If your first look at Lucas Giolito was in his White Sox debut, you might have concluded he profiles differently than he has all year in Triple-A.  Despite a total inability to locate or utilize his offspeed pitches, Giolito scrapped through six innings anyway relying entirely on his low-to-mid-90s heat.  And while some evaluators have praised Giolito for his cerebral approach and pitchability, the story of post-hype Giolito has largely been one of a pitcher whose curveball remains ahead of his fastball.

On Sunday, in his second White Sox outing, Giolito threw seven shutout innings, with four strikeouts against three walks. Giolito was able to throw his curveball and slider–a relatively new offering–for strikes in the zone.  It helped him get ahead more often and meant that hitters couldn’t simply hold off any time they identified that a pitch was offspeed.  In addition, it meant hitters could not simply sit on his fastball, either, yielding more awkward swings on that pitch as well.

As the strikeout to walk ratio indicates, it was hardly a perfect outing, although he was getting a lot of weak pop-outs on the infield, which–like strikeouts–are automatic outs but for the most unusual of circumstances.  Giolito’s fastball command is still a work in progress, even taking into account that it looked like he was getting squeezed on a lot of close pitches.  He loaded the bases in his seventh inning of work with two outs, and, after a conversation, Rick Renteria left him out there to see if he could get the final out.  It nearly ended in disaster, as Jose Iglesias ripped a potential grand slam just barely foul.  But, it only went for a long strike and Giolito would eventually finish the inning without allowing a run on the day.

As has been the case since before the White Sox acquired him, Giolito no longer profiles as an ace.  The fastball sits around 93 now, rather than the 97-100 range he boasted once upon a time.  Even so, the curveball still looks like a good offering, and he shows confidence in the slider as well.  There’s still the the material for a good, mid-rotation starter here and it may not be far away, which is a tremendously valuable thing.

Matt Davidson has returned off the DL, and after falling behind 0-2, he smashed a 3-run home run to right-center, pushing the White Sox to a 5-0 lead over the Tigers.  His strikeout to walk ratio is rather unnerving, his OBP is still .286, and he doesn’t have a ton of defensive utility, but the power is very real, and while he doesn’t have much margin for error, even a modest improvement in his bat-to-ball skills and/or patience in his second full season could solidify his role as an extremely useful complementary piece.

In the minors…

Even with Yoan Moncada, Reynaldo Lopez, and Lucas Giolito in the majors (and two of them on the DL for what appear to be minor injuries), there is still too much going on in the suddenly booming White Sox farm system to cover here.  Michael Kopech and Eloy Jimenez continue to produce, even as they adjust to their promotions to Triple-A and Double-A respectively, and Dylan Cease struck out ten in six innings of one-run ball in his most recent outing.  While it’s important not to rush a prospect’s development, elite talent will find a way to push the timetable forward.  If guys with elite stuff like Kopech and Cease can throw it for strikes, they’re going to move quickly, and a bat as special as Eloy’s might be ready sooner than you’d think.  Our prospect team also got eyes on both Jimenez and 2017 second round pick, Gavin Sheets, and you can read about them both here in deeper dives.

Over the last week, 2017 first-rounder Jake Burger has hit .480/.519/.720, including a 5-for-5 game wherein he hit for the cycle and drew a walk.  And, although our prospect team’s Jarrett Seidler warns against the potential arbitrariness of hot streaks coinciding with promotions and yielding deceptively clean, pretty stat lines, it is still worth pointing out that Zack Collins has .304/.500/.609 in his first look at Double-A pitching.

Oh, and Luis Robert has returned from an ankle injury and continues to brutalize outmatched teenagers in the DSL.  The White Sox system is truly a delight, and the minor league updates on the main site are required, daily reading given just how littered they are with Sox prospects these days.

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Their run differential following Wednesday’s 4-2 loss in Minnesota is now zero, which is somehow second best in their division, and their Third Order Winning Percentage entering the day was .495. Put simply, the White Sox performance to date is more in line with approximately a .500 team.

That difference also only equates to about three wins, so we’re not saying the White Sox have been unlucky to a substantial degree, but this illustrates by larger point. The White Sox are somehow playing better than their record despite their staring pitching performing like utter trash.

First, the season stats: Entering play Wednesday, White Sox starters have thrown the third fewest innings in the American League, ahead of just Minnesota and Baltimore. Their 4.85 ERA is ahead of only the aforementioned pair and Seattle. Their HR/9 is tied for third worst with Seattle, ahead of only Minnesota and the LA Angels. They’re striking out batters at the fourth worst rate in the league, and they’re walking batters at the second highest rate in the league.

Using an arbitrary end point, in 18 games since the calendar turned to June, the White Sox have had only one starter go seven innings and only five times have they gone six innings. Starters have only lasted as much as five innings in half of those 18 games.

