White Sox to promote top prospect Carlos Rodon

The Chicago White Sox will promote top prospect Carlos Rodon on Monday, Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports reported. 

Rodon, who is a left-handed starting pitcher, will begin his Major League career out of the bullpen, per Rosenthal's report. 

The White Sox drafted Rodon less than a year ago, picking him with the 3rd overall pick in the 2014 MLB Draft. Even though he has just 11 professional appearances under his belt, Rodon appeared ready for live Major Leaguers in Spring Training. 

Rodon went 2-0 with a 3.06 ERA in six games (five starts) in Spring Training, fanning 21 and walking just five in 17.2 innings pitched. The North Carolina State graduate becomes the second player from his draft class (2014) to make the Major Leagues. 

Using the excellent data on BrooksBaseball.net, Rodon features four offerings, a fastball, sinker, changeup and slider. Rodon's best three pitches--his fastball, sinker, and slider--are praised highly by Brooks Baseball:

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His fourseam fastball is blazing fast and results in somewhat more flyballs compared to other pitchers' fourseamers. His slider is thrown extremely hard, generates an extremely high number of swings & misses compared to other pitchers' sliders, is an extreme flyball pitch compared to other pitchers' sliders and has short glove-side cut. His sinker is thrown at a speed that's borderline unfair and is an extreme flyball pitch compared to other pitchers' sinkers.

Rodon was ranked as the White Sox' best prospect and the 15th best prospect overall, via MLB.com's prospect rankings. MLB.com's scouting report considers Rodon to be a 60-grade pitcher overall (which is based on the 20-80 scale), which would be an above-average Major Leaguer. 

MLB.com believes Rodon's best pitch is his slider, which is graded at a 70 on the same 20-80 scale. 

Over his professional career, Rodon is 1-0 with a 3.15 ERA in 11 appearances (8 starts). He has 51 strikeouts, as compared to 17 walks, in just 34.1 innings. While he never pitched above High Single-A last season, Rodon pitched in Triple-A to begin 2015, and allowed four runs in 10 innings there. 

--Devan Fink