Podcast: What PECOTA, FanGraphs, and Vegas think about the 2021 Chicago White Sox

Show rundown:

1:20: PECOTA Projections

18:16: FanGraphs Projections

25:21: Vegas Odds

35:55: Show Poll – O/U 90.5 wins for the White Sox

38:10: Return of the 7-inning doubleheaders and Extra Innings runner on 2nd Base 

47:12: Return of the Taxi Squad, and how the White Sox could use it

54:34: COVID rules

Click play below to listen:

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The Royals acquired Benintendi. Have they had a better offseason than the Sox?

asinwreck

The gap between Eaton and Benintendi is smaller than I would have imagined just two years ago. Benintendi keeps losing speed, and his declines at the plate and in the field are not limited to his abbreviated 2020.

He could turn it around or be out of the league in two years.

The KC Royals (un)official motto:

“Put together a team that isn’t good enough to actually compete for a playoff spot, but just good enough that they’ll steal a series or two from you in September to ruin your own team’s playoff hopes”

Eagle Bones

I’d have to think more about the overall grade I’d give their offseason, but I can tell you that I feel like they’re going to be a real pain this year. They’ve quietly put together a pretty decent 2021 roster.

knoxfire30

Its not to surprising the sox have a wide range of o/u’s. A super talented young team with no depth and a few glaring holes in the lineup and rotation. Its a good recipe for extreme outcomes.

I think an underappreciated item that hasn’t been mentioned too much is the firming up of the division. Pre Offseason KC and Det were possible 60-65 win doormats now they each could probably hoover around 500ish and end up in the 75 win range. They will be pesky to play 19 times in games you will constantly feel like you should win but manage to go 2-2 in a 4 game series, and 2-1 in most 3 game sets. This could be the deciding factor in just how accessible a wild card spot is.

Assuming no more additions, I am pegging the sox at 88 wins. The front end of the staff is great, the bullpen is great, I think the offense is very good. The backend of the rotation will be a thorn in our sides all year, I expect one or two lineup injuries to really hurt a lineup that cant afford another hole and still lacks needed lefty pop. The division improvements will be the difference imo in keeping them just under the vegas win total.

HallofFrank

The back of the rotation is concerning, but I think it’ll end up better than it seems. I wouldn’t bet on any one of Cease, Lopez, Rodon, Kopech, or leftover prospects being good, but I’d there’s a good chance at least one will be good—and probably another decent.

knoxfire30

With the caveat of being a championship level team, leaving 2 huge question marks in the rotation is unacceptable. Cease and Lopez have been bad or average, Kopech is 2 plus years removed from pitching, and rodon has been bad and hurt. Even with the rosey assumption 2 of the group can produce enough that outcome is underwhelming and leaves no margin for error should 1 of the top 3 starters go down.

The good news is, the bullpen is strong and deep, and the offense should be good enough. Most teams dont have 5 strong starters and maybe on days 4 and 5 the sox offense and pen is gonna be enough to beat most teams anyway.

I am just shell shocked stunned they couldnt invest enough to raise their floor.

HallofFrank

For sure, I’m with you. I’m fairly optimistic that the backend of the rotation will be stabilized, but, because they stopped short of adding another starter, they’ll start de-stabilized and the cost of stabilization may be high.

metasox

Too possible improvement of the Central, I would add playing the East and West this season. Did the post-season Central performance against the other divisions mean anything? Who knows. But is conceivable that last season did not give a full read on how this group will perform against a wider array of competition.

Willardmarshall

I’m old enough to remember when this offseason was encouraging….

dwjm3

Unfortunately that tends to be the theme of White Sox offseasons….start strong and not finish

knoxfire30

They added a top rotation starter for 8 mil… and when people thought the payroll was gonna be 145-150 at least that seemed to open a world of possibilities… how little did we know….

HallofFrank

At least Hahn was thoughtful enough to sign Eaton relatively quickly instead of stringing our hopes out for another month or two.

Root Cause

We have a REALLY good race car, a 76 yr. HOF driver, a sagging right spring, a missing bumper, and a couple of spare parts are on backorder.

Will it be exciting, Heck ya! We will win some races.

Will we win the division, Heck no, there will be some parts sprinkled across the country and Rick will say, “If not for the broken parts, we could have won.”

I am just going to enjoy what we have while we are competitive, expect little in September, and hope to be wonderfully surprised in October.

Last edited 3 years ago by Root Cause
Right Size Wrong Shape

Any analogy that has Tony La Russa driving a car does not fill me with hope.

