Could the Chicago White Sox Bring in This Former Cardinal?

The Chicago White Sox are a team in need of improvement at nearly every position, and one of the best ways to improve from one season to the next is to bring in pitching. Former Stanford Cardinal Cal Quantrill could be an option for the Sox to consider this winter.

For his career, he has a 4.07 ERA across six seasons, along with a 4.46 FIP and a 1.31 WHIP. He's never been a huge strikeout pitcher, but he does command the ball well with a 7.6% career walk rate. Chicago's starters held a cumulative 4.62 ERA last season, ranking No. 25 in MLB.

This past season as a member of the Colorado Rockies, he held a 4.98 ERA with a 5.32 FIP, with his strikeout rate slightly down compared to his career and his walk rate in the double digits. You'd think that a decent amount of that could be chalked up to playing his home games at Coors Field, but his splits were fairly even both at home (4.91 ERA) and on the road (5.04).

Instead, he was his usual self during the first half of the year, holding a 4.13 ERA, which is roughly league average, across 102 1/3 innings. In the second half he landed on the IL in late August with right triceps inflammation, which kept him out for a couple of weeks. He ended up with a 6.85 ERA after the break in just 46 innings.

The question here is how much of that decline was related to the injury (and if he's recovered), and how much of it was overperformance in the first half. Given the sample sizes of the two halves, pre-break would seem to be closer to the real version of Quantrill at this stage in his career.

One reason the White Sox could be interested is because he unleashed his relatively new split finger offering a career-high 32% of the time, and generated a .206 batting average against with a .238 expected average against. The pitch is solid. What he really needs is a replacement for his sinker, which was his most-used offering at 40.2%, and it had a run value of -16 with opposing batters hitting .350 against it. He could also switch up his pitch sequencing for a quick fix.

The one piece of silver lining here is that it had an expected .293 opponent's average, so he got pretty unlucky. The expected stats also hold true with what he put up in 2023 with a .307 expected average against.

While Quantrill's sinker was one of the least valuable pitches in 2024, it's worth noting that another Rockies' pitcher, Justin Lawrence, also had a poor-performing sinker with a -22 run value, making Lawrence's sinker the worst pitch in baseball last season.

Quantrill's was just seventh-worst.

While his splits slightly favored pitching at home, we've long heard that the tricky part of pitching for Colorado is the constant change in how pitches act from start to start. That could be what happened here.

The other reason that the Sox could be interested is because Quantrill could likely be had on a minor-league deal with an invite to Spring Training. If he performs well, he makes the team and could be a trade piece in a few months. If he doesn't make the club, then they could either release him or send him to the minors. It's a pretty low risk scenario for the White Sox.

The one thing that they have to offer players is playing time, and with Quantrill racking up at least 149 innings in three of the past four seasons, he could be a valuable addition to the roster.