Throughout this offseason, I’ll be reviewing the current status of all 30 MLB clubs, in reverse order of their standing on my 2021 year-end team true-talent rankings. Today, we continue with the No. 4 Chicago White Sox.
4. Chicago White Sox
Actual Record = 93-69, Projected Record = 100-62
Offensive Rating = 102.6 (13th), Pitching Rating = 83.7 (2nd), Defensive Rating = 96.6 (7th); 2021 ASB = 4th, 2020 Final = 5th
The current state of the baseball union is not strong. The current lockout has brought the game to a halt, and the status of the 2022 season is in doubt.
Obviously, this is an awful scenario for all parties, from owners to players to fans to support personnel to, well, you name it. One of the many things that infuriates me about the current situation is the deleterious effects upon as yet unknown players, the holes in careers already established and those barely or not at all yet underway. Mike Trout is having another divot scraped out of his career. That’s brutal.
There are 40-man roster players who have yet to even taste a non-poverty level minor league salary, let alone the major league minimum, and it’s impossible to know what effect this work stoppage will have on their development.
Then you aggregate all of these individual impacts into the team level, and you have a whole different set of impacts. Are the Oakland Athletics still going to sell off? How about those Cincinnati Reds’ starting pitchers rumored to be available? The New York Yankees largely sat out the first wave of free agency - are they going to make up for lost time in the second wave?
And then you have a team like the Chicago White Sox - a team that wasn’t built for yesterday or necessarily for tomorrow - it was built for now. Is their sweet spot where talent meets experience meets opportunity going to be gone before they ever really get to experience it?
It’s been a long time since the Chisox won the World Series in 2005. Even that championship team was kind of an odd duck by White Sox standards. Long defined by star position players like Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura, they finally won it all the year Thomas ended his long career with the club after 34 games due to ankle and foot injuries. The lineup that took them all the way featured Paul Konerko, Jermaine Dye and Joe Crede in the lineup and Mark Buehrle, Freddy Garcia, Jon Garland and Jose Contreras in the rotation (with Dustin Hermanson closing!).
Since then, the White Sox have made the playoffs all of three times (including the last two seasons) and haven’t won a postseason series. From 2013-19 they failed to reach the .500 mark in seven straight seasons, and they haven’t even drawn the modest level of two million fans since 2011.
To their credit, they rebuilt their current team the old-fashioned way, from within, and then added to it via free agency and trades when they believed the time was right. Then, in the ultimate win-now move, they brought back Hall of Fame manager Tony LaRussa, who had previously led the club from 1979-86, the very beginning of his long career, to succeed Rick Renteria at the helm.
Looking at the current roster, there is a nice mix of youth and experience, of hitting and pitching - though one could make a very strong argument that their 2021 roster might go down as their high point. Lefty ace Carlos Rodon remained available on the free agent market when the lockout occurred, and is likely to play elsewhere this season. He was limited to 132 2/3 innings by injury in 2021, but they were utterly dominant frames. A 2.37 ERA and 34.5% K rate only begin to tell the story. He was joined in baseball’s best rotation by Lance Lynn, Lucas Giolito and Dylan Cease - for my money, they were four of the seven best starters in the AL last year, all better than Cy Young winner Robbie Ray of the Blue Jays. No matter how things fall this season, the Sox aren’t duplicating that feat.
By season’s end, the club employed two of the game’s best closers - Liam Hendriks and Craig Kimbrel - the latter brought across town in exchange for youthful MLB contributors Nick Madrigal and Codi Heuer. It doesn’t get more “win now” than that.
Then look at the lineup - 1B Jose Abreu and C Yasmani Grandal were very productive last season, but both showed signs of decline and at 35 and 33 (as a catcher) are at risk moving forward. The club will face an interesting decision re: Abreu when his contract expires at the end of 2022, a decision that becomes even harder with an abbreviated season.
Questions abound regarding even the position players squarely in their prime. Are SS Tim Anderson’s very best days behind him? He walks so infrequently that he needs to contend for a batting title (like he did in 2019-20) to compile an OBP worthy of the leadoff spot. Is Yoan Moncada going to become a star, or simply remain the solid player he is today? If the club moves on from Abreu that missing production will need to come from somewhere.
Sure, CF Luis Robert and LF Eloy Jimenez are young and should continue to get better, but what if one or both turn out to be less than foundational players? And how about Andrew Vaughn? Were his 2021 struggles temporary, or is that all that is there? One thing is for sure - sitting on the sidelines for a material chunk of 2022 certainly isn’t the answer.
Oh, and their farm system is absolutely brutal, 30th and dead last among MLB systems in my eyes. When things hit the fan at the big league level, a teardown of the big club might be necessary to rebuild the system. The major league payroll more than doubled from 2018 to its 2020-21 level of $178M. Most of their expensive players are signed through 2024 - that appears to be the club’s self-designated window of contention.
When you talk about teams of tomorrow, you see deep farm systems and tooled-out youngsters like Robert. When you talk about teams of today, you see pitchers like Rodon (injury risk but huge upside) and Lynn (now performance, body with a shelf life) and hitters like Abreu and Grandal. And 77-year-old managers like LaRussa. If there’s one team in baseball that especially is itching for the lockout to end yesterday, it’s the Chicago White Sox.
