In the second half of last season, White Sox fans got a taste of the future on the South Side.
This season, the future will be on display from start to finish.
That’s not to suggest that the time has already come for highly touted prospects like Michael Kopech and Eloy Jimenez — though it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them make their major league debuts at some point in 2018. But the first wave of White Sox prospects did reach Guaranteed Rate Field last season, with Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez all getting tastes of the big leagues.
This season will be the first full big league campaigns for all three, and their continued development and performance at the major league level will be the story of the season on the South Side.
Giolito and Lopez, in particular, will be fascinating to watch after turning in some impressive results in 2017, and they could get a step ahead of the coming horde of White Sox pitching prospects — Kopech, Alec Hansen, Dylan Cease, Dane Dunning and more — and potentially carve out spots in the rotation of the future.
“It was a great experience for me,” Lopez said through a translator during the early days of spring training out in Arizona. “It was a great experience, and I learned a lot. I think it was a good experience , as was the experience in 2016 with the Nationals. Every day that you spend at this level, every day that you spend in the majors, it’s a learning experience for you, and you have to take advantage every day.”
Giolito and Lopez both made major league starts in 2016 when they were members of the Washington Nationals organization. Then they came over in the trade that shipped Adam Eaton out of Chicago, one of the moves that jolted the White Sox rebuild to life.
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But after Giolito posted a 6.75 ERA in 21.1 innings in 2016, he threw a no-hitter with Triple-A Charlotte and made seven mighty impressive starts at the end of last season, finishing with a 2.38 ERA and 34 strikeouts over 45.1 innings of work. It was enough to crown him the team’s best pitcher in the minds of many White Sox fans, sparking some social-media disappointment when veteran James Shields was expectedly named the team’s Opening Day starter.
Don’t worry, Giolito will have plenty of opportunity to prove he deserves that fan-given label.
“I was able to go up there, get seven starts in a row, pitch pretty well,” Giolito said in an interview with NBC Sports during spring training. “And so I take that, I take my experience, what I’ve learned having seven starts at the big league level and putting in the work every day, getting prepared for that fifth day and kind of learning from that. And going to this next year, starting here in spring training, trying to out it all together, making adjustments off of hitters I faced last year, experiences I had last year.”
Lopez had a 4.91 ERA in his 11 outings with the Nats. After making 22 starts at Charlotte, he made eight starts with the big league team, finishing with a 4.72 ERA and 30 strikeouts in 47.2 innings. He had a lower 4.10 ERA in his six September starts.
Obviously, these guys aren’t finished products. General manager Rick Hahn has said multiple times this offseason that many of the team’s young players already on the big league roster will spend the season continuing to develop, just like their highly rated future teammates down in the minor leagues. That’s part of Rick Renteria’s job is to help mold these guys into the future big league stars they’re supposed to be when the White Sox are planned to be perennial contenders.
“Just to see that their work reflects what we believe is a growth in confidence and consistency,” Renteria said when asked what he hoped to see from Giolito and Lopez during spring training. “They’ve been hammering the strike zone, not trying to overthrow. I think in the long run, it’s about trying to find a consistent performance from your guys over an extended period of time.
“They’re much more comfortable this spring than they were last, and so it allows them to continue to work at a very calm pace, very controlled pace, a very effective pace. And that will lead hopefully to consistent outings from them over the course of the spring and the season.”
Renteria has some help, too, in a couple veteran starting pitchers on this roster. Shields and Miguel Gonzalez are fully embracing their mentor-type roles, with Gonzalez, brought back this offseason after he was traded last summer, saying that part of his coming back to the White Sox was that he would help bring these young pitchers along.
“It was part of the deal. I’m always excited and happy to help others,” Gonzalez said. “They like coming to us, to the veterans, and asking us questions. And we like to help. That’s what we’re here for, also.”
“They’ve still got a long way to go. They’ve got a lot to learn. But at the end of the day, their talent, their work ethic and just the way that they compete out there is definitely top notch,” Shields said. “They definitely belong in the major leagues, and they’re doing a phenomenal job, have a great attitude. It’s going to be fun to watch those guys. … I’m here to help those guys out, and they’re here to push me, as well.”
The young guys appreciate the help.
“Gonzalez and Shields are the veterans of this team. They are always trying to help the young guys like me and Gio, trying to give us advice,” Lopez said. “Shields did very good work with me last year just giving me advice, telling me things about the game. And Miggy, too. I’ve been working with Miggy, he’s just reinforcing to keep the focus the whole game, to be focused on the things that I want to do. And that’s something you take with pride because they’ve been pitching for a longer time than me and know how to be successful at this level. And you try to take advantage of it.”
The White Sox aren’t expected to contend for a championship this season, taking some of the pressure off of Giolito and Lopez, who can focus on getting better and being able to take on that pressure when the rebuild reaches its apex a year or two down the road.
But Giolito, who told NBC Sports Chicago's Chuck Garfien that he’s glad to have shed his former title of “the top pitching prospect in baseball,” doesn’t sound like the getting-rattled type.
“Since one step up from Little League, you’re pitching from 60 feet, six inches,” he said. “That goes through high school, that goes through the minor leagues, it doesn’t matter what’s going on out here, what’s going on behind me. It’s the same distance, the same game. So I’ve kind of bought into that.
“Whether you’re in the big leagues, whether you’re anywhere else, it’s the same distance and you’re trying to execute pitches just as well as you always are. You’re just trying to go out there, get ahead of batters, throw strike one and execute. That’s the name of the game as a starting pitcher: How many pitches can I execute in my 110-pitch start?”
Both young pitchers are feeling the same level of excitement as everyone around the organization, an excitement for the future given how much talent flows through the minor league system and, more and more as time goes on, the major league team. Giolito and Lopez are big pieces of this rebuild, and what they do in 2018 will determine how far the White Sox go in 2019 … and 2020 … and 2021 …
“I feel proud and happy for this moment. I feel proud to be here, to be in this organization and to be considered as part of the future of this organization,” Lopez said. “We have a lot of talent here, and I think we’re going to be one of the best teams in the years to come. But I’m really happy, too, because I know that all the work that I put in my training, things that I’ve been doing since I was a kid, are starting to pay off. And that’s why I’m here in this moment, and I think that’s why I’m here as one of the key members of the future of this team.”