The White Sox introduced right now that right-hander Sean Burke has been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. Fellow righty Owen White has been recalled in a corresponding transfer. Per Scott Merkin of MLB.com, left-hander MartÃn Pérez will begin Wednesday’s recreation.
Burke got here into this season with simply 19 large league innings below his belt. He broke camp with a job within the season-opening rotation and has held it till right now. His outcomes have typically been respectable. He has made 24 appearances. Solely 20 of these had been technically begins, as he pitched behind an opener 4 instances. He has logged 117 2/3 innings with a 4.28 earned run common. His 21.1% strikeout charge is simply barely beneath league common for a starter this yr. His 10.3% stroll charge is greater than two ticks worse than par.
Regardless of his typically cromulent efficiency, there are just a few causes the Sox are in all probability sending him down. Monitoring his workload is probably going one in all them. His highest innings whole as a minor leaguer was 108, again in 2022. Shoulder troubles restricted him to only 36 2/3 innings in 2023. Final yr, between the majors and minors, he acquired to 90 2/3.
Right here in 2025, he’s already shot previous his private excessive. It’s doable the Sox have already been dialing issues again for him, as they haven’t let him go longer than 5 innings since July 2nd. He didn’t get by 4 innings in his most up-to-date two outings. Optioning him all the way down to the minors makes it simpler to proceed down that path.
On high of that, the Sox additionally just lately welcomed Pérez again from the injured checklist. In addition they chosen Yoendrys Gómez to the roster after getting him stretched out within the minors. Giving rotation spots to these two led to Jonathan Cannon and now Burke getting optioned out.
It additionally won’t be a complete coincidence that Burke is simply shy of getting to at least one yr of service time. He got here into this season with 20 service days. By my depend, he has added 144 days to that thus far in 2025, bringing him to 164. A yr rolls over at 172, so Burke is eight days away from that line.
It’s doable he might come again up as a September call-up and recover from the one-year marker. If he does, then he would have a path to reaching six years of service and free company after 2030. If not, the Sox will add an additional yr of membership management for themselves, as he wouldn’t be capable to attain free company till after 2031.
Photograph courtesy of Denny Medley, Imagn Photographs
