While the White Sox have done a more than fair job of keeping their heads above water as arm after arm hits the disabled list, the mounting injuries have certainly left many wanting for more.
It’s not just the White Sox dealing with bumps, bruises and busted bones. The best player on the planet, Mike Trout, and the pitcher with the best stuff on earth, Noah Syndergaard, are both banged up. As are countless other super stars, critical pieces, crucial role players, and indispensable bullpen arms.
The White Sox, with Carlos Rodon, Charlie Tilson, James Shields, Nate Jones, Geovany Soto, Tyler Saladino, Dylan Covey, Jake Petricka, Zach Putnam, and Michael Ynoa all on the DL, are only middle-of-the-pack in terms of DL trips made. (Leading MLB with 24 DL trips, the Dodgers are either having the worst luck of all time or abusing a new system.)
The White Sox aren’t even at the top in terms of quality of injured player. Other teams have lost luminaries (Trout, Syndergaard, Robinson Cano, Josh Donaldson, Aaron Sanchez, Zach Britton, Aroldis Chapman, Madison Bumgarner). Still, for the Sox, the players they’ve lost had significant importance to this season.
Rodon was on track to have 2017 become a potential breakout season. He could still evolve as a pitcher but it won’t be more than 150 innings worth of work at this point. Jones, Putnam, and Shields all could have had varying trade value to various teams. With the Sox still looking to deal, losing innings on those arms doesn’t help. With injury comes opportunity, however. It’s possible that injuries to bullpen arms opened the door to both Tommy Kahnle and Anthony Swarzak getting extended, high-leverage looks.
There’s still two months until the trade deadline, however, and it seems like the White Sox are trending toward getting healthier than not. This season, that’s all a team can ask.
