By Cat Garcia, @TheBaseballGirl

So, you think the White Sox are going to be good this season, huh?

Well folks, hold onto your hats, sit back, relax and strap it down — because you might actually be onto something. Something the South Side has been waiting on for a very long time. Substance.

We’ve been here before. As Sox fans, we fill ourselves with what we can only look back on as false hope when each new season approaches. We’ve seen lineups with just spots of versatility, we’ve seen James Shields (c. 2017) as Opening Day starter, we’ve sat through painstakingly long games in which position player pitcher was no longer something of novelty.

But this time it’s very different. The 2020 White Sox roster feels substantial. That’s a word I have not used to describe a White Sox in a very long time.

Over the years the White Sox have worked to develop and keep pivotal players in their lineup, working diligently to perfect them. Tim Anderson, Jose Abreu, and now Luis Robert, are just a few names that come to mind.

For an organization that’s first championship in 86 years rested almost entirely on the backs of a strong pitching staff, it’s been rough to watch the White Sox pitching staff struggle for years on end with what felt like no real solution. There have just been stopgaps, flashes of brilliance, and a whole lot of warm bodies standing out on the mound.

However, here we are on the doorstep of yet another season of White Sox baseball, and the South Side starting pitching staff looks like it could become a force to be reckoned with. And that’s not simply because their homegrown talent is settling into their own. It’s quite the opposite.

It’s because the Sox organization has finally found it a valuable use of their resources to shell out the money ($55.5 millions!) it takes to acquire a currently successful veteran starter to slot into the rotation and his name is Dallas Keuchel. I use the term “currently” successful because the White Sox have had no shortage of big names on their rosters in the past, it just seems that they are always a few steps behind on the name they’ve added in the past.

Dallas Keuchel is successful now. He’s in his prime now. He’s coming from a consistently winning clubhouse culture, no matter how you choose to look at the situation he was involved in, the clubhouse was winning and that leaves a lasting impression on players that they carry over into their next endeavors. But let’s stay focused, baseball has given enough negative attention to that situation for a decade.

Let’s put into perspective for you what the White Sox Opening Day rotation looked like in 2019:

Carlos Rodon Lucas Giolito Ivan Nova Reynaldo Lopez Manny Banuelos and the band of misfit pitchers to fill in the gaps

Now, take a look at what they’ll be rolling out in the 2020 season:

Dallas Keuchel Michael Kopech Dylan Cease Lucas Giolito Gio Gonzalez

That’s not to discount the work that Rodon, Giolito and Lopez put in during the 2019 season in anyway — but now the rotation is, let me use that word again, substantial. When the weakest link in this rotation looks like it could be Gio Gonzalez, solely because we haven’t seen him in a White Sox uniform at this juncture of his career, and Dylan Cease only because he’s still in the major-league developmental stages, that’s a giant step forward for a rotation in dire need of a facelift.

No longer are the days of hoping that a young Reynaldo Lopez can get it together faster because Ivan Nova is looking to be a huge mistake from his first trip to the mound. Now, the issue will be, once Kopech returns to the major-league roster, who takes the first spot in the rotation?

Now, when Dylan Cease perhaps has a rough outing, it’ll surely won’t be anything like the starts that White Sox fans have endured at the hands of pitchers such as Carson Fulmer or Dylan Covey, who frankly should only be used for depth at this point. There is a world of difference between a bad Gonzalez start or even at this point in time, a bad Giolito start, than there is between a Covey or Fulmer start that was hardly palletable to begin with.

While we aren’t sure what the trajectory is for Gioltio, who will throw his first start of spring in the coming week after coming off an injured rib muscle or for Gonzalez who is working through a shoulder issue but neither issue appears to be that serious in nature.

Both of them will likely be ready to hit the Opening Day roster, and even in the absence of Kopech should he start the 2020 season at Charlotte, it’s simply a small bump in the proverbial long road to success ahead of this White Sox rotation. There is still a whole lot of faux-baseball left to play, and a lot of roster moves and decisions to be made.