Tag Archives: Jake Petricka

Can Carson Fulmer Fit with the 2018 Sox?

The South Side hype train finally saw a bounty of young, promising talent arrive to their ever-so-scant farm system in 2017. Top prospect Eloy Jimenez, as well as flame-throwing pitcher Michael Kopech, and Reynaldo Lopez were all added to the fold, just to name a few.

With all the rumblings it’s easy to forget that before the banner offseason, there was a promising, young right handed pitcher out of Vanderbilt named Carson Fulmer who was drafted by the White Sox in 2015.

With a powerful three-pitch repertoire, Fulmer was one of the most recognized college pitchers in that draft and was selected eighth overall in a year that was devoid of quality arms. He had a fastball that touched 95 and attended an alma mater known for producing pitchers such as David Price and Sonny Gray.

For the White Sox, Fulmer is every as intriguing as he is frustrating. Though he stands just six-feet tall, he possesses a strong lower build — a feature of framework that usually lends itself to durability in a starting pitchers who throw with the velocity Fulmer does.

But, as time wore on in the minor leagues, it became evident that as plus as his stuff played in the way of strikeouts, Fulmer had mechanical issues that contributed to elevated walk rates and an extremely high flyball rate. Last year, over 23 innings pitched with the White Sox, Fulmer had a nearly 55 percent flyball rate. While only 11 percent of those turned up in the seats at Guaranteed Rate Field that, coupled with being prone to walk batters, are not qualities that bode well for an aspiring starting pitcher.

Just a year ago, Fulmer was ranked the No. 3 White Sox prospect by Baseball America. But with the organization’s recent influx of top-tier talent, Fulmer’s path to becoming a front end or even mid-rotation starter within the organization has been shadowed by a newer, younger, crop that’s arrived what feels like overnight.

So the question then becomes, what is Fulmer’s future with the White Sox now? The visions of his future role within the organization from a long term standpoint have certainly shifted, but not simply because of the shift in prospect depth. Fulmer has shown his cards on a major league mound for nearly 40 innings now.

Fulmer’s flyball rate was extremely high last season and he also lowered his groundball rate significantly from 44 percent in 2016 to just 28 percent in 2017. Perhaps that was a fluky baseball thing, considering the rate at which Major League Baseball saw fly balls increase last season. It’s still promising, whatever the cause could be for the spike in flyball rate, that not many of Fulmer’s fly balls left the yard. However, heavy flyball pitchers with known control issues are somewhat a recipe for disaster as starters.

Which leads one to the idea that, as many had suggested at the start of Fulmer’s career, perhaps he is best relegated to a strong and efficient role in the bullpen. His repertoire which saw increased usage in his cutter and changeup in the majors, while he also utilized his strong four-seam fastball. That combination makes for a strong arsenal for a relief pitcher to possess, especially when it is accompanied with good velocity (his cutter averaged 89 mph in 2017 while his fastball touched 96 mph) and a strikeout per nine of 7.33. All these things will play up well in a bullpen situation.

After depleting their relief staff through a series of trades in 2017, the White Sox surely need to fill those gaps. The White Sox also recently non-tendered Jake Putnam and Jake Petricka, making their bullpen staff even thinner. Fulmer would be a interesting solution to the White Sox’s immediate need.

While Fulmer may not retain much value in a trade as opposed to the value he can provide staying in the White Sox organization, it’s crucial that the White Sox remain vigilant in their pursuit to work on perfecting Fulmer’s development. Mechanical issues, getting him to stay tall on the mound, and keep his pitches in the zone while producing more ground ball contact will help the organization really understand what role he is suited best for in the coming years with the White Sox. Fulmer’s development is not over, and neither the importance he brings to the organization, it’s simply being reassigned.

Garcia Hits the DL, Sox Send Swarzak to Milwaukee

After a scorching start that gave many South Siders hope for his future, White Sox All-Star right fielder Avisail Garcia will hit the DL with a ligament strain in his right thumb. Garcia said the issue has been bothering him for about a week now and, as he continued to play through it, he realized it was an issue that needed to be addressed.

“It’s been like this one week and getting worse, worse, worse,” Garcia said before Wednesday’s Crosstown Classic took the stage at Guaranteed Rate Field. “So, that’s why I decided to stop because my swing is not the same and I don’t want to keep playing like this.”

White Sox GM Rick Hahn made the announcement prior to Wednesday’s game, and said that it should sideline Garcia for “a couple of weeks.” The injury doesn’t look to require surgery at this time.

“At this point there’s no indication whatsoever that he needs a procedure,” Hahn said. “It’s just a matter of letting the thumb heal and getting him back out there.”

Garcia pointed out his recent struggles and attributed them to the lingering injury. “You could see yesterday, 0-for-5,” Garcia said about Tuesday’s matchup at Wrigley Field.

“I’ve been swinging too much with my shoulders. Trying to force it. I don’t have to force it,” Garcia said. “If something’s wrong I have to stop because I want to help my team. I don’t want this to happen. But it happened. That’s baseball. Anything can happen so I’ve just got to take care of this and be back and ready.”

Garcia is coming off the first All-Star selection of his career and a strong campaign in which he was hitting .303/.347/.485 with a career-tying 13 home runs. He was also was sporting the highest wRC+ of his career at 121.

