Chicago White Sox: Is it time for changes on the South Side?
By Brian Draus
Right now, everything is going wrong for the Chicago White Sox. Considering the fact that the team was expected to compete this season, something needs to happen to shake things up.
Do I expect the Sox to make wholesale changes?
No, I don’t because that is not realistic for this team. I understand many fans want a managerial change, which is understandable. How much would it accomplish is another question, just due to the fact that a different manager is unlikely to turn around an entire offense.
Here is the big problem for the Sox: the offense.
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When whomever is catching and Carlos Sanchez are in the lineup, it basically is worse than putting out a National League style of offense. I say that because both hitters are so bad it is equivalent to a pitcher hitting.
That will not work in the American League, where runs need to be score more frequently. Not to mention Alexei Ramirez, Melky Cabrera, and Gordon Beckham/Conor Gillaspie have been mediocre/bad this year, making it nearly impossible to score runs consistently.
While Abreu is still a good hitter, and Avisail Garcia has gone on some hot streaks it hasn’t been enough. Adam Eaton’s inconsistency at the top of the lineup is causing issues as well.
I just told you about the Sox problems offensively, but I didn’t tell you how bad. When a lineup has just a couple of guys that are hitting, a team is virtually playing a three to four inning game. There are so many outs in the White Sox lineup right not it is astonishing.
Most National League lineups are capable of putting up more runs than the Sox lineup, and that is with the pitcher batting. I think that Adam LaRoche will be a solid hitter versus righties this summer, however the middle of Abreu/LaRoche/Garcia will not come close to getting it done with the rest of the lineup struggling to reach base.
My big issue is this, can the Sox be fixed in 2015? As of right now, the answer is no. I don’t need to put a bunch of stats in this article to point out how bad this team is.
I think everyone that follows baseball (especially the Sox) realizes when the majority of a lineup struggles, runs will be hard to come by. The power outage is surprising for the Sox, however this team was built to get on base and run.
That has not happened, and I don’t know what can be done to save the team 2015. It may be another year in the Sox rebuild, something they tried to accelerate dramatically this offseason.
That didn’t work, and it will be time to start making deals for Rick Hahn. Not as a buyer, but as a seller.