As always, thanks for supporting Sox Machine. Onto this week's White Sox mailbag, which hopefully aren't spoiled by a thunderously unsuccessful home opener ...
My two reactions from the opening series:
1. I’m nervous about the bullpen.
2. I’m not worried about a repeat of last year’s offensive woes.
Is it too small of a sample size to have these opinions after just one series?-- Alec S.
Not necessarily. Regarding 1), a bullpen without Liam Hendriks invites extra risk because Joe Kelly is the only real strikeout guy. The league K rate for relievers was 23.6 percent last year. Hendriks struck out 36.2 percent of hitters, Kelly was at 31.3 percent, and the other guys who saw important situations were mid-20s or lower.
Exacerbating that issue, they faced an Astros team that struck out less frequently than any team except the Guardians, so that's a bad combination. Throw in a lack of radical shifting, and there's a combination for bad sequences. I'd give it a few weeks, both to introduce some diversity of opponents into the data set, and also to give the coaching staff a little bit of time to adjust positioning. What needs immediate addressing is the 17.9 percent walk rate from the bullpen. Only the Phillies are worse (18.8).
As for 2), I think that's natural when Luis Robert Jr. and Yoán Moncada look healthier than they've been in years, and Tim Anderson and Eloy Jiménez are 100 percent as well. It's maybe not the most talented lineup, and they're susceptible to frustrating moments, but it's a long lineup that can start a scoring threat from anywhere. From here, it's #BasicallyStayHealthy.
What are you biggest positives and worst negatives to take out of this first series of the year? How do you think those positives and negatives will progress of the next month or two?
-- orajestad9
To sum up what I alluded to in the previous paragraphs: Bullpen was a negative, the invigoration of a healthy Robert and Moncada was a positive. The performance with runners in scoring position was a negative, but the number of scoring chances they created was a positive.
I'd also say that Elvis Andrus' performance got a head start in confirming my fears that his below-average production against righties last year might be the dominant feature of his game in 2023, but I also wants to see what he looks like after he finally notches his 2,000th hit. He's been sitting at 1,999 for 14 plate appearances now, and maybe it's making him itchy.
There aren't a lot of guys the White Sox can trust in the bullpen right now. Are there any relievers that you think showed positive signs in the Houston series, even if they didn't have the results to match?
-- cwsmike91
Aaron Bummer's second appearances went better a lot better than his first. Jimmy Lambert hasn't been scored upon in three appearances, and he's working with a shorter delivery that could make his fastball play up. Kendall Graveman looked fine in the games where he hadn't pitched the day before. Gregory Santos owns the four fastest pitches by the White Sox since the start of the 2020 season, and only Thyago Vieira has him beat with one fastball clocked at 102.2 mph back in 2019. Unlike Vieira, he also hasn't a decent slider, so he has my attention, even if I'm not pinning significant hopes on him.
While it’s nice to see Grandal and Moncada rediscover their power strokes, there was still a lot of station-to-station hitting that resulted in a LOT of stranded runners. Is this going to eventually average out more in their favor, or is it a bad continuation of last season?
-- Trooper Galactus
Some of the station-to-station action is a natural byproduct of Yasmani Grandal getting more room on the right side for base hits. He's running a .412 OBP so far, and when he and Andrew Vaughn are back-to-back, and they're followed by an Oscar Colás who is learning how to fend off inside pitching, and an Elvis Andrus who is out of sorts, the game can feel like it's slowing to a halt.
But also, the Astros are good at pitching and very right-handed, so they might frustrate the White Sox more than the average team. I think this series against the Giants and the weekend series in Pittsburgh will give us a little more of a normal spread of opponent quality to judge.
I didn’t hold my breathe wondering if our out-of-position outfielder would catch a ball. Thoughts on four games of 1 error ball? Is the defense the biggest on the field change from last year to this year?
-- Humberpie
If I had one quibble about the defense, it seemed like a number of batted balls dropped a couple steps in front of each of the (real) outfielders. That might be bad luck, but it could also be a new coaching staff and new players learning together how they should be positioned. Statcast hasn't yet created positioning searches for 2023 yet, so I can't grab a snapshot now to understand what tweaks have been made.
