Lofty hopes come with being the highest-paid at anything.
So you can imagine the pressure and disappointment from not only White Sox fans, but Kuechel himself, with how poorly he fared for the team last year. The southpaw struggled to go just 9-9, with the highest ERA of his career (5.28) in the second year of his three-year, $55 million deal.
Kuechel was a shell of himself for much of the season, failing to even make the postseason roster on a team for which he was supposed to be a key veteran presence and help get over the hump into a World Series contender.