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The White Sox announced today that right-hander Sean Burke has been optioned to Triple-A Charlotte. Fellow righty Owen White has been recalled in a corresponding move. Per Scott Merkin of MLB.com, left-hander MartÃn Pérez will start Wednesday’s game.
Burke came into this season with just 19 big league innings under his belt. He broke camp with a job in the season-opening rotation and has held it until today. His results have generally been decent. He has made 24 appearances. Only 20 of those were technically starts, as he pitched behind an opener four times. He has logged 117 2/3 innings with a 4.28 earned run average. His 21.1% strikeout rate is just barely below league average for a starter this year. His 10.3% walk rate is more than two ticks worse than par.
Despite his generally cromulent performance, there are a few reasons the Sox are probably sending him down. Monitoring his workload is likely one of them. His highest innings total as a minor leaguer was 108, back in 2022. Shoulder troubles limited him to just 36 2/3 innings in 2023. Last year, between the majors and minors, he got to 90 2/3.
Here in 2025, he’s already shot past his personal high. It’s possible the Sox have already been dialing things back for him, as they haven’t let him go longer than five innings since July 2nd. He didn’t get through four innings in his most recent two outings. Optioning him down to the minors makes it easier to continue down that path.
On top of that, the Sox also recently welcomed Pérez back from the injured list. They also selected Yoendrys Gómez to the roster after getting him stretched out in the minors. Giving rotation spots to those two led to Jonathan Cannon and now Burke getting optioned out.
It also might not be a total coincidence that Burke is just shy of getting to one year of service time. He came into this season with 20 service days. By my count, he has added 144 days to that so far in 2025, bringing him to 164. A year rolls over at 172, so Burke is eight days away from that line.
It’s possible he could come back up as a September call-up and get over the one-year marker. If he does, then he would have a path to reaching six years of service and free agency after 2030. If not, the Sox will add an extra year of club control for themselves, as he wouldn’t be able to reach free agency until after 2031.
Photo courtesy of Denny Medley, Imagn Images
