For all the time we've had to stew over the White Sox's relative inactivity before the two-plus months of lockout that's left us twiddling our thumbs, the fact remains that they still don't have a natural challenger in the AL Central.
Dan Szymborski released a lockout edition of ZiPS standings, and while they can't be ironclad with all the talent still remaining on the market, the White Sox are tied with the Astros for the biggest cushion of any divisional leader at 10 games.
- White Sox, 88-74
- Guardians, 78-84
- Tigers, 76-86
- Twins, 75-87
- Royals, 74-88
The glass-half-empty response is that everybody knows the White Sox can take the Central, and it's the best of the rest that everybody is worried about. But in a world where the White Sox can't make moves even if Jerry Reinsdorf wanted to spend like Steve Cohen, I'm more intrigued by the idea that there's so little separation between the rest of the Central teams, because their trajectories vary greatly. You have the Tigers making the division's biggest strides with the signings of Javier Báez and Eduardo Rodriguez, the Twins licking their wounds after a stunning collapse, the Royals amassing a bunch of intriguing high-minors talent and the Guardians looking at a retrenching, and they all roughly end up in the same place.
It creates a weird situation in that, were the White Sox to try to design plans around a six-month battle against a specific Central challenger, they might end up picking the wrong one. That's why I'd recommend that the Sox try winning the division by 15 games instead of 10 when the transactions freeze thaws. You know, just to be safe.
Carlos Rodón is one of those players waiting for a new home, and a couple of outlets have weighed in about potential landing spots.
Over at The Athletic, Aaron Gleeman lists Rodón as the best pitcher available for a Minnesota rotation that's multiple starters short, but the injury risk isn't a great bet for the kind of signing expected to shoulder more of a burden.
That list shows why the Twins’ lack of pre-lockout action was so confusing to many people, myself included. Rodón is the lone front-line starter realistically available to them, and even he has some major injury question marks attached. Beyond that, it’s a bunch of third or fourth starters, most of whom are past the point of having sizable upside. They must have a trade, or trades, on tap.
Meanwhile, Owen McGrattan at FanGraphs looked at Rodón's performance over the course of his 2022 workload and tried to figure out the best home for him. If past is precedent and the best Rodón has to offer can only be distributed over 110 or so innings, then he's probably a better fit for a team with deep pockets and an appreciation of all high-impact help. The first of those descriptions rules out the entire Central division.
However, McGrattan did identify one White Sox divisional rival as a possibility, and it's not the Twins.
Detroit, on the other hand, is fully committed. Before the lockout, the team went on a brief spending spree, signing Eduardo Rodriguez and Javier Báez. Top prospects Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene are rapidly approaching the majors. Signing Rodón would push Matt Manning to the fifth and final rotation spot, with Tyler Alexander, Reese Olson, and perhaps Spencer Turnbull able to fill in as needed throughout the year to allow Rodón to maintain his best self.
As for the Guardians, they have yet to pick a direction, which might be the direction they ultimately choose. They have Jose Ramírez and Shane Bieber, and they've regularly produced other pitchers who can back up the latter, with Cal Quantrill the most recent example.
Patrick Dubuque of Baseball Prospectus poked at the Guardians roster and saw a team with the sort of glaring holes that create the potential for drastic improvement with minimal effort. Perhaps not at catcher, because there is little help freely available, but he threw out an easy, breezy idea for first base.
Cleveland has enough talent on hand that they could very easily patch up the most glaring issues on the roster, and hope they luck into a 87-win season. Or they could even (gasp) open the window a year early, the way that the Blue Jays and Rangers have, although not on the scale that they have because c’mon, it’s Cleveland. No one’s asking for Freddie Freeman. But Anthony Rizzo at three years and, say, $38 million would go a long way toward reversing both the trajectory and the narrative of the franchise, while finally filling the void that Carlos Santana left.
Rizzo has a .419 OBP against the White Sox in his career, which is frightening because 1) it's his best OBP against any team he's played a significant amount, and 2) it's not padded by his padded lead elbow. The White Sox have only plunked him five times over 37 games, when I figured Dylan Cease might've hit him six times by himself by now.
Unrelated to the division but always pertinent to the site, check out the latest additions to the Sox Machine store, including our first shirt in a minute.
The preorder window for both is open until Feb. 10, after which you're at the mercy of how much extra stock I care to have on hand.
