By Dominic DalDegan | November 29, 2022

Sunday night, the White Sox agreed to terms with starting pitcher Mike Clevinger on a one year deal worth 12 million dollars.

A name that White Sox fans may be familiar with, Clevinger was a dominant pitcher for Cleveland until 2020 when he got traded to San Diego.

Last season, Clevinger performed well below his career averages. Clevinger allowed home runs at an alarming rate while not striking out nearly as many hitters. Both of these factors contributed to a career-worst FIP approaching 5. The overarching reason for this can be control issues, which led to more hit batters in 2022 than he had for his whole career. 

In his defense, Clevinger had only thrown 64.1 innings in 2020 before missing all of 2021 due to undergoing his second Tommy John surgery. Only tossing 114.1 innings in 2022, it is clear that his arm was not quite built up yet. Fortunately, it is possible for pitchers to see a sudden surge in innings pitched despite extended layoffs. In his age-31 season, fellow Tommy John recipient Zack Wheeler tossed 213.1 innings following a COVID-shortened 2020. Hopefully the last couple years of work can lead a higher inning total for Clevinger in 2023.

The 2022 season was not all bad though, as he experienced some positive developments. Most notably, Clevinger added a sinker to his pitch arsenal and threw it 15% of the time. Opposing hitters had a terrible time trying to square it up, putting up only a .136 batting average and never hitting a home run. The sinker proved to be much more useful than his 4-seamer. Clevinger threw his fastball 36.7% of the time and was met with a .497 slugging percentage. Factoring in Chicago’s extensive history with sinker-ballers, we can expect to see an increase in Clevinger’s sinker usage in 2023. 

Time will tell whether or not this ends up being a good signing for the White Sox. Spending 12 million on somebody who is technically a flier is too much considering the cost restraints the team seems to be under. However, if the White Sox do spend big this offseason to add pieces around Clevinger, this signing will look a lot better. Either way, Clevinger will help solidify the back-end of the rotation for the White Sox who badly lack organizational depth at the position.