MESA, Ariz. — Dylan Cease was named opening-day starter before Chicago White Sox camp even opened, but Cubs manager Craig Counsell has been mum about his decision.
“Let’s get through the rotation one more time and then maybe I can give some more guidance,” Counsell said before Friday’s Cubs-Sox game on a sun-splashed afternoon at Sloan Park.
The opening-day nod is something that’s “earned,” Counsell noted, and going by 2023, no one earned it more than Justin Steele, who allowed two runs over three innings Friday in his Cactus League debut in a 10-6 victory against the Sox.
The low-key Steele said he’s not thinking about a possible opening-day start or replicating the success of last season, when he made the National League All-Star team and finished fifth in NL Cy Young voting.
“I don’t really go that too deep into it,” Steele said. “I really appreciate everything that happened last year. It was really cool to do and prove to myself that I could do it, and now it’s just kind of like no one cares anymore.
“Time to do it again.”
The same could be said for Michael Kopech, though the season he would like to repeat is 2021, when he was a dominant presence on the Sox staff out of the bullpen.
Kopech is trying to find the formula that made him one of the most talked-about Sox pitching prospects in years when he was a core member of the rebuild in 2018 and hopes to stick in a starting role.
He labored through a 29-pitch first inning Friday but struck out five in two hitless innings. Kopech admitted he was erratic at the outset of his first start but was OK with the performance once he “got my feet under me.”
There’s obviously pressure on Kopech to live up to his phenom billing after sporting a 5.43 ERA in 2023 and issuing a league-high 91 walks. At the start of camp, manager Pedro Grifol said Kopech’s “mental preparation” was as good as it has been in the last two years, which could determine whether he’ll be the ace most everyone predicted when former general manager Rick Hahn acquired him from the Boston Red Sox in the Chris Sale trade that started the rebuild.
Kopech said he “never really worried about stuff” but knows that battling himself over staying in the zone is the key to long-term success.
Is this the best he’s felt mentally in a while?
“Yeah, hard not to (say that),” he said. “Got a great group of guys around us and I’m fortunate to have four little ones, a beautiful wife, I got baptized this offseason. I’m in a pretty good head space. We have an opportunity to do something pretty special with this club as far as changing things around, and I think that’s already happened.”
Steele and Kopech know where they’ll be on opening day. But with 27 days until the season begins, Counsell and Grifol have plenty of time to chew over decisions about their final rosters and players’ roles. What happens in spring training might not be an overriding factor in many of those decisions.
Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet, for instance, looked dominant against a powerful Los Angeles Dodgers lineup last week but might have to start out in the bullpen unless they decide he doesn’t need to limit his innings after throwing only 25 last season in the minors and big leagues combined after rehabbing from Tommy John surgery.
Top prospect Colson Montgomery could overcome a slow start and prove to be the best Sox shortstop this spring. But that won’t mean the Sox will rush him to play over veteran Paul DeJong.
Photos: An inside look at White Sox spring training
“I mean, really, prospects like him will let you know when they are ready,” Grifol said. “Who knows? It could be a year. It could be three weeks. … I’ve done this long enough to know that when you’ve got somebody with that type of talent, they let you know when they are ready.”
If it’s a year, either Montgomery had a subpar season in Triple-A Charlotte or DeJong was Comeback Player of the Year.
While the Cubs roster might see only minor tweaking to the bench and bullpen, the Sox have position battles going in right field, second base and in the bullpen and rotation. They brought 70 players to camp, and opportunities abound.
Photos: An inside look at Cubs spring training
Sox GM Chris Getz didn’t have the kind of financial flexibility as Cubs President Jed Hoyer and had to take more risks on players such as DeJong and Mike Soroka who are trying to turn their careers around after early success.
“One of the competitive advantages we had this offseason was the offering of opportunity,” Getz said. “If you look at the some of the (nonroster invitees) we’ve been able to bring in or even free agents we’ve been able to sign to a major-league contract, there was an attraction to come here because of this opportunity for a role they feel they need to be in to be successful as major-league players.
“There is a fair amount at stake. I don’t want players to burn themselves out to make the team and therefore not be in position to have success throughout the year, so I do want to combat that. But we do have a lot of new players, and it’s a great opportunity to know them more as competitors and as people. There is this obsession with being on the opening-day roster, and every year, Day Two of the season, the roster looks different than Day One. We’ve been trying to accumulate as much depth and quality talent as we can.”
Thoughts of opening day could wait on a beautiful March 1 afternoon in Mesa. Saturday brings more sunshine, more baseball and more questions for the Cubs and Sox.
Time to do it again.
