White Sox Rebuild Update

We are now in Mid-May of this early 2019 baseball season and early trends are starting to settle down. The Cubs and Red Sox seem to be back on track, Chris Sale can now throw strikes again, and Tim Anderson and Yoan Moncada have… continue to tear the seams off the baseball!

There have been many setbacks to the White Sox rebuild – even as of writing this article the Sox are down 8-0 to the Indians – but there are so many things for White Sox fans to get excited about. Just a fair warning to readers, but there will be a lot of statistics talked about here, but let’s take a look at the biggest successes and setbacks of the Southside Hitmen’s rebuild so far and start looking forward to 2021!

Success:

Tim Anderson:

Tim Anderson has been absolutely on FIRE this season! He is already worth 1.2 WAR as of May 14th this season with 47 hits, 8 homeruns, and an OPS of 0.873. This OPS might not sound too high but this is partly due to his lower slugging percentage at 0.521, but I will take an on base percentage of 0.353 from a 25 year old short stop any day. He also has an OPS+ of 135 meaning that he is 35% better than the average MLB hitter this season! As fun as it has been to watch Tim play this season, the only thing I wish would improve is his fielding. His fielding percentage currently sits at 0.942 which is his lowest since 2016 and currently ranks him 25th in the league among short stops in this category – for reference, Trevor Story is the number one SS with a fielding percentage of 0.995. On top of all this however, he is having so much fun playing this season and does not care at all who doesn’t like it. I am in for every bat flip of his this season no matter what Royals pitcher’s feelings it hurts. On top that, the antiquated tradition of throwing a 90 mph+ weapon at a player because he showed you up needs to go away. You don’t want that to happen again? Pitch better.

Yoan Moncada

Moncada in my opinion has been even more exciting to watch than Tim Anderson. Stats aside, Moncada truly represents the face of the rebuild, being the key return in the Chris Sale trade. If he does well – like he has been to start this season – then everything will work out. He actually has very similar stats to Tim Anderson with 9 homeruns, an OPS of 0.877, and an OPS+ of 135 making him worth 1.4 wins above replacement so far this season. I’m not sure if it’s playing more third base than normal or something else, but he looks a lot more comfortable and confident this season. He is hitting well from both sides of the plate. His homeruns are rockets, with an average exit velocity of 93.7 mph while is launch angle is actually down from 15.1 last season to 11.4 this season. This means his hits have been straight missile line drives. Speaking of being more comfortable, his strike out rate is way down to 26.9% - down from 33.4% last year. He is chasing less pitches out of the zone, and when he does swing, he’s not missing. His hard hit percentage is at a career high at 46% and his barrel rate is at a career high of 15.9% - 65% higher than last season! All of these numbers on a 23 year old 6’2” 205lb third baseman is the brightest spot in this organizations future.

Lucas Giolito

Another key return from a big trade, the Sox need Giolito to play well if this team is ever going to go places. He is already worth 0.9 wins above replacement in which his career average for a season – albeit a short career with injuries so far – is only 0.7 WAR. His ERA is down from his career average of 5.21 to 3.55 this season. He has 46 strike outs so far through 38 innings pitched which, based on his career average of innings pitched throughout a season, he is on pace for 336 strike outs this season. His walks plus hits per inning pitched (WHIP) is down from 1.477 last season to 1.184 this year. Not to mention, his last start he threw 7 innings, only 4 hits, with one earned run, and 8 strikeouts with only 1 walk against the Blue Jays.

Other notables: the farm system (Jimenez, Kopech, Robert, Madrigal, Rutherford, Dunning)

Setbacks:

Carlos Rodon

I’ve always been a big fan of this guy and always thought he had potential for superstardom. However, he just can’t seem to stay healthy. Even when he is, I feel like one start will go great and then the next game he gives up four in the first inning. Last season he was recovering from shoulder surgery on his throwing shoulder, and now he needs Tommy John surgery and will be out for the rest of the season. As one of the home-grown players for the Sox, it would be a huge return for them to have this guy play well consistently. The more money to save to spend on other free agents, the obvious the better – only if they can get the deal done (see below…)

Manny Machado

This one still hurts to be honest. The White Sox were so close to getting this guy this off season to really help this team. He instead signs with the Padres who are currently 3 games over 500 in a very tough division with the Dodgers and Diamondbacks. The argument can be made that it’s ok that he didn’t sign with the Sox as their short stop and third baseman are playing extremely well – see Anderson and Moncada above. I do love Moncada playing third base instead of second, where he would need to play if Machado was on the team, but adding a bat like Machado’s to any lineup is a huge plus. What hurts more is that everyone from ESPN to the eight year old down the street who only plays The Show® knew that Machado wanted north of 300 million. So what do the Sox do? Offer him only 280 million guaranteed with NO opt outs. Did they really think he would take that deal? And then even after they knew they lost, they somehow still thought that they offered him the better deal…

James Shields

I know what you’re thinking, how does James Shields have anything to do with the 2019 White Sox rebuild? It’s for one reason only. They traded for him from San Diego. Who did they give up for him? Oh yeah that’s right, Fernando Tatis Jr. Just the guy who’s already worth 1.5 WAR with an OPS of 0.910 and OPS+ of 146. The sox could have had a lineup consisting of Tatis Jr, Moncada, Eloy Jimenez, Dylan Cease, Michael Kopech, Luis Robert, Dane Dunning, and Nick Madrigal (they also have the third overall pick in this year’s draft).