Michael Kopech Stinks! But He’s Still Getting Traded

Michael Kopech has absolutely sucked this year in the White Sox bullpen. The newly anointed closer by default has been on the struggle bus nearly all damn season. Every time he has an electrifying performance that restores your faith in him, he rips it down with an erratic, dong giving-up encore.

Jake Burger walkoff blast against his former team! pic.twitter.com/9YB72IveDY

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) July 7, 2024

The stat line is absolutely brutal, 39 IP for Kopech with a 5.31 ERA and 1.462 WHIP. Some of you older baseball fans will say, “Well, he’s the save getter, is he getting the saves?”. NOPE! Kopech has 8 Saves, with 5 Blown Saves, that math doesn’t really math too well with that shit (not to mention a whopping 8 Losses as a reliever, oof!). Michael does have a strong K Rate of 29.7%, which is top 30 in the league out of qualified relievers, but it goes downhill from there. His BB Rate is 13.1% which is in the top 20 worst out of qualified relievers, his HR/9 is 1.85, that’s top 5 worst as well.

Least we mention his very weird habits of……A) Getting a fucking cleat stuck in the mound forcing him to fall down when he pitches and generating a very abstract art version of a balk and B) his propensity to let’s say, “let emotions get the best of him”, and overthrow a pitch bouncing it very early creating a great adventure in blocking for Marty or Korey.

Yep, White Sox fans are pretty much over Michael Kopech at this point.

Michael Kopech gives me more indigestion than Aaron Bummer did. #WhiteSox

— Melissa Sage-Bollenbach (@soxmom72) July 9, 2024

And even with all that….he’s still getting traded.

Michael Kopech Is Still Getting Traded

Yes, despite his hideous 2024 performance so far, Michael Kopech will still be traded. Now, based on the stats above and what you as White Sox fans know from watching him, I get how you think this is probably a goofy thought. I think this tweet below encapsulates a very cogent thought process on the matter.

White Sox fans and pundits have treated a Michael Kopech trade like a foregone conclusion, but I’m not so sure. He’s 2-7 with 4 blown saves in 11 chances and a 4.50 ERA that outperforms his FIP. He’s been terrible and teams aren’t paying for that.

— Trooper Galactus (@TrooperGalactus) July 3, 2024

With so many relievers potentially available, why wouldn’t I agree with Trooper’s tweet? Well, a few reasons. 1) I believe the White Sox to be motivated sellers. They want out of this marriage. Kopech only has one year of control left on his contract. And given that they haven’t been able to harvest this talent from him in all this time, I think they see the sands in the hourglass working against them.

2) The guy still has great “STUFF” and teams fucking love stuff. I know what you are about to say, Aaron Bummer allegedly had great stuff too and we got 5 Palookas for him. Yea, but that was different. See below the chart of White Sox Pitchers (min 20 IP in Relief) by Stuff+, Location+ and Pitching+ from Fangraphs.

Look, here’s all you need to know about this chart. 100 is average, basically the same as OPS+, ERA+ or wRC+, and also it is cut up by Pitch first, then by Stuff+, Location+, Pitching+. Stuff+ is basically the quality of the pitch, taking into account many factors, including, but not limited to Release Point, Velocity, Spin, etc. Location+ is the pitchers ability to put the pitch in the appropriate spot. Pitching+ isn’t quite an amalgamation of the two, but uses many of the same factors to create an overall model. If you want to get more cozy with the terms, definitions and usages (like I have been attempting to do the last year or so), the hyper link in the previous paragraph is your spot to start.

Anywho, Kopech’s 4-Seam Fastball being a 154 is outstanding, it’s actually 2nd in MLB (for qualified relievers) behind Jeremiah Estrada from the Padres and even ahead of Mason Miller from Oakland (if only he had Miller’s slider). That single pitch is enough to have trade partners thirsting that their pitching lab can make fetch happen! Kopech’s overall Pitching+ rating of 110 is 13th out of qualified relievers in MLB. Which means that some combination of “what’s between Michael’s ears”, an absurdly high HR rate which can be fluky and the White Sox pitching program, can be fixed by someone else.

In conclusion, Michael Kopech is going to get traded. No matter how bad he looks to us (the current spouse), someone new is going to see only the good things (stuff, great hair, teeth, etc) and scoop him up on the rebound.

-BeefLoaf