Five Years After Kopechmania

 

There's so many baseball events from July/August 2018 that I can pinpoint to how I saw them while staying at a shore house in Manasquan, NJ, as I was that week. I remember Players' Weekend was going on, the A's were looking for a wild card, Matt Adams and Daniel Murphy were walking right out of Washington a year before the ring, and I think the Mets were playing the Little League Classic? Lot of things I remember. But one of them was the oncoming of Michael Kopech, the ever-present White Sox prospect who made some waves in his first few starts. With the Sox slowly building their own case for legitimacy, Kopech's performance was giving fans a lot more to be excited for.

And then he got hurt, needed surgery and wouldn't pitch again til after the pandemic. That's two and a half prime years, gone. I know there have been other players that have had to get around entire prime years, like Fernando Tatis, Carlos Rodon and, well, Stephen Strasburg, but it's not quite a death sentence. As long as somebody gets there, the road can be worth it.

So Michael Kopech, 5 years later, has basically had 3 years of MLB service. His best year has been last year, which was a decent year as a starter with a 3.54 ERA. This year is looking like the same kind of quality, a 3.92 ERA and a 3-5 record. The one detail that intrigues me is that he's struck out 89 batters through 14 games, while he struck 105 out in 25 games last year. I think he's just slowly hitting his stride and figuring out what he's comfortable doing. The further he gets from the surgeries, the easier it is to just embarrass people at the plate. Even if he's not, like, stellar, Kopech has still been one of the best players for the White Sox this year. 

Which...yes...does say a lot about this White Sox team. It's really just Luis Robert, Lucas Giolito, Kopech and Jake Burger that are worth anything right now. They're also in the midst of a run where they have to play hot teams like the Rangers, Red Sox and Angels. The bulk of the roster isn't pulling their weight, and they're not doing much better than most other AL Central teams. I thought they'd be running the division by now, but they couldn't sustain what they had in 2020, and I still blame Tony LaRussa.

The good news about the division being this bad is that if a low-ranking team figures out how to put something together, they could mop the floor with everybody else pretty easily. Not sure if the White Sox are gonna be that team, but there's more of a chance of it happening to them than the Royals at this point.

Coming Tomorrow- Ironically another guy who missed a couple full years with injuries.