With the White Sox finally releasing their Opening Day roster, I could finally put the finishing touches on my annual most essential White Sox list. The first part explained what the hell "most essential" means, and covered No. 43 through No. 21.
Now here's the top 20, with last year's rank in parentheses.
No. 20: Reese McGuire (NR)
As long as he avoids a relapse to his 2020 season and everything that entailed, he should be more than adequate in a backup role, and his left-handed bat means he’s easy to pair with a third catcher should Yasmani Grandal miss more time.
No. 19: Leury García (17)
He’s probably less important than Harrison when it comes to helping this team operate in the way Rick Hahn envisioned, but whether we’re talking St. Louis or Chicago, Tony La Russa tends to have one utility guy he plays despite the numbers, and defends to the death. So it’d be easier on everybody if García played well enough when he plays.
No. 18: Gavin Sheets (35)
The White Sox didn’t add a noteworthy left-handed bat during the winter when their performances against above-average right-handed pitching suggested they could use one. That wouldn’t be the first time, but what’s new is Sheets, who gives the Sox a rare opportunity of in-house improvement. I wouldn’t trust him if we only had the first of his call-ups to work with, but the adjustments he made in his second stint with the White Sox seemed legit.
No. 17: Joe Kelly (NR)
I’d like him to matter less because of the Kelvin Herrera vibes, but with Garrett Crochet out for the year, Kelly’s abilities to handle lefties as well as he does righties would make some innings much simpler.
No. 16: Andrew Vaughn (16)
His success this season is more important to the 2023 White Sox than the 2022 version, just because the White Sox added some welcome redundancy above (AJ Pollock), while Sheets can handle the bulky side of a platoon and somebody like Jake Burger might have a similar impact in a part-time role. If and when Pollock gets hurt, it’d help if Vaughn could occasionally stand in right field without maiming himself.
No. 15 Kendall Graveman (NR)
He’ll have some heavy lifting to do early, both with starters on limited pitch counts and Kelly out until late April. He’s also the most proven closing option behind Liam Hendriks should disaster strike there. In a reasonably healthy White Sox bullpen, though, he has backup, especially if Kyle Crick is back to being somebody.
No. 14: Dallas Keuchel (7)
He’s more important than he used to be thanks to Lance Lynn missing the first eight weeks, but the expectations aren’t what they used to be. If he averages better than five innings with an ERA below 5.00, the Sox can use it.
No. 13: Michael Kopech (19)
This finally seems like the year that everybody’s going to find out what Kopech has to offer, for better or for worse. It’s tilting “for worse” right now, just because he went from fifth-starter expectations to fourth-starter before throwing a meaningful pitch this season, and after a compromised spring. Throwing five (or so) innings every five (or so) days is the idea here.
No. 12: Aaron Bummer (11)
He has everything one needs for a Zack Britton-like wave of dominance, but between occasional weekslong stretches of iffy command and a coaching staff that still has to prove it prioritizes positioning, it feels reasonable to put him a tier below the White Sox’s closer.
No. 11: AJ Pollock (NR)
Remember how every other outfielder made a lot more sense on this roster once he arrived? Hopefully his body allows him to let it take that shape in practice. He can give this team an awful lot even if his games played total rounds to 100.
No. 10: Lance Lynn (4)
Ideally, missing the first two months of the season will leave him in stronger shape for the final two months of the season, including October. The White Sox will need to take the next eight weeks to learn how to live without him, just in case.
No. 9: Yoán Moncada (2)
Ideally, the skills Moncada leaned upon during his COVID-19 journey (drawing walks, improved defense) would remain intact when his physical explosiveness returned, but starting the season on the injured list keeps those visions of 2019 in check. Fortunately, the prospect of Jake Burger at his natural position presents a much better fallback plan than Leury García and Yolmer Sánchez.
No. 8: Liam Hendriks (8)
His only problem in 2021 was the gopher ball, and if he could chalk that up entirely to tipping his fastball, then this should be a pretty straightforward season.
No. 7: José Abreu (5)
Abreu’s preseason rhetoric, in which he’s leaving his future an open-ended question, suggests a player who realizes that the White Sox don’t need him as much as they used to. Or maybe he’s just not looking forward to getting drilled by another 20 pitches. Either way, he should be able to take more days off if he’s not feeling it, regardless of what his mom says.
No. 6: Tim Anderson (6)
He’s the straw that stirs the drink, but he’s also been the straw who gets taken out of circulation for 30 games a year, so the White Sox have learned to live without him for stretches. The White Sox haven’t had a 200-hit season since Albert Belle in 1998. I just want to plant that seed.
No. 5: Eloy Jiménez (15)
“If not now, then when?” is the question. “2023, maybe” is the most honest answer. Still, this feels like the year Jiménez puts it together, doesn’t it?
No. 4: Yasmani Grandal (3)
The addition of McGuire makes a perfectly healthy season for Grandal a little less pressing, but only to a point. He showed how much his left-handed power and patience changes this lineup when he’s locked in after his return from knee surgery last season, so even if the White Sox are better equipped to get by with less at his position, the big picture still needs him.
No. 3: Dylan Cease (10)
He slid up a couple spots after Lynn’s injury, because a repeat of his 2021 season takes on a little more urgency. He has the talent to exceed it – he’s a dark-horse Cy Young favorite – but asking for improvements beyond the ones he’s already made feels a little bit greedy.
No. 2: Luis Robert (9)
He’s a dangerous, dangerous man, although sometimes the hazard is to his own health. The White Sox survived without him last year, but they don’t want to have to do it again. Hell, baseball doesn’t want that. Individual teams? Sure, especially in the Central. But fans of the sport should be anxious to see whether Robert can continue bending the action to his will.
No. 1: Lucas Giolito (1)
Had this list come out a week earlier, Giolito probably would’ve been second, with Lynn right behind him. If Robert had to miss a month, we know what courses the White Sox could take. I started to type a same conditional sentence for Giolito, except that felt too close to speaking it into existence.
