The team's on-base percentage should be in the league's middle of the pack and that helps the Sox score at least 585-640 runs.
585 runs is what the 2023 Oakland Athletics scored when they won 50 games. The Los Angeles Angels and Miami Marlins were terrible last season and still managed to score just a shade under 640 runs in 2024.
Those have to be the target run numbers to avoid winning under 50 games.
While the White Sox are missing power in their lineup, they added players who do get on base. Moneyball in the purest form. Going back to basics hopefully will give the Sox to have a chance to score more runs.
The Sox's .278 team on-base percentage was dead last in the big leagues. They had just two players with an on-base percentage over .300.
Even getting to a .300 team OBP should give the Sox a better chance to score more runs like the Angels and Marlins did.
If Mike Tauchman and Austin Slater are going to be the biggest additions to the lineup, then the expectation better be this team should do a better job of drawing walks and just getting on-base in general. Tauchman and Slater's career OBP are in that sweet spot of being over .340.
Chase Meidroth, who came over in the Garrett Crochet trade, is an on-base machine. If top hitting prospects Colson Montgomery, Kyle Teel, and Edgar Quero all debut this season, they too have a knack for getting on base.
You would like to see the team's on-base percentage jump even higher than .300. The slugging percentage can improve at a later date to get more in alignment with advanced Moneyball standards for today's game where the focus is on OPS.
Now obviously the Sox lineup needs to produce RBIs with this lineup construction. If it can meet its objective of having even a middle-of-the-pack on-base percentage, that should lower the run differential to put the team in better position to avoid losing 121 games.