The White Sox needed some rotation help for 2021 to improve their odds both of contending for the division title and advancing in the postseason; they have a strong duo atop the rotation in Lucas Giolito and Dallas Keuchel, but the three young starters behind them have all been inconsistent or just ineffective. They flipped one of those three, Dane Dunning, to get Lance Lynn from the Rangers, a move that does give up some long-term value in Dunning — a likely major-league starter, with a good chance to peak as a league-average guy for several years — for a significant one-year upgrade in Lynn. That doesn’t solve the back of the rotation yet, where Reynaldo López looks more and more like he’ll have to go to the bullpen, given his problems with the long ball and inability to spin an average breaking ball, but it does reduce his importance.
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Lynn has remade himself into an above-average starter who dominates right-handed batters with a four-seamer, cutter and curveball mix, holding righties to a .222/.280/.412 line in the last two seasons with a 32 percent strikeout rate. He’s also effective against lefties despite allowing more contact to them, as his true curveball is very vertical and thus doesn’t break in to left-handed hitters’ bat paths. He has been homer-prone, almost all of which comes against his high-spin four-seamer, which will be something for the White Sox to watch given how homer-friendly their ballpark can be. With his wide arsenal and above-average command and control, he’s the No. 2 starter they need between Giolito and Keuchel, on what is essentially a low-risk one-year deal.
Dunning was a supplemental first-rounder out of the University of Florida, where he worked mostly in relief as a junior because they had four other future first-rounders on the staff. He shows a four-pitch mix but works mostly as a sinker/slider guy, with the slider his best weapon, and needs a better third pitch than his current changeup to help him get left-handed batters out, as he’s shown a significant platoon split everywhere he’s pitched in full-season ball. He missed 2019 while recovering from Tommy John surgery, but his stuff was all the way back when he returned to the mound in 2020, and he showed the same above-average to plus control he’d had prior to the operation. He could be a league-average starter with a better weapon for lefties, or perhaps just if he throws the changeup in the zone more often. The Rangers also picked up a fringe prospect in lefty Avery Weems, a senior sign from the 2019 draft who went from 87-89 mph in college to 91-95 today with an above-average slurve, enough to potentially make him a fast-to-the-majors reliever.
The Angels’ new strategy under GM Perry Minasian is to corner the market on Iglesiases, first acquiring elite defensive shortstop José Iglesias from Baltimore for their 2019 fifth-round pick, Garrett Stallings, and Venezuelan right-hander Jean Pinto. Iglesias steps into the void left by the departure of Andrelton Simmons, and while Iglesias’ offensive outburst in 2020 is probably just a fluke, he’s still a superb defender at short; given the Angels’ issues with run prevention, he’s a good if low-ceiling fit. Stallings is a command right-hander with nothing plus, an inventory arm with a fifth-starter ceiling, while Pinto is a lottery ticket with a good but not elite arm who hasn’t pitched in the U.S. yet.
The Angels then acquired closer Raisel Iglesias from the Reds for Noé Ramirez and a player to be named later, whose identity we should learn later this week after the Rule 5 draft (meaning that it’s probably a player who is Rule 5 eligible but not on the Angels’ 40-man roster). Iglesias kills right-handed batters and has a decent changeup for lefties, but the latter get to his four-seamer enough that he at least needs to try using that pitch less — maybe against all batters, since he has given up 10 of the 13 homers he’s allowed in the last two seasons on four-seamers. Iglesias is only a year away from free agency and is owed $9.125 million for 2021, something the Reds obviously preferred not to pay; the return could be better depending on the PTBNL but this looks like a cost-cutting move.
The Royals signed Carlos Santana to a two-year deal to be their new first baseman, which seems like a significant bet that his 2020 — when his production was down across the board because he was hitting the ball less than hard than ever before — was a fluke. The Royals finished 2020 with a .309 OBP, fourth-worst in the American League, after finishing 2019 with a .309 OBP, third-worst in the American League, and Santana does address that need. He led the AL in walks in 2020, even while hitting for just a .199 average, and posted a .397 OBP in 2019, which would have led the Royals that year … and every year going back to 2002, when Mike Sweeney was over .400. That OBP would be the 12th-best in Royals franchise history. Even if Santana just matches his career OBP of .366 in 2021 for the Royals, that would be the 10th-highest figure for a Royal since Sweeney’s big year in 2002. What I’m saying is that the Royals did a great job here identifying a player who probably didn’t have huge demand on the market this winter but who seems ideally suited to address their biggest offensive deficiency. I expected him to get a one-year deal rather than two years, and given his 2020, there’s some more risk involved than you would like to see for a low-payroll team like the Royals, but even a partial bounceback from Santana would do wonders for Kansas City’s lineup.
(Top photo of Lynn: Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