You get the point.

We knew coming into the season that the White Sox pitching depth was thin. The fact that as we approach the halfway point, the only starters who started the season with the team and have yet to spend time on the disabled list are Jose Quintana and Derek Holland — and neither have been particularly good — means we’ve seen a whole lot of Dylan Covey, David Holmberg, and Mike Pelfrey, hardly a trio that elicits a whole lot of confidence. What’s funny is that those three more or less held their own, relative to expectations, but Holland, Quintana, and Miguel Gonzalez have all been underwhelming.

2. Really, it’s been a credit to the White Sox bullpen that the White Sox are merely the second worst team in the American League and not on par with, say, the Philadelphia Phillies. They currently sport the fourth best ERA in the American League and sixth best K/9.

This, of course, is not sustainable, and Rick Renteria is well aware.

“These guys are trying to give us length,” manager Rick Renteria said. “It just hasn’t happened. I get it. I don’t anticipate that’s what’s going to continue to happen as we move forward. I don’t think anybody could sustain over a long haul using your starters for three or four innings. It’s impossible. You would wear out your arms in the pen. Today we were fortunate in that we just used two guys for quite a few innings and outs. … They did a very nice job. That type of work is unsustainable.”

One of the crazier aspects of the White Sox bullpen’s stellar performance is that it hasn’t come from the guys you would’ve expected coming into the season. David Robertson has been better than last season, but Nate Jones and Zach Putnam have both been injured for most of the season, while Tommy Kahnle could be an All-Star and Anthony Swarzak has been lights out for long stretches of the season. Likewise, they’ve gotten competent innings out of the likes of Chris Beck, which I never would’ve imagined coming into the season.

3. We worried at the start of the season that the White Sox pitching depth issues would lead to premature promotions for any of the heralded prospects. That, uh, hasn’t been a problem.

So that’s now 32 IP, 36 H, 27 ER, 23 BB, 16 K, 6 HR and a 7.59 ERA over Carson Fulmer’s last 7 starts

— James Fegan (@JRFegan) June 21, 2017

Once the White Sox acquired Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez, Fulmer fell down the totem pole a bit in terms of pitching prospect upside, but the White Sox top arms taking longer than normal to look major league ready is at least worth keeping an eye on. The plus side of having no interest in winning is that their struggles simply mean they get more time at Triple-A to develop, while the downside is that, ya know, they’re struggling.

4. Tim Anderson committed his 16th error of the season in Wednesday’s loss, which is the highest total in baseball by any player at any position.

Errors don’t tell the whole story, of course, but FRAA has him at -2.1 on the season, which is 26th out of 35 qualified shortstops this season (although above bigger names like Jean Segura, Xander Bogaerts, and Brandon Crawford) and right in line with how they viewed him last year (he finished at -4.7 last year in a little more than half a season).

Anderson’s struggles are noticeable, but also given his athleticism and what we’ve seen from him when he’s at his best, they’re likely mental. I’d fathom a guess he’ll break out of his defensive funk sooner rather than later.

5. The White Sox announced the signing of first round pick Jake Burger on Wednesday to a signing bonus worth $3.7 million. They also reportedly came to terms with second round pick Gavin Sheets on an over-slot deal worth approximately $2 million.

They saved approximately $500K on signing Burger under-slot, and also reportedly got third round pick Luis Gonzalez to sign for $119K less than his slot, so some of those savings went to Sheets. It’s nice to see the White Sox avoid any type of draft pick signing drama, and all of their top picks should be reporting to short season ball soon enough.

For full coverage of White Sox draft pick signings, our friends at FutureSox are a great resource.

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Jake Burger may very well wind up sticking at third base, which would certainly be helpful, as it would mean whatever production he could add with the bat would be that much more valuable and increase roster flexibility.  And, if the White Sox’ third baseman of the future is in the organization already, it’s not clear who that is.  Gavin Sheets is evidently first base only, but not in the “this dude is going to be a DH by age 25″ way, in that he can handle the position well.

I spotted some discussion last night of how these picks create “problems” moving forward based on the assumption that Jose Abreu may still be around when one or both of them reach the majors and/or given that Zack Collins may yet wind up at 1B/DH as well.  That line of thinking is a very close cousin to the traps that I wrote about in yesterday’s draft article.  If, in fact, Sheets, Burger, and Collins need to play at 1B/DH but they’re all hitting well enough such that you want to play them all, that’s still a pretty good outcome.  Collins is still in High-A and neither Burger nor Sheets has signed a contract yet.  If they all start forcing their bats into a major league lineup that’s a pretty excellent problem to have. The overwhelming likelihood is that at least one of them won’t make it.

It’s also premature in the sense that, as mentioned above, Burger may very well stay at third, and Collins has made strides defensively at catcher.

