When FanGraphs posted the ZiPS-projected standings for the American League, the White Sox's 74-88 record struck many as pessimistic, especially in a world where they're only two games better than an Oakland A's team that's concentrating more on relocating to Las Vegas than fielding a recognizable roster.
On that front, PECOTA had better news to share ... kinda.
Baseball Prospectus' system pegs the White Sox at 78-84, which strikes me as closer to a median, especially relative to Oakland's 63-99 record.
But that's the extent of the good news, because even though the White Sox are four games better, they're somehow even less likely to win the division in this model, as the Guardians and Twins have both separated themselves from the rest of the division.
| AL Central | ZiPS | Div% | PECOTA | Div% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guardians | 83-79 | 50.2 | 89-73 | 54.4 |
| Twins | 80-82 | 30.3 | 88-74 | 42.5 |
| White Sox | 74-88 | 11.1 | 78-84 | 3.4 |
| Tigers | 71-91 | 4.7 | 64-98 | 0.0 |
| Royals | 70-92 | 3.8 | 63-99 | 0.0 |
And while I figured the White Sox would have the biggest spread of outcomes among their direct rivals, when you take the win curves ...
... and stack them over each other ...
... it turns out the Twins have the widest range.
The pitching side is pretty straightforward, with Dylan Cease's walk rate keeping him from being a truly bankable Cy Young candidate, while Lance Lynn and Lucas Giolito have injury and performance issues to overcome. (Mike Clevinger is penciled in for 124 innings and 1 WARP, which would be decent if he were. He's allowed to participate in spring training for the time being.)
The hitting side is where the mess lies. It's not great that the White Sox's fifth-best projection is a tie between Elvis Andrus and ... Dayan Viciedo, whose NPB work generated a .282/.334/.445 projection for this season, good for 1.5 WAR.
When you scan the organizational projections, it's very easy to understand why the White Sox are coming up so short. You only have to look at the slugging percentage leaderboard, because Viciedo leads it, and yet another unrostered player cracks the top five.
- Dayan Viciedo, .445
- Luis Robert, .422
- Eloy Jiménez, .411
- Edwin Encarnación, .411
- Gavin Sheets, .394
Just for comparison, here's how the Sox projected in this field last year:
- Luis Robert, .493
- Eloy Jiménez, .482
- José Abreu, .473
- Yasmani Grandal, .470
- Yoán Moncada, .449
This isn't entirely a reaction to the White Sox's pitiful finish in the power department. PECOTA only projects 23 players in baseball to finish with a slugging percentage of .450 or greater, as opposed to 85 in 2022. That strikes me as perhaps an overcorrection to the deader baseball, because 47 qualified hitters cleared .450 in 2022 (down from 69 such hitters the year before).
The difference in the division is that the Guardians and Twins have at least one power threat that stands apart from the pack -- José Ramírez and Byron Buxton, respectively -- while Jiménez leads the White Sox in homers with 18. The teams are also deeper with the low-.400s guys, while two such players on the Sox aren't actually on the Sox.
It would be ridiculous to contemplate that kind of showing had we not just witnessed Andrew Vaughn leading the team with 17 homers. That said, it's hard to see Jiménez hitting just 18 homers in a season where he amasses 536 plate appearances, which is PECOTA's 50th-percentile outcome. He hit 16 over just 327 plate appearances last year, dealing with both the deader baseball and significant leg issues. Maybe he hits fewer than 20 homers. Maybe he qualifies for the batting title, but there's nothing about his track record that suggests both would happen in the same season.
There are smaller quibbles have, like:
- Is Andrew Benintendi really going to slug lower with Guaranteed Rate Field as his home (.390) than he did at Kauffman last year (.398)?
- Is there a particular reason to think Tim Anderson will bat .282 after four seasons of clearing .300?
- Why does Andrew Vaughn's projection split the difference between his two seasons (.247/.310/.387) rather than maintain or build on what seems like natural progress from 2022 (.271/.321/.429)?
But if every team is dealing with some weird outputs with regards to power, then the White Sox-specific part of the conversation comes back to the same question we've been batting around since Tony La Russa left and Pedro Grifol arrived: How much did the team's colossal mismanagement of injuries color their forecasts, and are they that likely to miss time or lose production in a similar fashion under the new administration?
I suppose that makes these disappointing projections a little bit reassuring in a strange way. If nobody knows how the baseball will play, and if nobody knows how the White Sox will manage themselves, and if nobody's quite sure how the new rules and more balanced schedule will manifest themselves in performances, it does make it a little bit harder to buy into specific win totals and home run estimate. There's just no particular reason to think the White Sox have the resourcefulness to thrive in such an uncertain landscape.
