Kopech gets restart with White Sox
Mount Pleasant grad has big potential, but drama-free development is needed after setbacks
NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. _ If people have compared new White Sox prospect Michael Kopech to Mets All-Star Noah Syndergaard, he can understand why.
They’re both tall, young, right-handed Texans who leave their golden locks flowing under their baseball caps as they fire triple-digit fastballs.
“It’s hard not to compare a 6-foot-4plus, long blond hair, hard-throwing pitcher to another one,” said Kopech, who is shorter than his 6-6 counterpart. “There are not many of us.
“At the same time, I don’t want that to be my ceiling, no disrespect to him. I want to kind of set my own limits. I would like to see what those are for myself. I’m not big on comparisons, but that’s not a bad person to be compared to.”
After acquiring him from the Red
Sox as the secondary piece in the Chris Sale trade Tuesday at the winter meet-
ings, the Sox wouldn’t mind if Kopech, 20, reached the heights Syndergaard, 24, has in two seasons with the Mets _ 23-16 record, 384 strikeouts in 3332/3 innings.
But that’s still a little ways off.
Sox general manager Rick Hahn said MLB. com’s 30th-ranked prospect could start the season at Class A Winston-Salem, but is likely to hit Double-A Birmingham sometime in 2017.
Kopech was drafted 33rd overall out of high school in 2014 and has compiled a 2.61 ERA with 172 strikeouts and 69 walks over 1342/3 innings since. He made headlines this summer when his fastball was clocked at 105 mph in a minor league game.
But what he needs in 2017 is to put together a full minor league season free of off-thefield drama.
Kopech was suspended 50 games in 2015 for violating the minor-league performance-enhancing drug policy by testing positive for a stimulant. At the beginning of the 2016 season, he broke his pitching hand in a fight with a teammate. Hahn said the
Sox delved into the issues while evaluating Kopech before the trade.
“We got comfortable with what led up to the background and the back story behind him,” Hahn said. “There is still a fair amount of development left for him given the missed time and where he finished the season, but he did perform extremely well in the Arizona Fall League, which sort of reinforced those projections we have for him.”
Kopech returned from the injury in July to put up a 2.25 ERA in high Class A before moving on to the AFL, where he said he worked on his fastball command and changeup. He said the second half of the year was important to prove he can be the pitcher teams want him to be.
“Bottom line is you can’t take anything for granted,” Kopech said. “I’ve missed too much time in my opinion. This half of the year was very important for me. I needed to show people that I’m still out here to compete and get better.
“I put a little bit of pressure on myself, maybe a little too much, but overall it strengthened my mentality, the second half of the year. That matured me quite a bit and put me in a good mindset to compete for a big-league spot sooner than later.”
Kopech was in the middle of a training session Tuesday when the Red Sox traded him, a move he said left him “shocked.” But he also is excited to see what the White Sox can do with their new load of prospects.
“It’s an opportunity for me and for all of us,” he said.