{"id":551412,"date":"2026-02-03T01:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/551412\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T01:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T01:48:18","slug":"white-sox-analysis-simping-for-daniel-sandlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/551412\/","title":{"rendered":"White Sox Analysis: Simping for Daniel Sandlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rejoice! It\u2019s February! That means baseball will be back before the month is over, and I\u2019ll finally write about something besides \u201cHey, look at this young arm!\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Spring Training is still weeks away. Respite still eludes you, South Side Sox stan. The Pale Hose have another arm you haven\u2019t heard of,<\/a> Daniel Sandlin, and I\u2019m going to tell you all about him. (At least he\u2019ll stick around for longer than Ryan Rolison.<\/p>\n

The trade represents a lateral move for Sandlin\u2019s organization ranking: FanGraphs has Sandlin as the ninth best prospect in the White Sox system, which was just about the consensus for him with the Red Sox. His big-ticket trait is velocity: at 6\u20194\u201d and 215 pounds, Sandlin was topping out at 99.9 mph in September. The steady velocity \u2013 he sits around 96mph \u2013 has kept the door open for Sandlin to start in the majors, despite being transitioned into the bullpen at Triple A this past season. In the video below, a June 21 Double-A start, you can see how easily Sandlin can overpower an opposing lineup when he\u2019s locating his fastball at the top of the zone:<\/p>\n

FanGraphs also has good things to say about Sandlin\u2019s cutter and slider, calling both pitches \u201cnasty and fairly distinct from one another.\u201d A sinker\/sweeper combo rounds out his standard five-pitch mix, although he has a curveball he\u2019ll mix in on occasion. Sandlin also threw a changeup last year. No, literally. He threw one changeup:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

However, I\u2019d wager the remainder of Luis Robert Jr.\u2018s contract that Sandlin is going to be throwing a lot more changeups \u2026 what\u2019s that? Apologies, dear reader, but I\u2019m now being told all that money actually has been spent? No kidding? Huh. Well then, I guess I\u2019d wager the remainder of Andrew Benintendi\u2019s contract? Regardless, if Sandlin\u2019s going to win a spot in the White Sox rotation, he\u2019ll need to get comfortable with a changeup, and quick.<\/p>\n

At this point in time, Sandlin\u2019s has a two-part plan for approaching lefthanders. The first part is to throw the ball, and the second part is to pray:
2025 Splits (Combined Double-A and Triple-A)
vs. Righties: .225 BA, .343 SLG, .649 OPS, .289 BABIP
vs. Lefties: .285 BA, .430 SLG, .772 OPS, .358 BABIP
Back to FanGraphs, who came through in the clutch with an updated 2026 report today: \u201c[Sandlin] still doesn\u2019t have a great offspeed pitch with which to attack lefties \u2026 [he] peppers the top of the zone with cutters and sliders before elevating his fastball with two strikes.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re throwing your breaking pitches up in the zone to get ahead against opposite-side hitters, it doesn\u2019t take much imagination to picture what could happen if that slider hangs just a little, or that cutter comes out a little flat, or even if he just misses his spot a couple inches low. The French refer to it as \u201cBang City.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve read a single thing I\u2019ve published on this site before \u2014 not a guarantee, I realize! \u2014 you already know what I\u2019m going to say, and you\u2019re probably pissed off that you\u2019ve read 500 words just to realize this is yet another article about the kick changeup and how I think it\u2019s a magical pitch that fixes everybody. But I\u2019m not even the first to bring it up this time!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe White Sox have had recent success coaxing better changeups out of pitchers with naturally-good breaking balls,\u201d FanGraphs concludes in their prospect report, \u201cand perhaps they\u2019ll be able to do that with Sandlin.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I\u2019d say the evidence is there! Sandlin has a very strong supinator profile. His Achilles\u2019 heel, for him and many supinators, is a lack of arm-side options against opposite-handed hitters.<\/p>\n

To flatten out his pitching splits, Sandlin\u2019s going to need something. This is the magic of the kick change: no unfamiliar arm mechanics or discomfort. The platonic ideal of the kick change isn\u2019t just its effectiveness, but how quickly somebody can pick it up and add it to their arsenal. For Sandlin, it is also the difference between a major league starter versus a middle reliever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rejoice! It\u2019s February! That means baseball will be back before the month is over, and I\u2019ll finally write…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":551413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,49,39268,38554,2561,19259,4,396,2562],"class_list":{"0":"post-551412","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-white-sox","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-white-sox","11":"tag-chicago-white-sox-commentary-analysis","12":"tag-chicago-white-sox-prospects-minor-leagues","13":"tag-chicagowhitesox","14":"tag-david-sandlin","15":"tag-mlb","16":"tag-white-sox","17":"tag-whitesox"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116004186854825443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=551412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/551412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=551412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=551412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=551412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}