Three hitters White Sox should try to sign

The Chicago White Sox have completed a lot of the heavy lifting for their offseason already, but they definitely should not be done at this point. 

While the team can take its focus off of the rotation after signing Dallas Keuchel to a three-year deal and Gio Gonzalez to a one-year pact, the team still has some work to do offensively.

Signing Yasmani Grandal, re-signing Jose Abreu, and trading for Nomar Mazara certainly helped to improve the offense, but the team overall still is lackluster on that side.

Their core is in place with Grandal, Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, and Eloy Jimenez as of now.

Luis Robert and Nick Madrigal will soon join that list as part of the core for the south side, but they can’t be expected to represent major offensive improvements on this team right away.

Many top-tier prospects take time to adjust to the major league level and occasionally need to go back to the minors before succeeding at the highest level in the game.

In order to ensure offensive success in 2020, the team needs to look to sign at least one more bat and really should add at least two.

Here are three hitters the White Sox should absolutely look to sign before Opening Day outside of big names like Nicholas Castellanos and Marcell Ozuna.

2. Edwin Encarnacion

As detailed by 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine, the White Sox have already shown interest in the right-handed slugger.

While the 36-year-old is mostly a DH at this point in his career, Encarnacion provides a lineup presence that the team would be hard-pressed to find elsewhere.

During his 2019 season split between the Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees, the right-handed hitter had a .244/.344/.531 slash line with 34 homers and 86 RBI to give himself a 129 wRC+ and 2.5 fWAR (FanGraphs).

He wasn’t bad defensively when he played first base either as he had -1 DRS and a -0.9 UZR over 489 innings.

If the team signed him, presumably for no more than one year, Encarnacion and Abreu could split time between first base and DH.

Abreu isn’t exactly a top-notch defender at first base himself so that could allow for a nice platoon that could give both some rest.

However, McCann’s role would be largely reduced to that of a true backup catcher. In this scenario, one of Encarnacion and Abreu would be in the DH spot virtually every day and when they are not, it likely will be Grandal there instead.

That being said, it shouldn’t stop the White Sox from pursuing someone with a bat as good as Encarnacion’s. Our own Vincent Parise wrote a piece on him recently.

3. Jason Kipnis

This one might feel out of place as Kipnis is not really known for his bat at this stage of his career after hitting .245/.304/.410 with 17 homers and 65 RBI to give himself a 82 wRC+ and 1.1 fWAR in 2019 (FanGraphs).

However, he was one of the top second basemen in baseball only three years ago as he had a 4.7 fWAR in 2016.

Since then, he has seen a decline in his production, including an injury-plagued 2017 season in which he only played in 90 games.

After starting the 2019 season on the disabled list with a mild calf strain, Kipnis struggled to get his bat going.

His splits this past season suggest a possible resurgence could be coming for Kipnis, though, as he hit .250/.309/.455 with 10 homers and 31 RBI in the second half after having a lowly .677 OPS prior to that.

Kipnis also fared better against right-handers (.756 OPS) than left-handers (.633 OPS) which could simply suggest he needs to be used in a platoon role.

The 32-year-old’s .265 BABIP could suggest he ran into some bad luck this past season as his career number for that is .302 which is much closer to the mean around the league.

With all of that being said, the biggest reason to pursue Kipnis might be that the positions he knows how to play second base and center field which are expected to be occupied by Madrigal and Robert.

While Kipnis has not played center field since 2018, his ability to go play there in a pinch is valuable as the team needs an insurance policy there and at the keystone in case either of the two rookies falters.

If neither does, Kipnis could always serve as a utility infielder/outfielder and DH. He brings leadership and postseason experience too which would be a plus for a young White Sox team especially considering he’ll likely only get a one-year deal.