The White Sox rebuild has been to acquire young major league ready players and supplement with veteran talent.
No more apparent is this philosophy was the team trading its young closer, Addison Reed, to the Diamondbacks for young CF Adam Eaton. This did cause a hole in the bullpen, but the Sox quickly filled it with various new arms.
Michael, Boggs, Scott Downs, Ronald Belisaro have joined holdovers Nate Jones, Daniel Webb and Matt Lindstrom as the core of the 2014 bullpen.
But there is plenty of rusty arms which causes some concern amongst Sox fans. Belisario and Lindstrom have not pitched in game situations. Jones and Webb have not thrown a lot. Downs does not look sharp. And Boggs has a 14.73 ERA over his first four outings.
Jones has only pitched in two games since missing much of the early
going with a gluteus muscle strain, but he was solid in a perfect inning
Monday. It would be a surprise if he wasn’t the closer on Opening Day.
Lindstrom is throwing on the side again, but an oblique injury is
always tricky. Oblique muscles are never quite healed even when
discomfort subsides, which makes them easy to aggravate. He’s had one
setback already on his road to recovery.
ESPN calls The White Sox’s bullpen "unique" since it is essentially a gathering of setup
men, and since most of them have experience, getting ready for the
season wouldn’t seem to be an issue. This may be one of those situations where there will be a closer by committee as was the case when the White Sox won their last World Series championship.
