White Sox predictions check-in: Where theres still hope, and where theyve fallen short

June 21, 2024

Having watched every episode of each, the best television show of the last five years is not “Succession,” but Netflix’s “Nailed It!” This news doesn’t make me particularly happy, but it is my solemn duty to report the truth.

A for effort, team. *slow clap* pic.twitter.com/A3GdXNmBOz

— Nailed It! (@NailedIt) April 3, 2021

The appeal is simple: you watch people burdened with an overly complicated task that they are hopelessly ill-suited to complete, and laugh at the predictably disastrous results.

While the mechanics of recreating designer cakes are specific, the experience of flubbing a job you were always doomed to flub is one I can relate to after my attempt to make predictions for the 2023 White Sox season. They were knowingly over-optimistic and there was a chance all nine would be wrong. What surprised me is how many of them seem to be wrong already.

Off to a roaring start, I see.

López was certainly positioned to make an All-Star Game. He was given the vast majority of the highest-leverage relief innings in April, and offseason training for a late-inning relief role produced a velocity bump that saw him tickling triple-digits at times. Instead, López allowed five home runs in 12 1/3 innings, posted an 8.76 ERA in April, and strong performances from Kendall Graveman, Joe Kelly and Keynan Middleton have made it much more of a timeshare at the top of the bullpen leverage ladder. The White Sox’s April 30 comeback against the Rays also went down as López’s third blown save of the month (the way they count blown saves in non-save situations is B.S., but I digress).

As he has begun to show, López is much better than that start. He has a 2.31 ERA in May, has not allowed a home run in his last 11 outings and looked fantastic twirling two perfect innings Tuesday night. A mechanical adjustment to keep his front side higher has his fastball playing better in the strike zone, and he’s been more cognizant of using his full four-pitch arsenal, rather than depending upon his heater and slider to be unhittable pitches that he can use ad nauseam.

It’s still very possible for López to end the year and enter free agency off a strong season, but the type of relievers who become first-time All-Stars are usually the guys who open the year dominating with an unhittable pitch (see Clase, Emmanuel).

2. White Sox will shop for starting pitching at the deadline

Mike Clevinger should return this weekend to make his next start, and the biggest statistical stragglers at this point (Lance Lynn, Dylan Cease) are fairly intractable members of the five-man rotation. But with Davis Martin out for the season for Tommy John surgery, the White Sox are pretty strapped for fallback options if any medium- or long-term issue pops up. That would be plenty of reason for them to be scouring the market for rotation help…if they weren’t 11 under .500.

Since they have a slim shot at the AL Central title, and pretty much any other setback could be their death knell, shelling out the prospect capital for a starting pitcher doesn’t feel like the responsible long-term move.

This is probably wrong, but I feel well-positioned to claim victory when the Sox make a depth move for someone to back up Jesse Scholtens. But then again, Sean Burke just had his best start of the year at Charlotte.

3. Oscar Colás finishes in the top three for AL Rookie of the Year

So, uh … Colás’ main issues as a prospect included: the fact that a corner outfield profile provided little defensive value; some doubts about his ceiling beyond serving as a solid but unspectacular power bat; and an aggressive approach that would tamp down his on-base ability. But plus bat speed and an Opening Day roster spot were supposed to give him ample opportunity to pile up pretty offensive counting stats and get some old-school votes.

Instead, Colás has been at Triple-A Charlotte since the start of May. And despite playing well there (though he’s cooled off significantly of late), he seems as far away from a promotion as ever. Jake Burger becoming a lineup regular has made right field a vehicle for keeping the DH slot open by placing Eloy Jiménez and Gavin Sheets out there. When those two aren’t filling a spot that once figured to belong to Colás for the next six years, opportunities are going to Clint Frazier, who is both better suited for spot duty and managed to out-bash Colás in Charlotte.

There’s always a chance for a July sell-off to somehow open up at-bats for Colás in the second half, which would be the most pyrrhic of victories.

