Michael Soroka and Nicky Lopez took their turns introducing themselves to the Chicago media after joining the White Sox in that six-player trade with the Braves, and they showed the pockets where optimism can flourish, and how it's going to be hard sell everywhere else.
The White Sox are perfect for a guy like Soroka, who needs as forgiving an environment as possible in order to make a full return from two torn Achilles after a forearm strain interrupted his attempt last year with the Braves.
Not only do the White Sox offer all-you-can-eat innings, but they're whenever-you-can-eat innings, too, which works for Soroka in his final year before free agency. Moreover, with Brian Bannister now directing the White Sox's large-scale pitching efforts, there's a little added credibility the team didn't possess before.
Therefore, I read Soroka's enthusiasm about coming to the South Side being genuine, even if it's a sharp drop down an elevator shaft going from the Braves to the White Sox.
“And then the (call) after that with (Sox general manager) Chris Getz, they stressed how excited they were about me and that made me feel awesome. That was a nice little boost of confidence to get somewhere that I think believes in me.” [...]
“I’m very excited having listened to some of the new people that are moving into the White Sox organization,” Soroka said. “It’s an exciting thing and I can’t wait to get out there.
“They see my potential and everybody in the organization seems to be wanting to extract the most out of that right now and down the line. I’m very excited to get to work. These people seem awesome.”
If everything goes well, Soroka will pitch every five or six days, and he has no effect on the four games in between. Pitchers' performances are neatly contained like that, which is why a like Zack Greinke can win the Cy Young for a team that went 65-97, while MVP candidates are tied to the quality of their teammates. That just makes it harder to speak for the team, which is why pitchers aren't seen as the first choice for clubhouse leaders, but since Soroka is mainly spending 2024 trying to get right for the open market, the state of the team can be a secondary concern.
Lopez, who figures to be out there more often than not, tried his hand at making a bigger statement about the 2024 White Sox. The problem is that without a whole lot of evident talent, he just ends up sounding like Pedro Grifol.
“Just the vision of playing hard baseball,” Lopez said over Zoom on Tuesday. “A hard 90, playing 110 percent, creating an identity that we’re going to play the game hard, [that] we’re going to do the little things right. We're going to pick it. We're going to throw it.
“All this stuff is obviously cliché when you're talking about winning baseball. But l've seen this team be really, really successful being across the diamond and playing against them for the last five years. And not many of it is different. The team is not different. … It's just maybe a cultural change, or maybe it's a change of the way that we believe in ourselves or think. Mentality is a big thing.”
During Lopez's time in Kansas City, the Royals won at a .388 clip, good for a 63-99 record over 162 games. The Braves rescued him at the deadline, and he held down the fort during an Ozzie Albies injury. He's trying to make the experience a profound one:
“Even though I was there for a half year, it was a huge learning experience for me,” Lopez said. “The thing about the Atlanta Braves is they play the same lineup every single day. I was fortunate enough to get some playing time when Ozzie Albies went down (with a strained left hamstring in August), but I learned so much from that staff, from those players and about what winning baseball is like.
“And being able to experience my first playoffs was something special. Once you kind of get a taste of playoff baseball, you don’t want to experience anything else. And so that’s why coming here, whether it’s a cultural change, whether it’s something in the clubhouse that we can change, I’m looking forward to trying to help that both in the clubhouse and on the field.”
The problem isn't Lopez saying this, because a fringe starter has to use every potential avenue to justify his playing time.
The problem is that the White Sox are so adrift that a signing like Lopez is expected to speak for the team's direction, and a player like Lopez should never define a team. You can talk all you want about establishing culture, but at least some talent has to be in place first because a culture without wins is like faith without works.
The record provides the credibility, and the talent dictates the record, so the biggest names almost always drive the agenda. The little things are the little things because they're little. If they made a huge difference, they'd be big things. Jerry Reinsdorf loves to talk about David Eckstein, but Eckstein only rose onto Reinsdorf's radar because he spent his peak years in a lineup featuring four Hall of Famers, and five if you think Jim Edmonds got a raw deal.
Lopez can make a positive impact on the White Sox if he plays defense the way he always has, and his BABIP allows him to get on base enough for an OBP approaching average. He can demand more from his teammates if he maxes out his skill set, but as his time in KC shows, it won't matter if there isn't more to give. Lopez might say about the White Sox that "the team is not different" than the one he faced in the AL Central, but it is. When the White Sox acquired him, he was taking the place of Tim Anderson. I'm not sure how much more different you can get.