Otherwise, yes, everybody is playing the position they're supposed to and are fully healthy doing so, so it's a good start. Also, I wonder if Moncada's error isn't an error with José Abreu, whether it's because Abreu is five inches taller or because he found ways to receive throws off the bag in creative fashions, even if it seemed to put him in peril.
The biggest issue is probably the running game, so let's get to...
After seeing Grandal throw off of one knee through the first series, do you think he should stick with it or resort back to his previous throwing stance?
-- Gregory W.
The White Sox have allowed seven stolen bases so far, the second-highest total behind the Red Sox, who allowed 10 steals in 10 attempts against Baltimore to open their season.
Both Sox teams aren't alone in giving up ugly percentages, and there's a good chance it gets worse for teams that struggle to keep speed contained. Tom Tango (MLB Advanced Media's senior data architect) has been teasing a caught-stealing model for Statcast, noting that teams have already gotten smarter about running in advantageous situations, and now the floodgates look like they're about to open.
So yes, it is worth keeping an eye on what kind of trade-offs Grandal and the White Sox make across the season. Maybe Grandal changes his technique, or maybe the Sox feature Seby Zavala more against faster teams. Fun stuff! Well, maybe not in the classic "I'm enjoying this" sense, but I enjoy watching the games within the game, and this is getting game-ier.
Will there be a game-wide adjustment back to a small ball approach? I could see some teams wanting to run these big, hard throwing relievers, all over the diamond in addition to them working faster because of the clock.
-- Dan F.
I don't think you'll see a universal shift toward the small-ball approach, but I think MLB wants to get to the 1980s ideal of baseball where there are multiple recipes for building effective offenses. The 1987 season provided the data for the original R.B.I. Baseball, and I remember being confused by the idea that a team with as little power as the Cardinals (94 homers, last in the NL) could end up winning the pennant and almost winning the World Series. Of course, they led the league in OBP, stole 50 more bases than the next team, and defended really, really well.
Teams like last year's Guardians and the 2014-15 Royals have followed similar blueprints, but they tended to be exceptions, especially since they might not have emerged from stronger divisions.
Home runs always make offenses more directly effective, so teams are going to be loath to give up power to pursue other avenues. However, with more base hits and more stolen bases, teams like the Guardians and Orioles have more reasons to lean into what they do well, rather than be immediately dismissed as novelties because it's hard to sequence contact into crooked numbers against postseason pitching. A big part of why people watch sports is to see strengths against strengths, and if the rule changes produce more viable strengths to bring to the table, baseball should be better for it.
How much are you comparing Lenyn Sosa’s AAA performance against Andrus as the year progresses? How much does Grifol’s saying that Andrus is the backup shortstop insulate him from the specter of an early DFA?
-- Andrew S.
Not a ton, just because Romy González seems like the first guy who could take a bite into Andrus' playing time if his first five games foreshadow serious regression. I also have a sense that Sosa's last mile of development is longer than others, just because his biggest weakness is plate discipline. I like him as a prospect, but I think a lot of his immediate viability will depend on whether he's promoted into the right situation. Replacing Andrus as an everyday second baseman for a team with hopes probably isn't it.
I also want to see whether Andrus can maximize whatever OBP he eventually runs with his own capabilities to steal a base. He went 18-for-22 last season, including an 11-for-11 performance with the Sox in just 43 games. Sosa isn't anywhere near that kind of threat, so I imagine Andrus will get ample runway.
Should we take anything from Moncada and TA returning from the WBC on fire, while Ruiz has not replicated his WBC success so far?
-- Mike J.
I'm not inclined to read deeply into it. Moncada and Anderson have histories of being All-Stars when healthy, and Ruiz gets hammered by the Peter Principle any time he tries to become more than the second-worst arm in the bullpen. Ruiz impressed me like he did everybody else with his WBC performance, but he also impressed last April with a changeup that appeared to be new and exciting. Then it stopped being new, and he stopped being exciting. The WBC might just be another springboard that lacks the power to blast through a low ceiling.