From 2019-2022, Anderson batted .318, so I meant this to be a fake bold prediction that was probably pretty sane. That .318 mark probably would have been higher had Anderson not been slowed by leg injuries the past two years, so I was expecting a rebound…only to see him miss three weeks and be slowed through May by a particularly fluky leg injury.

Between Anderson’s defensive issues and a lack of power dating back to last season, his ability to hit for average looks the most intact. He is striking out less than 20 percent of the time for the second-straight season, posting a high BABIP despite lacking his usual burst after his knee sprain, and is still sitting at a respectable .261. The White Sox have 105 games left. Put Anderson down for 90 of them. Take his current rate of 4.3 plate appearances per game, multiply it by the percentage of his plate appearances that count as an at-bat (really high) and we’ve got, oh, 372 at-bats left.

He just needs to get to 170 hits out of 529 at-bats, which only requires him to bat .347 from here on out. People forget Anderson batted .368 over the final two months of 2019 when he won the batting title.

So, this prediction is still probably wrong, but it’s not wrong yet.

Tim Anderson (Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)

Stupid appendices, literally lacking in purpose.

In a 500-plate appearance season, which is roughly Jiménez’s career-high in the majors and remains theoretically possible, he would need to homer in seven percent of his at-bats to hit 35 home runs in a season. After going deep Monday night for his fifth homer, Jiménez has gone deep in 4.2 percent of his trips to the plate, and will need to be in the territory of eight percent from here on out to add 30 to his current total by the time he reaches 500 plate appearances.

Since Jiménez is sitting at a 117 wRC+ for 2023, with precious little of the season spent in the “looks like he’s getting hot” territory, my doubts are much less about his ability to ratchet up the dingers and much more about whether we can see 500 plate appearances for the first time since 2019.

6. White Sox make a midseason acquisition of a catcher

Why did I think this would happen again? Yasmani Grandal’s injury history and lack of experienced depth? Sure, OK.

So again, probably not on this one. Seby Zavala is not hitting but is a trusted game manager who has a long rapport with most of the pitching staff. Sean Murphy isn’t hitting the market again anytime soon. The team being 11 under .500 doesn’t build a lot of incentive to pay through the nose for stopgaps, and last I checked, Kevan Smith is (sadly for me) still retired. If Grandal is unavailable for any extended period of time, it’s time to let Carlos Pérez cook if you’re ever gonna.

If they sign a veteran backstop to the Knights in August though, I’m right by default.

7. Controlling the running game will be a struggle

The White Sox have allowed the second-most stolen bases in baseball, and the 84 percent success rate against them is above even the 80 percent league average that the new rules have wrought. Unsurprisingly, a struggling pitching staff that walks a lot of hitters means their run defense has been subject to the fifth-most stolen base opportunities in the sport.

I wasn’t really going out on a limb on this one. Last year, the White Sox allowed the seventh-most stolen bases in baseball at a 79 percent success rate (league average was 75) while exposing their run defense to the 13th-most stolen bases opportunities. Their pitching staff largely struggles to hold runners, and they don’t have peak Ivan Rodríguez behind the plate to counter it.

Still, we got one.

8. Lance Lynn finishes in the top five for Cy Young voting

I believe in Lance Lynn’s pitchability. I believe in his ability to self-correct, manipulate pitch shapes as needed and make adjustments. I believe pitching coach Ethan Katz when he says they recently made a breakthrough mechanically to address inconsistencies that have lingered since last spring’s knee surgery. Lynn enters Wednesday having thrown quality starts in each of his last three games.

But in Lynn’s own words, “the first eight starts sucked.”

That’s a fourth of the season, so season-long award recognition is not happening. If you have to suck for a fourth of the season, from a team perspective, it’s best to do it at the start. From an award perspective, you should probably do it at the end because writers are lazy and have already made up their minds by September.

9. White Sox win the AL Central

Despite everything listed here, the White Sox moved to just six back of first place with a victory over the Angels Tuesday night, as the Twins floundered in Houston. To quote the best show in the world: Nailed it!

(Top photo of Eloy Jiménez: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)

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