White Sox Grade Book: Looking back at the 2018 outfielders

The White Sox outfield had a mixed bag of nine players throughout the 2018 season and most of them had a struggle at some point during the 162 games.

Of those nine White Sox players who manned a position in the outfield, only Adam Engel played more than 100 games. He was followed by Avisail Garcia, who only started in 85. Nicky Delmonico finished with the third most starts.

There were a few constants with the White Sox outfielders: injuries, low batting stats, and below average fielding percentages.

Not one White Sox outfielder was considered a qualified player in 2018. According to the MLB list of sortable players:

"“A batter must have 3.1 plate appearances per team game played (1.86 PA during spring training) to qualify for league leadership in AVG, OBP or SLG.”"

None of the outfielders had enough plate appearances. The White Sox are the only team in the AL without a qualified outfielder in 2018. Even teams like the Miami Marlins and the Baltimore Orioles had at least one qualified outfielder. The San Francisco Giants do not show up on the qualified outfielder list, but only because Andrew McCutchen ended the season with the Yankees. He did, however, become qualified when he was a Giant.

Since the White Sox did not make any outfielder trades in 2018, there are not any hidden figures like McCutchen. In the Sox defense, only 53 outfielders were qualified and that averages 1.77 players per team, if 30 teams are taken into consideration.

Let’s take a look at the outfielders and score them on their performances both defensively and offensively.