3 Reasons Why This Season Will Be Terrible For The Chicago White Sox
This is going to be a terrible season. We could list 100 reasons why, but we did not want to depress you too much. Let's just stick to three.
The past couple of seasons of Chicago White Sox baseball have been tough to watch.
Tough is putting it nicely. It has been more like agonizingly painful to watch.
The Sox were the most underachieving team in 2022. That team had all the talent in the world but was badly mismanaged by Tony La Russa and finished a mediocre 81-81. The next season the supposed title contention window slammed shut in the most disappointing fashion possible. The Sox struggled out of the gate and fell deep under .500 and never recovered.
What was supposed to be a season where the Sox returned to the playoffs, turned out to be a 101-loss year.
It was a season full of dysfunction that eventually saw owner Jerry Reinsdorf fire executive vice president Kenny Williams and general manager Rick Hahn. For about 12 hours it looked like the White Sox were going to make meaningful change in how the organization would be run. Instead, Reinsdorf torpedoed that notion by not even bothering to do a GM search and instead promoted Chris Getz to the head job despite failing in his job as director of player development.
Jerry claimed Getz could turn things around quickly. Well, if how this offseason went is any indication of how Getz will build the team up quickly, Jerry has a different definition of the term "quickly."
This is not going to be a quick turnaround. It is going to be a long, painful rebuild. It is unknown if Getz will be able to acquire the players necessary to compete for a World Series title. He is good at acquiring form Kansas City Royals, the organization he came from.
That is part of three reasons this team is going to be tough to watch this season.
Welcome to Royals North.
Acquiring former Royals players seems to be Getz' and manager Pedro Grifol's solution to fixing the team's underachieving ways.
Getz acquired second baseman Nicky Lopez from the Atlanta Braves as a part of a five-player return for Aaron Bummer. Lopez spent the beginning part of his career with the Royals when manager Grifol was there.
Martin Maldonado was signed in free agency to be the starting catcher. He too has spent time with the Royals. Brett Phillips and Mike Moustakas were invited to Spring Training. Moustakas was one of the stalwarts of the Royals' 2015 World Series championship team. Phillips was supposed to be one of the young players to keep their success going. He failed much as the Royals did after 2015.
Relief pitchers Jessie Chavez and Joe Barlow also got non-roster invites. You guessed it, they pitched for the Royals at some point during their career.
Andrew Benintendi is still the largest free agent signing in franchise history currently playing left field.
This organization has a weird obsession with a team that outside of 2014 and 2015 is usually competing for the Sox in a race to the bottom of the AL Central. Maybe it is because the Royals were like the White Sox regarding never signing a player to over a $100 million contract. Kansas City left the White Sox alone in that group with only the Oakland A's when they extended Bobby Witt Jr.
Getz and Grifol are comfortable with bringing in these former players as they want to improve a toxic clubhouse. Okay, fine, but the problem with that is only Moustakas was a part of that 2015 championship club and he is well past his prime. This try-hard, play F.A.S.T (yes, the White Sox have a manger who uses acronyms) style of baseball Grifol is trying to implement is not exactly winning baseball as the Royals are always competing for last place.
Outside of that brief period between 2014 and 2015, the Royals have finished third five times in the AL Central this century. That means the Royals have finished fourth or dead last 16 times. Yep, let's replicate that small market franchise that is incapable of achieving sustained success rather than say the Tampa Bay Rays or the Milwaukee Brewers.
This team has no hope of making the playoffs no matter how you spin it.
Fangraphs gives the Chicago White Sox a .7% of making the playoffs. They have a .4% of winning the division and a .3% of getting a wild card spot. They have been given no hope of getting a playoff bye
It makes sense since when you try to replicate the Royals, your chances of postseason baseball are slim.
The Sox are going to be terrible no matter how much you spin it. No money was really spent this offseason to upgrade the roster. Instead, Getz acquired guys off the scrap heap that he should hope to bounce back that he can flip at the deadline.
Yes, the team should be better at catching the ball. Hitting it will be a chore especially since there are too many what-ifs.
The Sox could exceed expectations if Eloy Jimenez and Yoan Moncada stay healthy and hit like the flashes we have seen. Andrew Vaughn still has a lot of potential in that bat. Benintendi could return to hitting .300 after battling a wrist injury last year. Dominic Fletcher could win the starting job in right field and become a good major-league player.
You still always have Luis Robert Jr. who should have another MVP-caliber season.
We all should brace ourselves for Eloy and Moncada spending extensive time on the IL. Vaughn appears to be nothing more than a replacement-level first baseman (prove me wrong). Benintendi still has no pop in that bat. Knowing Pedro, he will not be patient with Fletcher and start Gavin Sheets the first sign of trouble.
That just leaves the Sox lineup with Luis Robert Jr.
Even if those six players are capable of hitting, you still have automatic outs at the bottom of the order. Paul DeJong is all glove and no bat. Well, he is capable of hitting home runs, but how many is always the question with him.
Maldonado and whoever wins the backup job are not exactly known for raking. Lopez already had his career year in 2021 and after that has been nothing more than a replacement-level second baseman with six career home runs.
Pretty much the Sox have three automatic outs and possibly more depending on injuries on most nights. That is not exactly an offense that is going to score the necessary amount of runs to shock the baseball world.
The starting rotation is going to be awful after Dylan Cease (and he may be gone after the trade deadline).
The hope is Cease returns to the Cy Young contending form we saw in 2022 and not whatever the heck that was in 2023. Please slider, oh slide!
"O' Slider Slide."
— MLB (@MLB) March 7, 2024
A poem by Dylan Cease. ✍️ pic.twitter.com/5rFpFeTVzX
Cease was the subject of constant trade rumors in the offseason, but he is still with the team and will be the Opening Day starter. He will probably be the only starter you can count on every five days to give the White Sox a shot at winning. If Getz is smart, he will try to trade at him the deadline to get the massive haul he desires
Behind him in the rotation is rough and once he is gone, oh boy.
You got Michael Kopech and all his supposed potential back in the rotation. Maybe this is the year he finally puts it all together. Most likely it will be what we have seen from him ever since he got here as he will either get hurt and struggle so badly he will get demoted to the bullpen.
The Sox are banking on Michael Soroka, one of the players acquired in the Bummer deal with Atlanta, pitching a full season and being the dominant force he was in 2019. Soroka missed all of 2021 and 2022 with injuries and barely pitched last season. Maybe he does bounce back but asking him to be the second or third pitcher in the rotation is not ideal.
Erick Fedde failed so badly in six seasons with the Washington Nationals that he had to go to Korea to rehab his career. He did win the equivalent of the Cy Young over there and that is what got him back to the majors. Rarely has failed pitchers found success overseas and come back to be an ace of a starting rotation.
Chris Flexen has had two really good seasons in the bigs and the rest of his six-year career has been spent getting shelled. Then there is the possibility of Garrett Crochet moving into the starting rotation and Jared Schuster and Touki Toussaint as the depth pieces.
That is not a rotation that is capable of winning 70 games let alone the division.
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