How The White Sox Can Repeat Their Success in 2022
The 2021 Season came with big expectations for the Chicago White Sox, after being eliminated in the AL Wildcard Series in 2020 by the Oakland A’s in 3 games. The shortened 2020 season, had the White Sox finish 2nd in the AL Central behind the Indians with a 35-25 record. 2020 came as a bit of a surprise since Chicago had finished 4th for the past 5 seasons (2014-2018). The White Sox saw 1B Jose Abreu win the AL MVP award & was one of the primary reasons Chicago was propelled into a postseason appearance along with Lucas Giolito, Dallas Keuchel & Tim Anderson. Despite the surprising success in 2020, the White Sox shifted their focus & fired Manager Rick Renteria along with some power shifting transactions.
The majors moves mentioned came after the firing of Manager Rick Renteria on October 12th, 2020 just 11 short days after being eliminated in the postseason by Oakland. 4 shorts seasons with the team saw Renteria’s legacy come to an underwhelming end. The firing of Renteria was met with differing critics around the league but the move that came next was VERY crucial to Chicago’s offseason plans. 3 weeks after Renteria’s exit, the White Sox hired formerly retired Tony La Russa as the teams next manager. The move was seen as a powerplay by Chicago. The AL Central was seen as a division that would seemingly become weaker in the following seasons, opening the door for a veteran manager to come in and help a young exciting team take that next step.
The White Sox knew they needed to help build off their young starting rotation that was led by Lucas Giolito and later traded for RHP Lance Lynn from the Texas Rangers. After signing with Texas, Lynn had a rise in his overall stock after posting a 7.1 WAR in 2019 & a 2.1 WAR in 2020, but Lynn was never traded during either regular season, despite plenty of chances. Lynn was all but slotted as Chicago’s 1A/1B Starter given that Giolito was coming off a remarkable 2019 season & a short continuation of that in 2020.
A month after trading for Lance Lynn to help bolster their rotation, the White Sox made another big time move and signed All-Star Reliever Liam Hendriks. Liam’s 2020 season saw him receive some votes for the AL Cy Young placing him 9th on the final list & finish 13th for the AL MVP award, and that’s something you don’t see too often for a Reliever. Simply put, Hendriks is that good and had been that good with Oakland prior to signing with Chicago. Of course the White Sox were familiar with having an “Elite” style Reliever in their bullpen with Alex Colome, but the decision to not re-sign Colome left the door open for Hendriks to get a record contract.
Shortly a month after the signing Hendriks, the White Sox once again “added” to their pitching core with their re-signing of former 3rd Overall Pick LHP Carlos Rodon. Though Rodon had struggled in 2019 & 2020, the deal was given out similar to a “Prove It” type thing to see if Rodon could regain what Chicago & many other teams believed he could be.
Coming Up Short in 2021
Shown above is Chicago’s walkoff win vs The New York Yankees during Major League Baseball’s “Field of Dreams” game. That moment alone is what people will likely list as Chicago’s biggest & best moment of the 2021 season but why?? Chicago ultimately fell short in the playoffs once again, losing their AL Divisional Series matchup vs the Houston Astros in 4 games (3-1). The White Sox were among the Top 5 AL teams offensively, driving in 796 Runs, 190 HR & 757 RBI. Pitching wise, the White Sox were the No.2 team in the AL behind the Tampa Bay Rays posting a 3.73 team ERA with 4 complete games, 13 shutouts, 1588 Ks, 1.20 WHIP & a .229 opponent AVG.
Chicago’s trade deadline was a big one with the White Sox headliner acquiring All-Star Reliever Craig Kimbrel for Nick Madrigal & Codi Heuer. Chicago also acquired fellow Reliever Ryan Tepera & 2B Cesar Hernandez. All 3 moves the White Sox made definitely improved the team in many different aspects. Kimbrel gave them an ELITE duo between him & Hendriks to help close out games along with Tepera who could be a valuable piece to eating up innings & Hernandez coming in to help shore up their infield while being able to give a bit of offensive production.
