The White Sox have an abundance of young pitchers in their organization, both in the minor leagues and in the major leagues. While I’m sure they would love to give everyone a chance to be a starter, they will likely only have a five man rotation, with one pitcher coming out of the ‘pen for long relief.
At this point, the White Sox have a few pitchers on the team that are likely to stick around the team for a while. Jonathan Cannon has shown he can be a valuable starter, while Sean Burke and Drew Thorpe showed flashes of brilliance as well.
On top of that, the White Sox have Nick Nastrini, Jairo Iriarte, Jake Eder, and Mason Adams floating around the roster bubble. That doesn’t include Ky Bush, who is out for the year with Tommy John, but should still be in the plans for the White Sox. Additionally, the White Sox have Hagen Smith, Noah Schultz, and Grant Taylor as top-100 prospects who aren’t far off from making their debuts. While some will have to go to AAA and come up if there is an injury, others may have to convert to a reliever.
While the White Sox do have to account for injuries like Tommy John, converting a pitcher to a reliever doesn’t mean they can’t go back to starting. If anything, a prospect may prefer to switch to a relief role if they can get time in the major leagues.
One player that could switch to a reliever and potentially thrive in that role is Jake Eder. After acquiring him from the Miami Marlins for Jake Burger, he’s had an interesting tenure in the White Sox system. He made his MLB debut last season, giving up one run in two innings.
After having a 1.77 ERA over 15 starts in his dominant minor league debut season, he’s had 160 innings of 6+ ERA baseball since retuning from his Tommy John surgery. He’s shown flashes of being an elite starter, but the overall work hasn’t been what people have expected.
Jake Eder with a nice bounce back outing on Sunday for the #Knights. He goes 5 innings and allows 2R on 5H and 2BB. He strikes out 6 on 53S/81P to improve to 1-4. #WhiteSox pic.twitter.com/qgK5HwfB1M
— FutureSox (@FutureSox) August 25, 2024
While he has an elite 11 K/9 ratio in the minor leagues, he almost walks five batters per nine innings and has been getting hit around more than he’d like. A switch to a reliever could alleviate those issues.
A potential glimpse into what he could look like as a reliever was on display in Sunday’s Spring Training game, as he had a 1-2-3 inning, striking out Bobby Witt Jr. in the process.
Eder usually sits around 95 MPH, but in a shorter stint, he could probably get that into the high 90s.
Jake Eder appears to have added a new sweeper! Statcast is tagging them as cutters, but they’re definitely not. pic.twitter.com/DbPDyRfoQa
— Dylan (@NotCease) February 23, 2025
We will see what Chris Getz has in store for Eder, but for a hard throwing lefty that strikes batters out an elite rate, a transition to the back end of the bullpen could be seamless. While I am in favor of giving everyone a chance to start before moving them to the ‘pen, the circumstances with the White Sox may not allow for that, so Eder could take advantage of and succeed in a late inning role.
