A 100% Home Grown White Sox Squad

A friend sent me this article wherein the author examines MLB if teams retained all of the players they drafted and did not engage in trading or free agency. Here’s how the White Sox would look right now:

Amusingly, they’d be in a similar situation to the one they’re in now: Tons of pitching and no hitting at all.

The rotation would be one of the best in the majors. Gio Gonzalez and Chris Sale are both ace-level pitchers, depending on your definition of the term. Brandon McCarthy and Dan Hudson have turned out to be injury prone, but solid #3 starters in between trips to the DL. Mark Buehrle bringing up the rear as a 5th starter is a nice situation. The bullpen lacks flashy names, but it would certainly get the job done.

This would look pretty good in a White Sox uniform. (Daniel Shirey-USA TODAY Sports)

Meanwhile, like real life, the offense is a patchwork of bench players masquerading as starters, with the best players on the roster being guys who should be the 5th or 6th best position player on a good team. Alexei Ramirez and Gordon Beckham are clearly familiar. Michael Morse has fluctuated between above average and below average over the past few seasons. What Josh Phegley turns out to be remains to be seen, whereas the outfield is a mish-mash of bench players. Chris Carter has great power and nothing else. Jordan Danks and Chris Young can handle center defensively but don’t appear to be able to hit. Ryan Sweeney has frequently been a solid 4th outfielder. Dayan Viciedo has well over 1,000 major league PAs and can’t seem to hold an OBP anywhere above .300.

We all know how well Brent Morel: Starting Third Baseman works.

The organization should be proud of the fact that it can generate an entire pitching staff internally – even during a time period where they were being stingy with draft spending and getting virtually nothing out of Latin America. And, as has been the story for years, the White Sox are really only able to produce role-players on the offensive side of the ball.

I suppose if I were managing this team I would platoon Brandon Allen and Chris Carter at DH, with Dayan Viciedo and Ryan Sweeney platooning in LF. Chris Young and Jordan Danks would play full time in the hopes of further bolstering the run prevention of the rotation, with the result being a plus defensive team.

So even in fictional universes where a whole bunch of transactions are subject to the “undo” button – the White Sox have great pitching and it would probably be wasted by a terrible offense.