Chicago White Sox: The need to draw more walks is there
The Chicago White Sox need to take more advantage of pitches that are not being called strikes and be better at drawing walks as it would help them win more games.
The Chicago White Sox are growing into an organization that plans on having some sustained success. One of the key components to baseball though, are walks. It is a free pass to get on base and the runs all count just the same. The saying that a walk is just as good as a hit is very true. The White Sox are not good in that department.
In fact, they are terrible at drawing walks. Through 138 games this year, they are dead last in all of Major League Baseball in drawing the free pass with 321. The five teams just ahead of them in walks are the Miami Marlins, Detroit Tigers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Baltimore Orioles, and Kansas City Royals. All of those teams have significantly worse records than the White Sox besides the Pirates who have the exact same record. There is a correlation with being bad and not earning enough walks.
This isn’t really a new issue for the White Sox either. Their recent history also suggests that this is a problem and have struggled with it for a while. They rank in dead last right now with the 321 walks. In 2018 they finished with 425 which was second to last in the league. In 2017 they ranked 28th in walks with 401. In 2016 they were 22nd with 455 and in 2015 were 26th with 404. It has been a long stretch of poor performances in the walks department and there has been plenty of losing to go with it.
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Obviously, from 2016-2019 they have been rebuilding and trying to get the team built from the ground up so most of the numbers aren’t going to be pretty. With that said, them being historically bad at drawing walks is something that they need to work on and get on the right track as they look to build towards being a perennial division winner. There are some players on this team with good eyes and can avoid swinging at balls outside the zone, so this number may naturally come down as they start to become a better team.