White Sox innings-eater? More like a tapas nibbler
It’s looking like a whole season of tiny bite marks around the edge of innings
Of all the Rule 5-grabbing and waiver wire-pouncing and free agent bargain bin-diving the White Sox have done this offseason, the biggest paycheck will go to Martin Pérez, a journeyman lefty who has put the “eh?” in “meh.”
The 33-year old Pérez has been a very slightly below-average starter both recently (4.53 ERA for a 92 ERA+ in 2024) and through his career (4.44 ERA, 99 ERA+). He had a terrific year in 2022 (2.89 ERA, 137 ERA+ for the Texas Rangers), but has been on the wrong end of the aging curve since.
Still, Pérez has been a perfectly decent pitcher, and the $5 million the White Sox will pay him ($3.5 million in salary, $1.5 million in buyout of a mutual option for 2026 that has the same unlikelihood as all other mutual options) is reasonable, even if it makes him the fourth-highest paid player on the team. You do wonder why Pérez signed with the Sox, unless his agent’s calls to the other 29 GMs went to voicemail and weren’t returned.
BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE INNINGS?
What’s strange is that the team and even reporters refer to Pérez as an “innings-eater.” Oh, how the term has fallen.
Young whippersnappers may not be aware that once upon a time in baseball land, “innings-eater” was a mild pejorative, maybe a half-step up from “warm body.” No major insult, but most certainly not praise:
Speaker 1: Ah, that guy’s no good, his ERA is more than five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but at least he’s an innings-eater.
But Pérez isn’t really even one of those.
Granted, what eating innings has meant has changed through the decades, from more than 600 innings 13 times in the 19th Century to Jack Chesbro’s modern-record 454 in 1904, to the 262 Ted Lyons averaged per season for 21 years with the White Sox.
(Aside: When I was eight, an uncle drove me and some cousins 100 miles to Forbes Field one night for what turned out to be the best performance I would ever see, 18 innings — on short rest, yet — thrown by Vernon Law against the Braves. But I am not claiming that as a standard.)
If you like your history less ancient, Wilbur Wood threw 376 innings in 1972 and 359 the next year. Since knuckleballers basically just play catch, we could move on to the famously-injured Tommy John: 269 innings in 1970, 265 a full decade later, even 176 in 1988 at the age of 45.
Want this century? How about Mark Buehrle (aside — congrats on the upcoming statue, Mark!!) and his 14 straight years of more than 200 innings, followed by 198 at age 36, topped by a 245, itself topped if you include playoffs in 2005.
Buehrle and John might not throw hard enough for comparison (though Pérez barely tops 90 mph on his sinker, which is his go-to fastball variant), so how about Chris Sale? Sale threw 226 innings for the Sox in 2016, with a heater that makes Pérez’s stuff look like it’s slow-pitch softball.
BUT TIMES HAVE REALLY CHANGED, RIGHT?
Yes, they have, to the extent MLB is desperate for a way to keep starting pitchers in games longer, because that’s often who fans come to see, But even by the most up-to-date standards of “just throw as hard as you can until your arm falls off and we’ll call the surgeon for you,” Pérez is no innings-eater. He does take the ball whenever he’s asked to do so, and that’s commendable and important, but he doesn’t do more than gum a few innings while he’s in.
Last season, Pérez made 26 starts — very solid — but only lasted 135 innings, for an average of 5.2 per game — that’s tenths of an inning, not thirds — tied for 87th in MLB. That 135 innings, down just six from 2023, was 11 behind Garrett Crochet, who was on a severe pitch/innings restriction for much of the season — and just one more than Tyler Glasnow of the Dodgers, who got injured and didn’t pitch after August 11.
And while it’s true innings pitched are on a steady downhill slide, Logan Gilbert threw 208 last season followed by Seth Lugo, the actual innings eater the Royals signed at 206.
SO HOW MANY INNINGS COUNT AS A DINNER?
A heck of a lot more than barely more than five per game, that’s for sure, which is an even worse predicament because the prognosticators are calling the presumed White Sox 2025 bullpen the worst they’ve ever graded.
There are 1,458 innings in a 162-game season, slightly more with extra-inning games and possibly as much as 81 fewer for the Sox staff if the team loses every road game and the home team only has to bat eight times. Even with the possible reduction (surely not all 81, right?), 135 innings will barely make a dent.
All those rookies and not-quite-rookies that will be filling out the staff better have a whole lot more stamina than anyone really expects. And that’s not even counting the probability that if Pérez is any good, he’ll get swapped by the deadline.
Innings-eater? Celery stick nibbler. But on a celery-stick budget, Pérez was the best Chris Getz could come up with.