With a roster spot open on Friday after the Joakim-Soria trade to the Brewers, many believed Michael Kopech would be promoted — myself included.
Yes, I dared to dream after drowning in reason the entire season as the White Sox fanbase clamored and cried for Kopech to join the big league club. I’ve consistently, and dare I say correctly, maintained that Kopech had to “check some boxes” before he was called up to Chicago, but Friday was the first undeniable opportunity for Rick Hahn and White Sox brass to promote Kopech.
As much as I’d like to think Hahn trolled twitter looking for public sentiment and hyperbole to figure out what to do about Kopech, there are a few catchphrases that symbolize the patience required for prospects. And Hahn dropped all of them in his pre-game presser on Friday.
There it is my friends: “Until all the boxes are checked.” That phrase pangs against Sox fans inner optimism and spikes their heart rate. Even I, the one constantly dousing his optimism in an ice bath, could see a path for Kopech to be promoted.
But Hahn continued:
I’m shocked he didn’t pull out the famous serve-two-masters cliche. Still, I’m not shocked by this move. Despite clear evidence that Kopech is developing and checking boxes left and right (don’t worry, we’ll get to Eloy Jimenez in a moment) there is still one enormous box we don’t know if he’s checked.
Checking boxes with Kopech
The boxes he has checked:
- Stayed healthy and out of trouble
- Showed that his stuff still hs life deep into games and illustrate the ability to pitch rather than throw
- Demonstrated blossoming maturity and successfully dealt with adversity
I’m summarizing with those three bullets and there’s no doubt the White Sox have a much lengthier punch list for Kopech to complete, but the last box was the one I was waiting for.
Scouts and talent evaluators have been saying for years that Kopech could come up to The Show and get major-league hitters out. His fastball is enough for him to escape jams and challenge hitters, but in order to be a starter, he has to do more than throw. And the biggest hurdle of all was Kopech enduring adversity and responding in the appropriate way.
Before the White Sox acquired Kopech from the Boston Red Sox there were serious questions about his maturity. He was a first-round pick out of a small town in Texas and suffered an arm injury that truncated his first professional season. The following season he decked a teammate over an undisclosed disagreement about Kopech’s then girlfriend, reality television star Brielle Bierman. But if maturity and resilience were the final boxes for me to check, my questions have been answered.
Yet, the one unknown that none of us truly have a clue about is whether the coaching staff and front-office brass believe Kopech’s secondary pitches have developed to the point they are comfortable with him surviving big-league outings. They can’t argue with the statistics Kopech has put up: 4.26 earned run average over 99 1/3 innings pitched and hasn’t missed a start. His WHIP is high (1.36) as a function of his 5.3 strikeout-to-walk ratio, but he has shown progress in cutting down on free passes as the season has gone on.
Rest assured, Kopech’s promotion is getting closer. As long as he keeps rolling forward and isn’t derailed by a psychological meltdown and control issues, I expect to see him in the big leagues in Sept.
But, there’s always this possibility:
Eloy’s endless checklist
Jimenez is another story. He isn’t nearly as close to a promotion as Kopech is, but this isn’t necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison. Kopech plays once every five days and Jimenez is an everyday player. It’s fair to assume that Jimenez’s development will be evaluated through a different lens. Still, as White Sox director of player development Chris Getz has repeated, there are benchmarks players have to hit at each level before reaching the big leagues.
I don’t know what boxes Jimenez has to check. All most of us can do is check the stat line and box scores for insight. However, I guarantee there is A LOT more to his development than stats.
Here’s the deal: Jimenez has only played 78 games this season between Double-A and Triple-A with a slash line of .338/.385/.599 and an OPS of .984. He’s only played 25 games in Triple-A but he has nearly matched his home-run totals in Charlotte (7) in nearly half the time he was in Birmingham (10). Besides the offense, Jimenez defensive abilities have never been questioned, and quite frankly he looks like a man among children in both stature and ability.
Besides dealing with a few minor injuries this season, what stands out to me is that Jimenez has only had 299 at-bats before Monday — not even a full season. Hahn reiterated the notion that when players are called up in the future, it will be to play. Jimenez still needs time in the minors before he jumps to the big leagues. Remember, he’s still only 21 years old.
But just look at those numbers. He’s batting .455 in July and .441 over the last 30 days with a nine-game hitting streak in current development.
Look, Jimenez has torched each level of competition he has seen since joining the White Sox in the Jose-Quintana trade. He seems to laugh at each challenge he is faced with. I want to see him up in the Bigs as soon as possible too, but he hasn’t reached a full season of at-bats yet (500) and we don’t know how he adjusts to adversity since he, quite frankly, has never suffered slump with the Sox.
I’m not saying that Hahn and company should wait for such an event before pushing him up, but there is clear wisdom and letting Jimenez equal out his at-bats in Triple-A as in Double-A. And if he continues to force the issue, as Hahn likes to say, then perhaps he gets his feet wet in Chicago in late September.
But until then, we’ll standby with our checklists continuing to check boxes.
