The Chicago White Sox were the worst team in baseball history last season and will be one of the bottom feeders in Major League Baseball this season.
The White Sox enter the second season of their rebuild, where most of their young prospects will see time up in the big league to see if they’re worth building around.
Leading the charge in the youth movement are right-handed pitchers Sean Burke and Shane Smith, who both made the team, and Burke will get the nod to start on Opening Day against the Los Angeles Angels.
Mixing in with the young prospects and rookies the Sox will have on the roster for this season, there are a couple of veterans, like Andrew Benintendi, who are looking to have a bounce-back season and help lead the White Sox to a successful season.
It’s only fitting that after having one of the worst seasons in his career and being on one of the worst teams in baseball,
Benintendi will have an All-Star-caliber year.
The 30-year-old Benintendi is just three years removed from his first All-Star season, where he accomplished that feat with the Kansas City Royals.
During the first half of that season, Benintendi hit .320/.387/.398 for an OPS and OPS+ of .785 and 124 in 93 games. The Royals, who were not ready to be a playoff team at that point, traded the native of Cincinnati, OH to the New York Yankees at the trade deadline.
Benintendi’s All-Star year helped him get the five-year $75 million deal he signed with the White Sox before the 2023 season, making him the highest-paid player in franchise history.
Last season, in his second year with the Sox, Benintendi had the worst year offensively outside of the 2020 season, with career lows in average (.229) and on-base percentage (.289). Benintendi was also not the best left fielder, having -15 defensive runs saved in 1030.0 innings.
What aids Benintendi’s case?
The one stat that helps Benintendi's case that he’ll play at an All-Star level this season is that he ranked in the 93rd percentile for squared-up percentage (31.9%) last season.
Benintendi's ranking as high as he did here means he was getting the good part of the bat on the ball and helped him mash the 20 home runs he hit last season, which tied his career high.
When comparing his spray chart from last season to his 2022 All-Star season, the big difference was the placement of where he clustered his singles and doubles. In 2022, Benintendi worked up the middle and focused on hitting the ball to the opposite field, while in 2024, he became more pull-happy.
Now, it’s a big difference going from Kansas City, where their ballpark plays big and home runs don’t usually go out, to the Rate Field, which is smaller and is more of a hitter's ballpark. Changing venues is part of the reason, along with pulling the ball more, as to why Benintendi had 4x as many home runs in 2024 (20) than he did in 2022 (5).
A new season means new opportunities
Thankfully, last year is over, and Benintendi and the White Sox can move on and try to have a better season.
The Sox will need Benintendi to be successful and be a leader in the clubhouse if the Sox want to add at least ten more wins to their win total for this year.
An All-Star season should help and provide a new lease on life to hopefully re-energize Benintendi’s career.
Benintendi should be in the Opening Day lineup for the White Sox as their designated hitter after breaking his hand that he sustained this spring after getting hit by a pitch.