The White Sox will have a few holes in the rotation this year. As of right now, most of the rotation is up for grabs. Assuming Dylan Cease will not be on the roster come the start of the 2024 season, there are just a few options currently on the active major league roster. We also don’t know what the White Sox plan is with Michael Kopech, so that adds more ambiguity.
With that being said, I can see the White Sox targeting some bounce-back arms to compete with the acquisitions from the Braves, the younger arms in the upper minors, and guys like Davis Martin and Touki Toussaint. You can never have too many arms, and if they pitch well, you can trade them midseason to bolster the rising prospect pool.
One player they should take a flier on is Frankie Montas. A former White Sox, Montas pitched in 2015 for the Sox before being shipped to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Todd Frazier deal. He would then make his way to Oakland in another trade and there he would pitch very well for a number of years.
In Oakland, he would spend six years, pitching to a very good 3.70 ERA over about 530 innings. He would be traded to the Yankees in 2022 after there were some false reports of the White Sox trading for him that offseason.
Since becoming a Yankee, he has not pitched great. In the 1.5 seasons he has been there, he has been significantly injured and pitched just 40 innings. He had shoulder surgery that took him out of the 2023 season, after pitching just 1.1 innings.
Now Montas is a free agent and could be a nice buy-low candidate for the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox have connections with Montas, as he spent a few years in the minor league organization and made it up to the big leagues for a few starts, so they are very familiar with him.
Now, coming off surgery, Montas will likely have to sign a cheaper one-year prove-it deal. Unless the Yankees feel comfortable with his medicals, I can’t imagine any outside team offers more than a one-year deal with a potential option for the following year. This is exactly where the White Sox can jump in.
The Sox have a lot of ambiguity in their rotation, and we are not sure exactly what Getz’s plan is with the pitching prospects in the upper minors. They need to have five pitchers eat up a lot of innings, especially because the bullpen will be very inexperienced, as they traded most of their assets in the ‘pen.
Montas is 30, but the Sox could use a stable veteran in the rotation, at least for one year while the younger guys get going. Having too many pitchers is never a bad thing. If Montas comes back and pitches like he did pre-injury, the Sox have a valuable asset on their hands. If they are out of contention, they can trade him for more assets. They can also keep him and have a solid pitcher in the rotation.
The Sox need to look into pitchers that have had success in the past, but recently have struggled with injuries or struggled in general. If they are confident in pitching coach Ethan Katz, they can really turn a couple of bargain bin signings into true assets, which would be extremely key for a team like the White Sox.
