White Sox Acquire Lance Lynn from Texas in Exchange for Pitchers Dane Dunning and Avery Weems

8 min readDec 9, 2020

CHICAGO — The Chicago White Sox have acquired veteran right-handed pitcher Lance Lynn from the Texas Rangers in exchange for right-hander Dane Dunning and lefty Avery Weems.

Lynn, 33, finished sixth in the American League Cy Young Award voting last season with 22 points after going 6–3 with a 3.32 ERA (31 ER/84.0 IP) and 89 strikeouts over 13 starts with the Rangers. Future teammates Dallas Keuchel (46 points) and Lucas Giolito (18 points) were fifth and seventh, respectively, in 2020 AL Cy Young balloting.

Lynn, 6-foot-5 and 250 pounds, led the AL in IP and starts and ranked among the leaders in complete games (T1st, 1), quality starts (T1st, 10), pitching WAR (3rd, 2.3), wins (T4th), strikeouts (5th), opponents average (5th, .206), WHIP (7th, 1.06) and ERA (10th).

“Lance is one of the most proven and dependable starting pitchers in baseball,” said Rick Hahn, White Sox senior vice president/general manager. “He provides us with another power arm and gives us three proven starters at the top of our rotation, while at the same time deepening our rotation and allowing some of our younger pitchers additional time to develop.”

Lynn opened last season with a streak of 18.0 consecutive scoreless IP and went 4–1 with a 1.93 ERA (11 ER/51.1 IP) over his first eight starts. He ranked third in the AL with a 2.53 ERA entering his final start on September 24 vs. Houston (9 ER/5.2 IP).

Lynn has gone 104–71 with a 3.57 ERA (566 ER/1,426.1 IP) and 1,415 strikeouts in 260 career games (236 starts) over 10 major-league seasons with St. Louis (2011–17), Minnesota (2018), the Yankees (2018) and Texas (2019–20).

In his two seasons with the Rangers, Lynn went 22–14 with a 3.57 ERA (116 ER/292.1 IP) and 307 strikeouts over 46 starts. During that span, he leads all major-league pitchers in IP and starts and ranks among the leaders in starts (T1st), bWAR (2nd, 9.8), quality starts (T4th, 30), wins (T5th) and strikeouts (T5th).

Lynn has thrown 100-plus pitches an MLB-best 44 times since 2019 (Trevor Bauer is second with 37) and ranks second in starts of 6.0-plus IP (36) and 7.0-plus IP (21). He finished fifth in the 2019 AL Cy Young Award voting after winning 16 games and striking out a career-best 246 batters.

Lynn has made 26 career postseason appearances (seven starts), going 5–4 with a 4.80 ERA (29 ER/54.1 IP) and 52 strikeouts. He pitched for White Sox manager Tony La Russa as a rookie in 2011 when the Cardinals won the World Series and was named to the NL All-Star Team in 2012.

Lynn, who resides in Brentwood, Tenn., originally was selected by St. Louis in the first round (39th overall) of the 2008 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Mississippi.

Dunning, 25, went 2–0 with a 3.97 ERA (15 ER/34.0 IP) and 35 strikeouts over seven starts with the White Sox in 2020. He also started Game 3 of the AL Wild Card Series at Oakland. Dunning was acquired by the Sox with right-handers Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo López from Washington on December 7, 2016 in exchange for outfielder Adam Eaton.

Weems, 23, has gone 5–4 with a 2.09 ERA (14 ER/60.1 IP) and 74 strikeouts over 14 starts in the White Sox minor-league system after being selected in the sixth round of the 2019 First-Year Player Draft out of the University of Arizona.

White Sox Acquire Lance Lynn from Texas in Exchange for Pitchers Dane Dunning and Avery Weems

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