White Sox see no reason to stunt development of Michael Kopech, Eloy Jimenez to boost current big league squad: ‘I don't see us jumping the gun'

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The White Sox have the worst record in baseball, and giving up a combined 19 runs in the first two games of this crosstown series with the Cubs only sent social media into a further rage.

Fans with and without Twitter accounts are all asking the same question: Why not bring up two of the top 10 prospects in baseball and give this team a jolt?

The answer isn’t difficult to come up with, even if it’s a displeasing one to those making the query.

Michael Kopech and Eloy Jimenez are two exceptionally talented prospects. But there’s simply no point in promoting them before their development in the minor leagues is fully complete. The ongoing rebuilding effort meant this was always going to be a tough season at the major league level, and while owning the worst record in the bigs is perhaps a little surprising, there’s no pennant or playoff spot that Kopech or Jimenez would help the White Sox chase down.

Calling those guys up just to make a last-place team a little better? While taking away from their long-term development? Where’s the logic in that?

“You can’t cross that line,” manager Rick Renteria said Sunday. “I think that you have to allow those guys that are in the system to continue to work through the things that they’re working through. I don’t think it would make sense, honestly, to push something because of what’s occurring here at the particular moment.

“No one, neither as a staff or as an organization, expected that we would be at this particular point right now. But it is what it is. I think we have to continue to move forward. I don’t see us jumping the gun and trying to do something to infuse, at this particular moment, something to take away from what’s going on right now by having a young player come up right now. They have to still do some things down there before we get them here.”

As the White Sox still search for their 10th win of the season in mid May, it’s no wonder the fan base is upset. The team has scored the fewest runs in the American League and has the highest ERA and the highest walk total in baseball.

This is the extreme, of course, but there’s a reason Rick Hahn called this “the hardest part of the rebuild.” And the general manager has said repeatedly that prospects’ development and the major league win-loss total will be completely independent of one another.

It’s a waiting game, and at this moment a very uncomfortable waiting game, while all those prospects develop in the minor leagues. The major league games remain valuable for the development of young players like Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Tim Anderson, Reynaldo Lopez and Matt Davidson. But it might not mean a heck of a lot of winning.

Frustrating? Yes. Unexpected? Not really.

It all means giving Kopech and Jimenez and all those other prospects the time they need in the minor leagues. Just because Kopech is piling up the strikeouts another doesn’t mean the process is complete. Just because Jimenez has a hit streak half a month long doesn’t mean the process is complete.

For all those fans who, to their credit, so willingly bought into this rebuilding process, this is the tough part.

“I think that if there’s anything I can say, it’s that the one thing I can’t lose sight of or our staff can’t lose sight of, it’s where we’re going, the direction that we want to go,” Renteria said. “I think that ultimately as we continue to move forward the one thing that these guys have to take from every experience that they have is to gain some knowledge from it. Obviously the growth will continue to occur. As frustrating as it might be right now, it is going to happen.

“I think that patience in this particular instance is a really important part of being where we’re at right now. That may bring no solace to the fan at this particular time, but I can’t lose focus on what we’re trying to do in terms of developing guys to become the players that we want them to be and the team that we want them to be.”

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