the White Sox for Adam Eaton in December 2016.

As Van Schouwen notes, the White Sox have been proactive in extending young talent since Rick Hahn took over as general manager.  Such notable names as Eaton, Chris Sale, Jose Quintana, Nate Jones, Tim Anderson and (just this spring) Eloy Jimenez have all signed extensions under Hahn’s regime, and it certainly wouldn’t be a surprise if the Sox approach the likes of Giolito or Yoan Moncada about a multi-year contract in the offseason.

In terms of possible comps, Giolito will have between two and three years (two years, 80 days) of MLB service time if he remains on Chicago’s 25-man roster for the rest of the season, which seems like a lock.  German Marquez had a similar amount of time on his MLB clock when he inked a five-year, $43MM extension with Colorado in early April, though Marquez is about seven months younger than Giolito and had more of a proven track record at the Major League level.  Luis Severino also has had more consistent big league success than Giolito, though Severino’s four-year, $40MM extension with the Yankees may also have not have been an ideal model since that contract covered four arbitration years (Severino is a Super Two player).

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