The White Sox will be making a corresponding roster move with Garcia headed for the DL which will be announced either Wednesday evening or Thursday.

The familiar faces in the South Side clubhouse continue to dwindle as the trade deadline nears with the most recent departure coming on Tuesday evening. The White Sox sent reliever Anthony Swarzak to the Milwaukee Brewers in exchange for outfield prospect Ryan Cordell.

“We feel we picked up another interesting prospect in Ryan,” Hahn said of the acquisition. “Scouts are very enthusiastic about his ability, his diverse skill set. He’s got some power, some speed, some versatility on the field, can play all three outfield positions. He does have some history of playing some third base as recently as this year. And he’s going to provide us with an intriguing player here in the coming months,” he continued.

Cordell is currently on the disabled list with a back strain that will likely keep him from seeing action right away.

“We’re going to have him examined by our doctors in Chicago, but we feel like this is probably going to take another few weeks to resolve,” Hahn said. “And there’s a chance that we don’t see him in action till closer to instructional league. But in terms of long-term prognosis, this injury should be a non-factor in his development, and we look forward to having him in action.”

Swarzak, who had a spectacular final outing as a member of the White Sox at Wrigley Field on Monday in which he struck out two batters and walked one, was one of the final remaining pieces in the White Sox bullpen which now only has two members that were present on the Opening Day roster.

“Yeah, it’s a little sad, when you see friends and teammates go,” reliever Dan Jennings said of the recent bullpen depletion. “You don’t want to sit here and say it’s the end of the road because we still have a lot of games to play and we’re still going to do our best to win every game.”

Swarzak certainly was deemed a valuable asset this season for a team looking for a closer such as the Brewers. In 48 innings of work this season, Swarzak put up a 2.23 ERA with a nearly-matching 2.34 FIP. He was striking out 9.68 batters per nine, walking just 2.41, and had allowed just two home runs.

A familiar face returned to the clubhouse Wednesday as reliever Jake Petricka was activated from the disabled list to help shore up the White Sox bullpen. Petricka has been on the DL since June 29 with a right elbow strain.

“It has been a mental grind especially with the hip injury last year,” Petricka said of his string of injuries. “So, if anything, I’ve just learned a lot more about myself off the field then on the field. And now it’s time to re-establish myself on the field.”

Petricka was not scored on over five outings during his rehab assignment at Triple A Charlotte. “It felt really good. A lot better command and just everything was very good,” Petricka said of his rehab assignment.

Manager Rick Renteria noted that he will be using Petricka in later innings to help fill the gap left by the departure of Tommy Kahnle, David Robertson and now Swarzak.

“Obviously, Petricka has been used in the past in many different roles from kind of a fireman role to a setup to closer,” Renteria said. “So we’re just going to kinda slot these guys where we think we can use them. Obviously everybody is available to us in different situations, we have an opportunity right now to show what they’re capable of doing.”

It’s Been One Week

Although the White Sox haven’t played as many games as they’d planned through a week of the season, there’s plenty to dig in and digest. Obviously, we’ll have to wait a bit longer–at least one full trip through the rotation would be nice–to make any grand statements but here’s what popped most in the Sox first three games.

–Jose Quintana will probably be just fine. He gave up six runs on three home runs against the Tigers. First, he never gives up three home runs. Second, he hasn’t matched up well against the Tigers in the past. Third, with the rainout on Wednesday, the Sox have the chance to start Quintana three times and skip the as-yet technically unnamed fifth starter. They’ll do just that. Q will be fine.

–Matt Davidson hit a 428-foot home run in his first at-bat of the year. He rounded all the bases, did not get hurt, and finished the game. That did not happen after his only at-bat last season. It’s been a long, long road to the Major Leagues after being acquired from the Diamondbacks in 2013. Davidson did not have a good spring, by any measure. He had a fantastic first game and, if nothing else, can take that confidence and run with it.

–Tyler Saladino has seemed extra patient in the leadoff spot. His eye has been sharp, his takes have been keen and when he’s swung early (like belting the second pitch of the game Friday night against Phil Hughes deep to center) he hit the ball hard (but was robbed by Byron Buxton who made a preposterous catch).

–James Shields’ velocity is up. That may mean a lot, if it’s true. Fangraphs.com has an excellent article up about velocity across baseball and how it’s being measured this year as opposed to last. Whether he’s throwing harder or not, he got swings and misses on the fastball in his first start. That simply did not happen last season.

–Geovany Soto became the seventh player in MLB history to homer twice in a game for both the White Sox and the Cubs. The others are Ron Santo, Jay Johnstone, Vance Law, George Bell, Sammy Sosa and WLS’ own Darrin Jackson.

–Jake Petricka will start, pretty much, on the DL this year. A lat strain has sidelined the right hander after just one appearance. He was healthy this offseason after hip surgery put him on the shelf all last season. His absence hurt the Sox as they careened out of contention last year. Hopefully, he gets back quickly. His ability to throw ground balls is an asset to the bullpen.

There’s more but we’ll leave it there for now. Catch all the latest on the Sox live on White Sox Weekly or check the podcast.