Chicago White Sox: Lucas Giolito has dramatically improved

After a terrible start to his first full MLB season, Lucas Giolito has turned things around and cemented himself as a building piece for the Chicago White Sox.

The Chicago White Sox are entrenched in what has been a disappointing season. No one thought this team would compete, but the lack of development from young players like Yoan Moncada and Reynaldo Lopez has been disappointing. Until recently, you could’ve included Lucas Giolito‘s name in that discussion.

Through his first 17 starts this season, Giolito had a 6.59 ERA – the fourth worst ERA of all eligible starters in baseball. His peripheral numbers didn’t look any better.

In those 17 starts, Giolito sported a 6.39 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching – a statistic on the same scale as ERA that only takes into account walks, strikeouts, home runs, and hit by pitches – outcomes that do not involve the defense), indicating that his ERA was not fluky.

To make matters worse, Giolito struck out 57 batters and walked 57 batters in those first 97 innings. His 12.9 percent strikeout and walk rates ranked him third-worst and fourth-worst in those categories respectively. He was the only qualified starter over that stretch to walk the same amount of batters that he punched out.

Altogether, those numbers gave him one of the worst lines of all starting pitchers at the MLB level. In fact, his 6.39 FIP was the worst among starters.

He looked like a pitcher that wasn’t deserving of a spot on an MLB team. If a pitcher without his prospect caliber had those numbers, he’d be lucky to be able to hold a spot in an MLB bullpen.

As a former top prospect, Giolito has been afforded opportunities many wouldn’t be given, and he’s taken advantage of it.

In his last seven starts, Giolito has looked like a brand new pitcher. He’s posted a 4.87 ERA over those seven games. It’s not a great number, but it’s a large improvement over the 6.59 mark in his first 17 starts.

The real dramatic improvement is evident in his peripheral numbers.

Giolito dropped his FIP over two runs, all the way down to a respectable 4.19, a number that is slightly below the American League average over that stretch.

His biggest improvements have come in his ability to get batters to swing and miss.

From March 31st to July 7th, the range of dates where his first 17 starts of the season took place, Giolito induced opposing batters to swing at just 23.6 percent of pitches that he threw outside of the strike zone.

Since July 7th, he’s raised that number all the way to 30.3 percent.

Getting batters to offer at pitches outside of the zone is the hallmark of a successful pitcher.

To go along with more swings and misses at balls, Giolito has also dropped opponents contact rates against him on pitches outside of the strike zone from 68.4 percent to 57.6 percent.

With an increase in swings at bad pitches and less contact against those bad pitches, Giolito has raised his swinging strike rate from 7.7 percent to 9.9 percent.

Overall, Giolito has raised his strikeout percentage from the 12.9 percent in his first 17 starts to 23 percent in his seven most recent starts.

Another big improvement for Giolito over this successful run has been a drop in free passes that he’s issued. His walk rate is at 9.8 percent since July 7th, meaning he’s walking over three percent fewer batters than he was early in the season.

That 9.8 percent is still over two percentage points above league average, but the marginal improvement has paid dividends for his ERA and FIP.

Even when batters have been getting the bat on the ball against Giolito, he’s been getting much better results. In his first 17 starts this year, Giolito had a line drive rate of 17.8 percent and a groundball rate of 39.5 percent.

Since turning a corner in mid-July, Giolito has dropped his line drive rate to14.8 percent – the 4th lowest rate of qualified starters over that stretch.

He’s also gotten many more hitters to ground out, raising his groundball rate to an elite 53 percent, the 10th highest rate since July 15th.

Talking to the Chicago Tribune after his quality start against the Minnesota Twins on Monday, Giolito compared where he’s at now versus where he was at the start of the season.

"I think the big difference from now versus earlier in the season is the ability to make adjustments, whether it be a quick, mechanical adjustment or just mentally locking in a little bit better, focusing better. I feel like I’m able to bounce back from a few bad pitches and grind through, especially a night like tonight where command wasn’t the best."

Despite the dramatic improvement from his first 17 starts to his most recent seven, Giolito’s numbers still are only about league average, but the huge improvement is encouraging.

He should be able to continue building on these developments throughout his remaining starts as well as in the offseason.

Giolito has cemented himself as a future piece of the White Sox starting rotation after months of making fans question whether he was even an MLB-caliber pitcher.

The massive improvement of Giolito, as well as Michael Kopech‘s call-up, should give White Sox fans a dose of hope as the 2018 season winds down.