THE 2021 SEASON
How good can Luis Robert become? His minuscule 2021 4.7% walk rate would seem to be a limiting factor, but he has plenty working in his favor. He rarely pops up despite an average-range fly ball rate, and hits the ball hard enough in the air to suggest 30+ homer power. On the other hand, his 2021 26.4% liner rate is likely to regress downward, and an excessive pull tendency on the ground suggests that his .258 AVG-.274 SLG on grounders will come down as well. A .290, 30 HR guy with Gold Glove defense is a star in my book.
Grandal’s 2021 season is symbolic of its time. Batting average really doesn’t matter. His .240-.420-.520 line does carry the seeds of his eventual decline, however. He hit all of nine doubles, and when the doubles go away, trouble’s around the corner. I’m not expecting Grandal’s workload to increase from his load of 93 games last season, and I expect his all-around effectiveness to begin to fade in earnest this season.
Abreu, who turns 35 in 2022, is no longer a stud - he’s merely a very durable, above average offensive player at this stage in his career. His K/BB profile is unremarkable, particularly for a 1B, and he’s a good but not great ball-striker. He pops up even less frequently than Robert, and hits his flies, liners and grounders with above average authority, which should smooth his decline phase. He’s still a middle of the order force to be reckoned with, but not even an outside MVP threat.
SS Anderson is the heart and soul of this ballclub. He’s a throwback player in many respects, a free swinger with one of the lowest average launch angles in the game. But it works for him. His hand-eye coordination is exceptional, and combined with his plus speed, enables him to hit .280+ in a bad year. That said, his best years are likely behind him. He’s developed a bit of a pull tendency on the ground, and his speed isn’t quite what it used to be. His career K/BB ratio is almost 7 to 1 - if that continues, he won’t remain an average or better offensive player for very long.
LF Jimenez missed the bulk of the 2021 season with a torn pectoral tendon, and showed rust upon his late-season return. While Anderson is one of the younger 29-year-olds you’ll see, Jimenez is one of the older 25-year-olds. I’m inclined to take his performance last season with a grain of salt, and focus on the guy who destroyed the baseball while showing a subpar K/BB profile in 2020. That said, he’s beginning to look like a DH to me, and he hasn’t even attempted a single stolen base attempt in his MLB career. He reminds me of young Richard Hidalgo, and that’s good and bad.
Moncada, like many of the Sox’ younger hitters, seems to have missed the launch angle memo. There are positives, however. His 2021 walk rate was over a standard deviation above league average, and his ability to hit liners and grounders with authority offers hope that he’ll someday do the same with fly balls. That said, his 2021 26.6% liner rate has nowhere to go but down. I see him as a slightly to solidly above average regular, but no longer as a future star.
Lynn is one of the few MLB starters that dominates with his fastball, and he does it in a fairly low-key manner. His K/BB profile is plenty good, but he really shines with regard to contact management, generating lots of pop ups and squelching authority of all batted ball types. If he pitched just five innings more, his 77 Adjusted Contact Score would have led the AL last season. His body type doesn’t suggest many more years of excellence, but I’m on board for another big year in 2022.
Giolito is squarely in the prime of his career. His underlying numbers are comparable to Lynn’s, with an almost identical K/BB profile and slightly lesser contact management skills. He too is an extreme pop up guy, and his 90 Adjusted Contact Score should trend lower as his high 24.5% liner rate allowed regresses downward. His changeup is a lethal out pitch. I expect him to win a Cy in the near term.
Cease’s 2021 breakthrough season largely went under the radar. He whiffed (and walked) materially more hitters on a rate basis than both Lynn and Giolito, like them was a big pop up generator, and like Giolito was hampered by a high liner rate allowed (22.5%) that shouldn’t be an issue moving forward. Cease’s slider is his out pitch - slider guys have big peaks and valleys (ask Patrick Corbin) but this guy has arrived. The club hopes Michael Kopech, dominant out of the pen in 2021, will be their 2022 rotation breakthrough.
Glass half full - from a K/BB perspective, Liam Hendriks was as dominant as any closer has ever been in 2021. Glass half empty - he’s an extreme fly ball pitcher who got away with some very loud authority in the air. He’s still a high-end closer, but the end could be ugly when it comes. I’m wary about Craig Kimbrel moving forward. His command is iffy, and he’s an extreme fly ball pitcher who rarely induces pop ups. That’s a scary combo for me. Moving him is high on the Sox’ priority list after the lockout.
DOWN ON THE FARM
As previously stated, the crop is pretty lean. I’m not buying the hype on OFs Yoelqui Cespedes or Micker Adolfo. SS Romy Gonzalez is somewhat interesting, but lacks the athleticism to stay there in the bigs. He could fit as a multi-positional backup with some bat skills, filling the Leury Garcia role as he moves to 2B full-time. RHP Jonathan Stiever has a live arm, often reaching the upper-90s, but his performance his been inconsistent at the upper minor league levels. He might be best suited by narrowing his repertoire and moving to the pen.
OFFSEASON FOCUS
Kendall Graveman was brought over from the Astros to further fortify the pen, and 2B Cesar Hernandez left for Washington. Trading Kimbrel is a priority, with an outfield bat to extend the lineup and/or minor league reinforcements the likely return.
