Chicago White Sox: Can Carlos Rodon Become an Ace?

Carlos Rodon was drafted with the third overall pick in the 2014 MLB Draft and was lauded as the best pitching prospect in the draft. Since being drafted by the Chicago White Sox, Rodon has experienced some growing pains. Is he ready to move past those and become an ace?

Carlos Rodon was drafted early in the 2014 draft because of his incredible “stuff.” With NC State, Rodon showed a mid-to-upper 90s fastball with a slider that was absolutely unfair to college hitters. Those two pitches alone were enough for the Chicago White Sox to invest in the left-handed starter who seemed as though he was nearly ready for major league action.

The White Sox most notably moved a college pitcher through the minor league system in quick fashion after they drafted Chris Sale in 2010. Carlos Rodon followed a somewhat similar path. Rodon, however, spent just a little more time in the minor leagues than Chris Sale did. While Sale pitched just 10.1 innings in the minors before being added to the White Sox bullpen in his draft year, Rodon didn’t reach the majors until the year after he was drafted and 34.2 innings pitched in the minor leagues.

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The main reason Rodon took longer to reach the big leagues? He was lacking an effective changeup, and he struggled to locate all three of his pitches. Despite getting only marginally better during his time in the upper levels of the minor leagues, the White Sox decided to call him up before the end of April 2015.

Rodon getting called up before all of the kinks in his pitching could be worked out caused him to look worse than he actually was during his first season of major league pitching. He relied on getting ahead in counts in order to use his slider as an out pitch. Because of his lack of control, he wasn’t ahead of hitters very often. That led Rodon to post a 3.80 ERA, 1.61 WHIP, and 13.9 percent walk rate during the first half of the 2015 season.

In the second half of 2015, adjustments were made to help Rodon throw more strikes and simply have more command over his pitches. Namely, Rodon started pitching from the third base side of the rubber and extending himself towards the plate more on his pitches (source). In the second half of 2015, Rodon lowered his BB% to 9.7 percent and his WHIP to 1.29. Based on the eye test alone, it looked like he was locating his pitches better, getting ahead in counts and using his slider to absolutely dominate even the best hitters.

Because of the improvements made in the second part of 2015, he entered 2016 with high expectations. His breakout seemed imminent after making such important changes to his game. Instead, Rodon struggled even more than he had during the first half of the 2015 season.

This time, locating pitches and walking too many batters wasn’t the problem. Rodon actually significantly lowered his BB% to 7.8 percent in the first half of this season. The problem was simply that hitters were jumping on his fastball early to stay away from counts where Rodon could use his best pitch. Not only were hitters jumping on the fastball, they were getting hits at a unsustainable rate on balls in play. Hitters held a .349 batting average on balls in play against Rodon in the first half of this season along with a ridiculously high .384 average on ground balls in play. The bad luck on balls in play combined with Rodon using his changeup just 5.57 percent of the time heavily contributed to Rodon’s dreadful first half of 2016.

Just as Rodon adapted in 2015 by moving his position on the mound and extending toward the plate, he made the adjustments needed to be a good pitcher again. There isn’t a real adjustment that can be made to combat against bad luck on balls in play, but things did normalize for Rodon this season. His .349 BABIP and .384 BABIP on ground balls in the first half turned into a .293 BABIP and .175 BABIP on ground balls during the second half. The change in luck has payed dividends for Rodon in his run prevention, lowering his ERA from 4.50 in the first half to 2.52 in the second.

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Speaking of change, Rodon’s biggest adjustment was throwing his changeup far more often. Having a good changeup is key for Rodon to get out right-handed batters. Lack of trust in the pitch combined with Dioner Navarro behind the plate calling the game caused Rodon to use it just 5.75 percent of the time in the first half of the season. Switching to Omar Narvaez behind the plate during Rodon’s starts has seen his changeup usage rise to 17.33 percent in the second half. Not only is Carlos Rodon using a changeup more often, but August Fagerstrom from Fangraphs argues that it’s a very good one too.

Carlos Rodon has been somewhat of a special case. Rather than developing and making his adjustments in the minor leagues where relatively nobody sees the daily, monthly and seasonal changes in his game, we have seen Rodon develop right in front of our eyes. Seeing how Rodon has made adjustments, with the help of pitching coach Don Cooper and his catchers, is extremely encouraging for the White Sox and their fans.

Does this all mean that Rodon can become an ace? The easy answer is to point out that Rodon has always had potential to become an ace. When he was drafted, he was lauded for both his high ceiling and high floor. That fact alone made him a no-brainer for the White Sox with the third pick in that year’s draft.

If we can look past simple scouting expectations for Rodon and truly focus on what we have seen him do in Major League Baseball, the answer remains the same. Carlos Rodon has the ability to become an ace. He has the solid base layer of having really dominant “stuff” combined with a willingness to make big adjustments to his game. What we see now in Rodon is a pitcher that has improved his ability to throw strikes, utilizes three good pitches and still has room to grow.

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It’s too early to declare Rodon an ace right now based on a small sample size of work in the second half of this season. However, there’s plenty reason to believe that Rodon does get there one day. The next step for Rodon is to add an ability to lower his pitch count and go deeper into games. If he makes yet another adjustment to add that ability to his game, the sky is the limit for him.

If Rodon does get to that ace level, the White Sox rotation suddenly becomes one of the best in baseball with Chris Sale and Jose Quintana both being Cy Young contenders in 2016. All of this is good news for the White Sox as they head into 2017 trying to compete in the AL Central division.