Chicago White Sox: Five rookies who made heads turn in 2020
The Chicago White Sox saw some rookies make major impacts in 2020.
It was a strange year. 2020 will be one that people around the world remember for a very long time for a lot of different reasons. On a much smaller scale, it is a season that baseball fans won’t be forgetting for a long time. COVID-19 hurt a lot of business in the country and Major League Baseball is one of them as it was only a 60 game season with no fans in attendance. The Chicago White Sox, however, made the best of it as it had one of its best seasons in a long time.
This was the season where a rebuild came together. You have seen it happen slowly with other Major League franchises over the last 20 years and now the White Sox are the latest example. It has been a long ride since they traded Chris Sale to the Boston Red Sox to get this thing going but the rewards are about to be seen soon.
It already started in 2020 when they had their first winning season in eight years. They also made it into the playoffs for the first time in 12 years which was very cool to see. This is all a result of building it from the ground up and doing things the right way.
Young players have been the key to all of this. You rebuild by trading veterans with lots of value for young prospects and then developing those kids. The White Sox have done that very well in the last four years. 2020 was the year that a bulk of them came in and made an impact. Some have trickled in from 2017-2019 but 2020 is when the first big wave hit. These are the five rookies that were the most fun to watch this year:
Luis Robert. 88. player. 128. . CF. Chicago White Sox
Luis Robert was the best rookie on the 2020 Chicago White Sox.
Luis Robert was one of the team’s best position players in 2020. It is hard to say he is the best at this stage of his career because Jose Abreu won the American League MVP and Tim Anderson came in 7th. Eloy Jimenez won a Silver Slugger and Yoan Moncada was a Gold Glove nominee. The fact that he is in the conversation in year one, however, tells you how good he is. The best part about it is that he hasn’t even scratched the surface of his potential.
He was the best rookie in the league for the first month of the season (August). He was literally named as the “Rookie of the Month” for his efforts. He sort of went into an offensive slump for the first three weeks of September and that is okay. He adjusted and was pretty good going into the playoffs and in the playoffs.
Robert also won the American League Gold Glove for centerfield. The awesome thing about that is there is someone named Mike Trout playing centerfield in the American League so this shows how good Robert was. He made the biggest impact of any rookie on the team and is going to be one of the best players in the world really soon. 2021 could be the year that he really explodes so people should be excited.
. P. Chicago White Sox. Garrett Crochet. 45. player. 128
Garrett Crochet’s flamethrowing ability was miraculous for the 2020 Chicago White Sox.
One of the most exciting things to happen in 2020 was the debut of Garrett Crochet. It is so rare to see a guy get drafted and make his MLB debut in the same season. It is fairly common amongst top picks in other sports but not baseball. Well, the COVID-19 season allowed that to happen for Crochet because there was no more college baseball and no Minor League season. The awesome part about it was that he didn’t even look a little bit out of place.
Crochet was taken by the White Sox with the 11th overall pick so you know that they believed in his talent. He showed right away that he is going to be a great pitcher for the White Sox when he made his debut. He threw some of the hardest pitches in the league this season when he broke 102 miles per hour on more than one occasion.
The only question now for Crochet is his impact in 2021. We know that by 2022 he should be an established player on the Major League roster but 2021 seems like it is in question. Ethan Katz believes that he is going to be a big part of what they are doing but it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he ended up in AAA ball for a while.
We also don’t know if he will be a starter or reliever but he should be good in whatever role he is given. For now, it seems like he will be a reliever but the starter potential is definitely there. 2020 was a great year for him and we can’t wait to see what the future brings.
player. 128. . RP. Chicago White Sox. Matt Foster. 63
Matt Foster was so steady for the Chicago White Sox in 2020.
Matt Foster was a straight-up beast in 2020. He sort of came out of nowhere to make his MLB debut this season and he did not disappoint. He was as good as any reliever on the roster which made him a pleasure to watch. Whenever Matt Foster came in during the regular season, we were confident that the White Sox were in good shape as long as he was on the mound. Hopefully, these things can continue during the 2021 season.
There is an elephant in the room with Foster and that is his 2020 postseason. He wasn’t put in a position to succeed at all in that game three against the Oakland Athletics and he didn’t do that well. He couldn’t get the ball over the plate and the White Sox didn’t do much about it. When people say that Rick Renteria didn’t manage the bullpen well, it was because of the way he handled Foster and the rest of the bullpen in that game three.
In the regular season, however, he had a season to be very proud of. He went 6-1 with a WAR of 0.7 despite only actually starting two games. In those starts, however, he was more of an opener than a starter which was also frustrating. He had a 2.20 ERA and a WHIP of 0.872 in 28.2 innings pitched.
These are great numbers and it would have been awesome to see him on a team that handled him better. The hope is that will be the case with Foster in 2021. It is awesome that he is on this team and people should be excited to see him next year.
128. . 2B. Chicago White Sox. Nick Madrigal. 1. player
Nick Madrigal’s debut season was amazing and unique in 2020 for the Chicago White Sox.
If you ask a random White Sox fan who the most impactful rookie of 2020 was, most would say it was Luis Robert. Those people are probably right but there is no denying that Nick Madrigal was right behind him. He had a great season in a year that we expected to see him from pretty early on. It sort of went exactly how you would expect it to go for him in year one.
The White Sox did manipulate his service time so he had to wait about a week to make his MLB debut. He had one little injury so he got in 29 games out of 60. It wasn’t bad for the kid as he had a .340 batting average. The thing about Madrigal is that he is very unique. He is probably one of the most unique players the White Sox have ever had. He had that .340 batting average but his total slash line was .340/.376/.369. He is the king of hitting single base hits and not much more right now.
Madrigal may never hit more than five home runs in a season but he will get on base in the nine-spot with the elite hitters hitting right behind him. He also plays really good defensive second base so that is another plus. His glove had issues in the playoffs but it was his first time ever playing in the MLB Postseason and those things happen. Madrigal is a really great player and should help the White Sox win a lot of games moving forward.
51. player. 128. . SP. Chicago White Sox. Dane Dunning
Dane Dunning was great in his short tenure with the Chicago White Sox.
Dane Dunning was a really nice “third piece” in the Adam Eaton trade. He came over with Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez in a trade that is going to impact the White Sox for the next decade or more. Dunning had Tommy John in 2019 and that pushed off his MLB impact but 2020 was good to him. He had a great rookie campaign with the White Sox in the year that he made his MLB debut.
He had a record of 2-0 in seven starts. The reason he didn’t have that many decisions is that he was on a short leash oftentimes. He is simply a young pitcher who throws strikes and does what is necessary for his team to win games. He had an ERA of 3.97 and a WHIP of 1.118. Those aren’t superstar numbers by any means but they are great for a pitcher coming off that surgery making his MLB debut in the middle of a pandemic.
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Of course, Dane Dunning is no longer a member of the Chicago White Sox. He was traded to the Texas Rangers in exchange for their ace, Lance Lynn. Dunning had a great year in 2020 so he deserves to be on any list of great White Sox 2020 rookies but adding Lynn was a brilliant move. Dunning will be great for the Texas Rangers but they have more time to be patient than the White Sox do at this point. Hopefully, both teams get what they need from this trade going forward.