Today: CHW Prospect Lance Broadway
Lance Broadway is an advanced righthanded pitching prospect in the Chicago White Sox system. A first round pick (15th overall) back in 2005, Broadway was seen as one of the most-ready prep pitchers after a 15-1, 1.62 ERA season with Texas Christian University. He was USA Today's college pitcher of the year for 2006.
The year before that, he went 10-2 with a 2.82 ERA and 102 strikeouts in 108 innings pitched for Dallas Baptist University.
In 2006, Broadway went a combined 8-8 with a 2.75 ERA and 117 strikeouts in 160.1 innings split between the AA Birmingham Barons and AAA Charlotte Knights. In 2007, he regressed a bit, pitching mainly at Charlotte, going 8-9 with a 4.65 ERA and 108 strikeouts in 155 innings.
| Yr | Tm | Age | Lvl | W | L | ERA | G | IP | H | R | ER | HR | BB | SO | K/9 | WHIP |
| 2005 | Winston-Salem | 21 | A+ | 1 | 3 | 4.58 | 11 | 55.0 | 68 | 31 | 28 | 4 | 20 | 58 | 9.49 | 1.60 |
| 2006 | Birmingham | 22 | AA | 8 | 8 | 2.74 | 25 | 154.1 | 160 | 59 | 47 | 10 | 40 | 111 | 6.47 | 1.30 |
| 2006 | Charlotte | 22 | AAA | 0 | 0 | 3.00 | 1 | 6.0 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 9.00 | 1.00 |
| 2007 | Charlotte | 23 | AAA | 8 | 9 | 4.65 | 27 | 155.0 | 155 | 86 | 80 | 17 | 78 | 108 | 6.27 | 1.50 |
| 2007 | White Sox | 23 | MLB | 1 | 1 | 0.87 | 4 | 10.1 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 14 | 12.20 | 0.97 |
Broadway made a start and three other appearances for the major league Sox in 2007, going 1-1 with a shining 0.83 ERA. He notched an eyebrow-raising 14 strikeouts in 10 innings. Despite the step back in the minors, he actually moved up a few notches on the Sox pitching prospect list, thanks to the brief major league impression and the trades of Gio Gonzalez and Fautino De Los Santos.
A workhorse with a durable body type and an easy arm motion, Broadway projects to be a solid mid-to-back-rotation innings-eater in the majors. He can strike out a few batters each night with his low-90's fastball, but it's his well-rounded arsenal of change, cutting two-seamer and developing curve that helps him get through lineups three or four times per outing. He lacks a real plus pitch, but has sufficient polish and guile to work with three above average ones.
The White Sox like to season their starters with a year of relief work (think Mark Buehrle) before committing to them every fifth day, but with Broadway's full-season experience, he may miss that treatment and be tried as a number five starter as soon as 2009.
Update: After an impressive spring, Broadway spent most of 2007 at AAA Charlotte, but was recalled to the big-league team to replace Jose Contreras for a spot start against Kansas City. He allowed one run in 5.1 innings and was sent back to Charlotte after the game. He's quite obviously next-in-line in Chicago now.
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