So how did Chicago get bounced in the playoffs despite amazing team totals in 2021?? The Houston Astros happened…Cheating scandal aside, the Astros are a team that you DO NOT want to face in the postseason. They’ve proven time & time again that they are a force to be reckoned with if they get a chance to play in October. A matchup with an offensively potent Astros team is certainly one of the reasons why Chicago was bounced this October but their pitching is one of, if not the biggest reasons why they were seemingly embarrassed. As shown above, Chicago’s team ERA was 2nd in the AL during the regular season but shockingly saw their pitching staff drop to dead last in the 2021 postseason rankings with an ERA of 7.94 with an opponent AVG jump to .288. The Chicago offense does not deserve blame for their early elimination given that they are still No. 3 in the 2021 postseason rankings among teams like Boston & Houston.
How Do They Bounce Back??
Re-Sign Carlos Rodon
Rodon signed a 1 Year - $3M contract to stay with Chicago back in early February of this year & it proved to be a win the player and organization. Rodon had a stellar year despite injuries that saw him lead the AL Cy Young race at one point during the 2021 regular season. So what will it cost?? Well it certainly won’t cost $3M to keep him but his current market value sits at $24M AAV, which is estimated to lead to a 4 Year - $96M contract.
Sign a Reliever
The White Sox have a $16M club option for Craig Kimbrel after the 2021 World Series. They will DEFINITELY need to do some extensive research on Kimbrel’s metrics to see if his performance post being traded by the Cubs is warranted of $16M for another year. Without advanced metrics, you can clearly see that Kimbrel did not perform well with the White Sox. Kimbrel’s stats with the Cubs: 36.2 IP, 0.49 ERA, 13 H, 2 ER, 64 K, 874 ERA+, 1.10 FIP, 0.709 WHIP. Kimbrel’s stats with White Sox: 23.0 IP, 5.09 ERA, 18 H, 13 ER, 36 K, 86 ERA+. 4.56 FIP, 1.217 WHIP.
Sign Trevor Story
Though their offense was not to blame for their lackluster performance this postseason, the White Sox could certainly benefit from an impact player such as Trevor Story, Of course they have rolled out Tim Anderson as their SS but all throughout July leading up to the trade deadline, Chicago was 100% interested in acquiring Trevor Story. As we all know now, Story was the biggest trade chip that was not traded this past summer & is pending free-agency this winter. By signing Story, the White Sox would get an all around player that is known for being able to perform on both ends of the field.
What does Story bring with him?? 2 Silver Slugger Awards, Top 15 NL MVP votes from 2018-2020, 6.2 WAR (2018), 6.9 WAR (2019), 2.5 WAR (2020), 4.5 WAR (2021). So what would it cost to sign Story?? Trevor Story’s current market value sits at $29.8M AAV, which is estimated to potentially lead to an 8 Year - $238.6M Contract.
What to Look Forward to in 2022
If 2021 is any indication of what the White Sox are capable of then 2022 will be exciting for fans to hopefully see some postseason success. The AL Central will likely be one sided again as it was in 2020 & 2021 as Detroit, Cleveland & Kansas City are still in that “Rebuild” mode. To many skeptics, the “weak” division is their reasoning to Chicago’s success but you cannot discredit the amount of talent this team has to pair with a Legendary Manager to help potentially aid in a deep postseason run. Extending Lance Lynn during the 2021 regular season helps give the White Sox many different options to go for this winter as Kimbrel (team option), Carlos Rodon & Cesar Hernandez are the most notable players that could depart this winter.
So if there are any expectations for the White Sox in 2022, it has to be that this Winter could see the Chicago front-office spending some big time $$$, being that they are ranked 7th in payroll. There aren’t many holes to fill with this White Sox team though there will be be some tough decisions to make. It should go without saying that they will likely win the AL Central again next year & if their 2021 totals are any indicator of what they’re capable of, they could very well be the best team in the AL if not all of baseball.
References:
BaseballReference
Jeff Passan via Twitter
Spotrac
MLB.com
CNBC
ABCNews