Chicago White Sox: Breaking down Lucas Giolito’s amazing season

Lucas Giolito put up a monster season with the Chicago White Sox in 2019. Let’s dive into what helped him turn his career around.

When the Chicago White Sox unloaded Adam Eaton to the Washington Nationals in exchange for Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez, and Dane Dunning, Giolito was widely known to be the prized possession. The former top prospect in baseball had the best fastball and command but struggled to limit the walks in the 2018 season as he finished with second-most walks (90), just five behind Tyler Chatwood of the Chicago Cubs who made 12 fewer starts.

Giolito got off to a rough start in 2019 with a 5.30 ERA for the month of April and 10 walks in 18.2 innings. However, he would follow that up with two dominant months where he allowed opponents to bat just 0.169 and 0.198 in May and June, respectively. He finished the first half of the season with a 0.194 opponents’ batting average in 100.0 innings of work while striking out 120 batters and walking just 38. Overall, Giolito finished with a 3.41 ERA in 29 starts this season and a ridiculous 11.62 K/9. He will likely end up in the top-five of the Cy Young voting for the American League behind both Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander.

A closer review of his pitch usage in comparison to 2018 conveyed a heavier use of his highly-regarded fastball at a 55 percent clip, increased from 39 percent a year ago. Batters were able to hit just 0.203 off his primary pitch which topped out on average near 94 mph and produced a 31.0 percent strikeout rate and 26.0 percent whiff rate (StatCast).

Perhaps his best pitch was his changeup, in which batters hit just 0.190 off it while producing a 34.1 strikeout rate and 41.3 percent whiff rate. And despite having a 2512 rpm spin rate, Giolito’s curveball was his worst pitch as batters did the most damage off it. With an opponents’ 0.682 slugging percentage and 42.1 percent hard-hit rate, his curveball caught way too much of the zone and produced just 3 of his 228 strikeouts via this pitch.

I would imagine his offseason will consist of him working on getting that curveball to break below the strike zone so that in 2020, batters swing right over the top of it. Giolito made tremendous strides in 2019 to establish himself as the ace of the White Sox rotation and with the return of Michael Kopech, they will make for a nice 1-2 punch.

However, they’ll need hope for a bounce-back season from Lopez as well as a better sophomore campaign from Dylan Cease.