Zooming out a little, these players fit strategies that have worked for good organizations in the past — Theo Epstein and the Cardinals have frequently picked “best bat available and figure out the rest later” in recent years and had it work out quite well for them.  Similarly, although you can never have too much up the middle talent, the White Sox’ organizational prospective depth among position players has improved of late. Obviously the plan is to have Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada up the middle for the foreseeable future, with Leury Garcia and Yolmer Sanchez suddenly looking like serviceable second division starters or quality back-ups.

Going further down the depth chart, the aforementioned Collins still hopes to represent the catcher of the future, while Luis Alexander Basabe and Luis Robert offer further hope up the middle.  Meaning, as Nick Hostetler mentioned after his first two picks last night, that the White Sox need bats. Just dudes who can mash. First basemen, left fielders, even players who will rotate through the DH slot.

When it comes to baseball, you should be extremely skeptical of those who will take minor league prospects and pencil them into some sort of future lineup.  And, even if you think you have “too many” shortstops or whatever similar fictional problem you may have, it doesn’t hurt to draft more of them if you think they’re the best player available when you select.  All of that said, the White Sox appear to have a credible major leaguer in his 20s and a credible backup for both middle infield spots, and potentially in center field as well.

That makes it that much easier to grab what Craig Goldstein might refer to as “beefy boys” with the hopes that they will help drive the offense while Anderson and Moncada are doing all the premium athletic stuff.

The White Sox may not ultimately get what they hoped for out of Burger or Sheets or any of these guys. But you can certainly see how it all could fit together if they do.

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Burger is a 21 year old who hit .328/.443/.648 during his junior season with the Bears. Most scouting reports you’ll find call him one of the best college bats in the draft, someone with big power who also projects to have the ability to hit for average.

There are questions about whether or not he’ll be able to stay at third base long term, but like with Zack Collins at catcher, the White Sox will likely give him every opportunity to prove he can. Here’s MLB.com’s scouting report:

With 10 of its pitchers appearing in the Majors since the turn of the century, Missouri State is known for producing mound talent. Yet the Bears’ two best big leaguers have been position players Bill Mueller and Ryan Howard, and they should have their first ever selected in the first round in 2017. Burger went undrafted out of high school but has blossomed into a college star, finishing second in NCAA Division I with 21 home runs in 2016 and winning Missouri Valley Conference player of the year honors this spring, when he led the league in all three triple crown categories (.341-22-63) entering NCAA tournament play. Though he went homerless with the U.S. college national team during the summer, scouts still recognize Burger as one of the top power sources available in a Draft class short on college hitters. He generates his pop more with strength than bat speed, and there are some worries about an arm bar in his right-handed swing. He controls the strike zone well and makes reliable contact for a slugger, so he should hit for some average as well. While Burger isn’t the most graceful player, one scout compared him to Hunter Pence for his ability to get the job done in less than pretty fashion. Despite his large frame, he has average speed out of the batter’s box and decent range at third base. With his solid arm, reliable hands and admirable work ethic, he should be able to stay at the hot corner.

Regardless, he’s a welcome addition to an organization that is deep in pitching but less so from a positional standpoint. It’s yet to be determined where he’ll slot in the system’s individual rankings, but he joins Collins, Yoan Moncada, Luis Robert, and Luis Alexander Basabe as potential above average bats in the system.

The White Sox continued their search for power in the second round, taking left-handed first baseman Gavin Sheets at No. 49 overall. Like Burger, Sheets’ value is almost entirely tied to his bat. Unlike Burger, who has a shot at sticking at the hot corner, Sheets seems to be solely the first base/DH type. Burger and Sheets combined to hit 42 home runs in 2017. Here’s MLB.com’s scouting report on Sheets:

For the second straight year, Wake Forest has a big-bodied corner infielder who will factor into the early rounds of the Draft. Sheets won’t go in the first round like Will Craig did to the Pirates in 2016, but he could go in the top three rounds to a team seeking left-handed power. The son of former big league outfielder Larry Sheets, he played for his father at Baltimore’s Gilman High before turning down the Braves as a 37th-round pick in 2014. An imposing presence at 6-foot-4 and 230 pounds, Sheets has ranked among the NCAA Division I home run leaders this spring. He has a pretty swing and impressive strength, though there are some concerns about whether he has the bat speed to do damage against big league fastballs. He has made improvements to his plate discipline and pitch recognition this spring, giving him a chance to hit for average to go with his pop. Though Sheets is a well below-average runner, he moves well for his size. He gets the job done at first base and has plenty of arm strength to turn 3-6-3 double plays. First base and DH are his only possible positions, so he’ll have to hit.

Whether it is just coincidental given the players available when they selected or not, the White Sox have ended the night with a pair of bats who, if they reach their respective ceilings, could be impact power bats in years to come.

The draft continues Tuesday with rounds 3-10.

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