Thawing The White Sox Frozen Pitching Hunt

The winter bomb swirling off the north-east coast isn't the only winter storm. Major League Baseball's free-agent market has frozen solid with little movement the past few weeks and there isn't much warmth in the forecast. But the White Sox still have a litany of boxes to check before heading to Glendale, Arizona in February.  White Sox brass are patiently waiting to grab a reclamation project on the starting-pitcher market. Even though Derek Holland didn’t pan out the way they had hoped, doesn’t mean the philosophy wasn’t sound. Jake Peavy has expressed interest in making a comeback (I know, I know) and Tim Lincecum recently sent up a flare on social media with a chiseled physique. Peavy is probably worth a quick “Hey, how are you doing? Good luck in your future endeavors” conversation but The Freak is intriguing. Lincicum is five-foot-nothing and mesmerized baseball for years with his ability to blow the doors off hitters. Despite an awkward delivery his body held up well through the major-league grind until it didn’t. Still, he was a five-time all-star that eclipsed 200 innings in five straight seasons, won the N.L. Cy Young twice and won three World-Series titles. Tim Lincecum Lincecum hasn’t pitched since 2016 and he will turn 34 this season, but with a year of rest and an indefatigable appetite for competition, he might return to relevance at a decent price. Any contract offered to The Freak would be a minor-league deal with incentives if he makes the roster, but he might love the idea of joining the White Sox cast of characters – there is certainly a lot of opportunity on the south side. There are plenty of other choices as well. Matt Garza, Lance Lynn and Jaime Garcia are interesting choices. All three hurlers are in their early thirties with Garza the senior member at 34 years old. Matt Garza Garza has had a rough stretch with the Brewers the past four seasons but fits the salvage-bin model the White Sox are in the market for. He posted a 4.65 earned run average in Milwaukee and reached 150 innings pitched once. As a right-hander, he might be a quick pass since right-handers are a dime-a-dozen with the White Sox, but he was once a dependable pitcher with the Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago Cubs.   Lance Lynn Lynn is the youngest of the trio and yet another righty. With the Cardinals, Lynn has been a durable piece of a competitive rotation for six seasons. He made 33 starts three of those six seasons and reached 200 innings twice. Lynn is a winner, owning .605 winning percentage and a 3.38 ERA. Switching to the American league is always challenging for pitchers but Lynn is still in his prime at 31 and might be out of reach for the White Sox at this point. In the field of lefties still hanging out in the frigid free-agent market, Jaime Garcia stands out. Given the supreme interest on the trade market he gathered last season it stands to reason that he will get a similar look this offseason. But it hasn’t happened yet. Jaime Garcia Garcia was part of a tremendous rotation in St. Louis with Lynn and spent a dizzying 2017 season with four teams. Despite racking up airline miles he failed to pile up wins with only five. Still, his paltry sum of victories is more a product of a haphazard routine than declining stuff. Garcia owns a career 3.69 ERA and posted a 6.33 strikeout-to-walk ration last season against lefties. It seems likely that Garcia will be in high demand as free agency thaws in the next few weeks, but the White Sox could make a strong offer and add a quality southpaw to a rotation without much veteran leadership and one promising yet injury-prone left-hander.