The South Side Has a Bright Spot In Shane Smith
In #64 We Trust
Let’s start with the elephant in the room. I apologize for being slow on the blog front. I promised this blog to Dean & team almost a month and a half ago, and finally it has arrived, just like Shane Smith of the Chicago White Sox. Truth be told, I am happy I waited on this one to gather more data on Smith. That being said…I should have written 10 other blogs in the meantime.
Since his MLB debut back on April 1st of this season, Smith has proven time and time again that he is a dependable major league starter. In his eleven starts so far this season, he has gone 4 ⅔ innings or more in all but one of his starts, but we won’t be too critical of that. I won’t count his most recent start against the Mets against him as they are an excellent team, and he still managed to go 3 ⅔ before getting pulled.
In his first eleven MLB outings, Smith has pitched to a 2.68 ERA with starts against Minnesota x2 (31-25), Cleveland (30-26), Boston x2 (28-31), Milwaukee (30-28), Chicago (35-22), Seattle (30-26), Miami (22-33), Kansas City (30-28), and New York (35-22). The only two teams that he has faced that aren’t .500 are the Marlins and the Red Sox.
Let’s be real, though, the Red Sox are mismanaged and should be way better. Besides Miami, these are all formidable opponents.
The twenty-five-year-old attacks the zone with a whopping 6-pitch mix! In his arsenal, he displays a Four Seamer (43.1%), Changeup (22.6%), Slider (17.8%), Curveball (8.5%), Sinker (7.7%), and Sweeper (0.3%). Outside of his sinker, all of these pitches command a 24.1 Whiff% or better.
Smith was fantastic across High-A and Double-A, and even his little time spent in Triple-A. While in the minors, he racked up 203 strikeouts through 157 innings across three levels of competition. That is some nasty stuff!
He will be starting tonight against divisional rival, the Detroit Tigers! If you have not been able to tune into one of Smith’s starts yet this season, this is an excellent time to get a peek at the rookie as he will have his hands full with the Tigers, who are rolling to start the season.
One last thing to note…without Smith, the White Sox would be so much worse than they are right now, and that is a tough statement for a team that just finished the 2024 season with a 41-121 record. The worst of all time! Just under a third of the way through the season, and the White Sox have won eighteen games so far, which puts them on pace to be better than last year’s 121-loss “worst team of all-time” in the modern game.
Shane Smith is currently the number one option in this rotation ahead of Sean Burke (4.20 ERA), Jonathan Cannon (4.15 ERA), Davis Martin (3.45 ERA), and Bryse Wilson (5.79 ERA). Imagine how bad the White Sox would be without Smith right now…
I would say that Chicago nailed it with this Rule 5 Draft selection.
Minors - 13-7 | 2.69 ERA | 19 GS | 157 IP | 203 K | 53 BB | 1.05 WHIP | 47 ER
2025 - 1.3 WAR | 1-3 | 2.68 ERA | 11 GS | 57 IP | 54 K | 23 BB | 1.16 WHIP | 17 ER