3 White Sox players to avoid losing in an overreaction trade

The Chicago White Sox are having a very bad season right now. They aren’t one of the worst teams in the league but 63-66 is not where a team should be when they came into the year with World Series aspirations.

It has been a tough year from the start and now it is looking like the end. With September approaching, people are going to start looking towards the offseason and what the team can do moving forward to get back into contention.

Whenever something like this happens, you have to avoid overreacting. There were expectations going in early for a reason. It is more about figuring out what the problem is instead of trying to change everything.

There are a few players that need to stick around because they are amazing despite what some people may think. These are the three players the White Sox need to avoid moving in an over reactionary trade:

The Chicago White Sox need to make sure that they hang onto Eloy Jimenez.

Eloy Jimenez now has the reputation of a player that gets injured a lot. He has missed significant time in each full season that he has played. However, it is so obvious that he is an elite hitter when he is healthy. He showed that in 2020 and he showed that in the second half of 2022.

Most of Eloy’s injuries have been self-inflicted which means that he can be coached better. The one in 2022 was a bit of a fluke and doesn’t have to happen again. If he can figure this out, he can be a game-changing power bat that makes a lot of money in his career.

Since the All-Star break this year, Jimenez has been the White Sox’s best hitter and it isn’t really even close. They need to make sure he is there and ready to go in 2023 as they try to contend for the playoffs again.

The Chicago White Sox needs to be very careful with Lucas Giolito going forward.

Before we get going here, let’s make one thing very clear. Lucas Giolito was brutal in 2022. He is one of the team’s biggest reasons for having a bad season. If he was the Giolito that we’ve seen from 2019-2021, they might be much closer to being a playoff team.

Now that it’s out of the way, we can move on. He was an elite pitcher during those aforementioned 2019 – 2021 seasons. He was a top-11 finisher for the Cy Young Award in each of those three seasons and deserves a lot of praise for that. However, that doesn’t give him a pass for 2022 either.

Baseball is a very “what have you done for me lately?” type of sport. Lately, Giolito has been awful. With that in mind, the White Sox need to keep his previous potential in mind when dealing with him during the offseason. They should absolutely not overreact and trade him.

His value isn’t that high right now and there is no chance that they would get a good return for him. Then he’d go to another team and dominate again and make the White Sox look foolish. That would be a major mistake.

The 2022 season has been hard for pretty much everyone. They need to make changes but they need to avoid overreacting with some of the players. Hopefully, the right choices are made to help the 2023 squad excel.