The Chicago White Sox have had an underwhelming offseason

Despite finally being in a position to make a run for a championship, the Chicago White Sox have not put their best foot forward in either of the past 2 off-seasons.

Spring training games have already started but the White Sox find themselves with a team no better than it was last season when they were quickly eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. In fact, this team might even be worse now.

What the team should be doing is making a run at either Nick Castellanos or Trevor Story. Yet, the front office has reportedly made no effort to do so. Both players would be near perfect fits for a team desperately in need of another big bat in the infield or outfield.

The only meaningful thing the White Sox have done this off-season is stockpile free agent relief pitchers. They have acquired Joe Kelly, Kendall Graveman, and picked up the 16 million dollar option on Craig Kimbrel, despite him being terrible for the Sox in 2021.

The only reason the option was picked up was that their ego won’t let them accept they were destroyed on the Nick Madrigal trade with the Cubs. Desperate to move Kimbrel via trade, the White Sox have unsurprisingly found no takers.

Those three bullpen arms did not come cheap, yet Kelly and Graveman only produced a combined 2.8 WAR last year while the Sox failed to make a qualifying offer to Carlos Rodon who put up a 5 WAR last season. Now, he is headed to the San Francisco Giants.

The Chicago White Sox needs to make a big move before the season begins.

So overall, the White Sox have lost about 2 wins in offseason transactions, making them a 91 win team compared to last year’s 93.

This is not what the White Sox should be doing. After getting destroyed 10-1 in the last playoff game against the Houston Astros, nobody was saying “if only we had more relievers!”

The White Sox needed to score more runs and have an offense matching that of Houston or any of the other dominant American League teams.

The White Sox only finished 5th in the league in runs scored last year (and that was with Madrigal playing in a third of their games) yet they have done nothing to improve offensively.

They’re operating under the false and outdated premise that “pitching and defense win championships”. Just because that worked in 2005 doesn’t mean it’s going to work in 2022.

Today’s teams win championships by hitting the ball well. Take last year’s Atlanta Braves for example, who hit 11 home runs in their six-game World Series victory over the Astros. If you want to beat the Astros in the playoffs, you need to hit home runs. Stockpiling bullpen arms isn’t going to help with that.

Furthermore, the only move the White Sox are currently in is trying to acquire a starting pitcher from the Oakland A’s. At this point, the White Sox need to realize they can’t make trades with Billy Beane. How did the Jeff Samardzija trade work out? How did the Nick Swisher trade work out? Exactly, yet the White Sox still haven’t learned their lesson.

As long as Billy Beane is involved with the Oakland Athletics, Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn need to learn they shouldn’t be making trades with him because they just aren’t as smart.

Maybe they should watch the film Moneyball and realize that if they try to trade with Billy Beane, they’re going to get schooled.

Sure, the White Sox have a 180 million dollar payroll but that number is inflated by Dallas Keuchel and all the bullpen arms they have which aren’t long-term commitments. To this day, the Chicago White Sox have never signed a player to a contract worth more than 73 million, lower than almost any MLB team.

Instead of trying to trade with Billy Beane and getting schooled yet again, work on signing a free agent slugger like Nick Castellanos or Trevor Story. This is what the fans want and it’s logically what is best for the baseball team.

After the Phillies stole Bryce Harper (MVP) and Zack Wheeler (Cy Young runner-up) away from them, it would be nice to steal Castellanos away from them in free agency. This team desperately needs a starting right fielder and Adam Engel is just not going to cut it offensively.

Come on, where is that competitive spirit? We need these guys. Stop drooling over pitchers and sign the bats we need to make a run at 100 wins and get home-field advantage in the playoffs.