Chicago White Sox: Things to watch for in the 2022 ALCS

The Chicago White Sox would love to be in the American League Championship Series but they failed to make the playoffs in the first place. They haven’t been there since winning the World Series in 2005 which is also the last playoff series that they won.

As they watch the rest of the league close out the postseason, there is a lot to take in. The ALCS in particular is being played between two of the best organizations in the American League in the New York Yankees and the Houston Astros.

They are literally becoming rivals because of how many times they have played each other in the postseason over the last handful of years. Teams like the White Sox should be trying to emulate these two teams as much as possible.

The series is now 1-0 in favor of the Astros after the big game-one win that they had over the Yankees on Wednesday. However, this is going to be a long series.

The Yankees and Astros have it all. They are teams that pitch well, play good defense, and hit well when they need to the most. There is plenty of power behind a lot of their bats too which makes scoring runs a bit easier for them.

The Chicago White Sox should watch the ALCS  to learn things from these teams.

Another thing to look at is the “next man up” mentality. The Houston Astros have the best system that allows them to do that without people realizing it. Did you think that losing Carlos Correa would hurt the Astros a little bit?

He went to the Minnesota Twins and had a great year but his replacement in Jeremy Pena had a similar year offensively and they were both nominated for the American League Gold Glove at the shortstop position.

This kid with a small amount of minor-league experience came up and did his job. The Astros deserve a lot of credit for running an organization that has the ability to do that.

As a result, they have been one of the league’s elite teams for a long time now. Yes, there is the sign-stealing scandal that follows them around. It should make you even madder that they continue to prove that they didn’t need to do that because they are so elite.

For the Yankees, watching the two big boys in Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton is a pleasure. There are other very good bats as well like Anthony Rizzo, Josh Donaldson, and Gleyber Torres which is why they are so good.

This series features amazing pitching as well. Stars like Gerrit Cole, Luis Severino, Nester Cortez, Framber Valdez, and Justin Verlander amongst others make things very difficult on opposing batting orders.

If the White Sox can get good pitching as they have for a few years now, their bats can get back to the production that they had before 2022, and play better defense while staying healthy, this team can get here. Hopefully, they are watching and learning from these titans of the game.