Three things to love about 2020 Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox are an exciting team to watch in 2020. Since Friday is Valentine’s Day, here are three things to love about them going into this season.
Baseball is back, which is the obvious thing for everyone to love and cherish.
But, more specifically, there’s a lot to love about this White Sox team and, honestly, three things aren’t enough to serve it justice.
That being said, I tried to narrow it down to that many because the list would go on for awhile if I didn’t do that.
Many expect to see a much-improved team on the South Side this season given how active they were this offseason.
The team Chicago saw at the end of the 2019 season isn’t even recognizable now after a phenomenal job done by GM Rick Hahn and the rest of the White Sox’s front office.
Sure, every team could have gone one step further over the course of an offseason, but the White Sox did pretty much everything they could to try to make a winning team in 2020.
This was the offseason where they expedited the rebuild and tried to ensure that last season was the last one they would finish under .500.
Here are the three biggest things to love about this team in 2020.
1. The Lineup
After struggling to score runs last season, the White Sox have now turned their starting lineup into a major plus.
The team will get some infusion of young talent this season with Luis Robert set to start the year with the team and Nick Madrigal expected to join before the start of May.
In addition to that, the White Sox now have the best catcher in the game in Yasmani Grandal while they also now have Edwin Encarnacion and Nomar Mazara.
Yoan Moncada will be entering the 2020 season looking to build on his 5.7 fWAR season in 2019 which appears to put him on a path to become a superstar as he is still only 24-years-old.
Meanwhile, Tim Anderson is also coming off a career-year after hitting .337 to win the batting title. Jose Abreu also led the American League in RBI so the White Sox have two players that finished at the top of a stat leaderboard.
Eloy Jimenez could be an x-factor in 2020 as the 23-year-old looks to tap into his former top prospect status in his sophomore campaign. If he plays like he did in the second half, he should have little to no problems doing that.
Leury Garcia is going to be used in a super-utility role once Madrigal gets called up too, which will be a nice piece to have as depth.
A lineup in which Mazara is hitting eighth or even ninth is destined to create offensive production that is unmatched by 90% of the league.
2. Young Starters
The White Sox additions of Dallas Keuchel and Gio Gonzalez certainly helped fortify the rotation, but it’s the young arms that will help make or break this team.
Lucas Giolito will obviously still be the anchor of this rotation after his breakout season in 2019 that saw him make the All-Star team for the first time in his career.
Outside of that, the White Sox will get to have youngsters Dylan Cease and Reynaldo Lopez again next season. Both of them showed some promise at various points in 2019.
The most exciting arm for this team will be Michael Kopech as he tries to come back from Tommy John Surgery.
On Thursday, the video below was recorded and almost every single White Sox fan got super excited to see it.
https://twitter.com/whitesox/status/1228060684753231872?s=20
It was only a bullpen session, but the idea of Kopech and his 100+ MPH fastball rejoining the rotation is too tempting to ignore.
On top of it, the White Sox will probably see the return of Carlos Rodon at some point in 2020 which could make this rotation not only strong from 1-5, but also have solid depth options.
3. 2020 is Just the Beginning
The best part about the 2020 White Sox might be the fact that this year is really only the start of what is to come for the White Sox.
All of their young stars are under control for at least the next four seasons and some of them are under control even longer than that.
Most teams in baseball are aiming for roughly a 2-3 year window to win a championship.
The White Sox have a chance to good for much of this upcoming decade, though, which is very rare and something only franchises like the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers ever seem to accomplish.
While some of their players might start getting expensive in arbitration soon, Anderson, Jimenez, and Robert are already on cost-controlled deals because of extensions signed early in or before the start of their MLB careers.
That could leave the White Sox with more money to spend in future offseasons and/or allow them to retain core players like Moncada and Giolito over the long haul.
Sure, winning a title in 2020 would be great and take a lot of the pressure off of this young team in the future.
dark. Next. White Sox Internal Second Base Options
Even if they don’t make the playoffs this season, the White Sox still have a lot to be excited about and aren’t completely reliant on making the 2020 season “their year.”