Root Cause

Well, that didn’t take as long as I thought! LOL.

Eagle Bones

Look, I’ve been pretty vocal about thinking they should have done more, but I’m also reasonable enough to admit that they still need to play the games. The division is still in play, though yeah it’s probably less likely than it would have been with a stronger, more complete offseason. As knoxfire said above, it’s just so easy to see a couple injuries to the lineup and/or the front of the rotation and underperformance from the backend SPs holding them back.

roke1960

In the past 8-12 years, if everything went right, the Sox could possibly compete for a playoff spot. Of course, in most cases almost nothing went right and we were stuck with a woeful team. At least this year, if everything goes right, they can actually compete for a World Series. The key questions are IF:

  1. Cease really steps up, they will have a very solid top 4.
  2. One of Rodon/Kopech/Lopez is decent, that will fill the 5-spot.
  3. Eaton stays healthy and provides a spark at the bottom of the lineup with Madrigal.
  4. Moncada is fully recovered from COVID and returns to all-star form.
  5. Robert’s September doesn’t carry into this year.
  6. Vaughn or someone else seizes the DH spot and hits well. That’s way too many questions for a WS contender to have, but most of those could reasonably happen. I think the most likely occurrence is we find at least one good starter for the last 2 spots, Moncada returns to all-star from and Robert does not crater for a month at a time. If those 3 happen, this is very likely a playoff team. If more of those happen, or Jerry actually goes out and supplements this roster with real ballplayers, then they will be one of the best 2 or 3 teams in the AL. That’s much better than anything we had to look forward to since 2006.
texag10

Here’s where I’m at.

  1. I don’t think Cease steps up but new pitching coach, who knows.
  2. Most teams don’t have 5 good starters so I believe we can get enough production from those 4 guys for the last two spots in the rotation to not be dumpster fires.
  3. Eaton is probably one of the bigger barometers for this season. A full season of Engel is not terrible but also means we cannot afford to absorb any other issues with the offense.
  4. I don’t think we NEED Moncada to go back to his 2019 self. He’s still a very valuable player with league average offense thanks to the massive strides he’s made defensively. I’m still rooting for 2019+ Moncada but I don’t think its a requirement to be competitive.
  5. I’m really hoping Robert just becomes more consistent with his approach because I feel like part of his late season swoon was him starting to press too much at the plate. He’s young and lacking experience but it looked like he started to get it together right at the end of the season so maybe that portends good things.
  6. I guess I’m in the minority of people that are concerned about the DH spot right now. I’d love to have someone else ready and raring to go on Opening Day but I’m not overly concerned if its Mercedes or Vaughn because we’ve had such a shit show there the past few years, the bar is pretty low. I know that’s not a ringing endorsement but we have so many other good hitters in this lineup, we don’t need a 300/400/500 guy at that spot to be dangerous. I don’t see why 2020 Miggy as a baseline is a terrible thing knowing that there most likely be growth during the season.
roke1960

The reason I put Moncada in there is because he has the chance to be one of the best players in the AL. If we had that hitting at the top of the order, that is huge. Yes, he is very valuable with league average offense, but he is the one guy (along with Eloy) that can put up monster numbers.

Eagle Bones

I was with you until #6. I’m just dreading the inevitable point in this season where a couple of bats are on the IL and they have to run out a lineup like the half good, half crap lineups they had mid-rebuild and during the first rebuild.

roke1960

Yes, which is why even adding someone as uninteresting as Brad Miller will at least put another decent left-handed bat in the lineup.

MrStealYoBase

Just finished up listening to the whole podcast. Good stuff.

One thing that I’d like to hear opinions on is how the bullpen could change the calculus for this team pretty dramatically. If there’s one very well known blind spot for PECOTA, it’s under-projecting teams with good ‘pens. The world series champion Royals in 2015, projected by PECOTA at 71 wins. The 2016 Orioles, who were projected to lose 89 games and ended up winning 89. More recently, the Rays outperformed PECOTA by 8 wins in 2019 and had a .533 projected win % in 2020 v .667 actual.

I think no matter how you want to slice it, the Sox have enough bullpen arms who could be above-average that their floor as a group is “good”. And there’s enough upside there to see a few different paths to “great”. It seems like that is historically a good way to outperform projections and squeeze just about every win you can out of your run differential.

I also wonder how the rule changes (as much as I hate them) might help teams with bullpens that feature a couple of top-flight arms. Fewer extra innings and innings to cover on double header days could translate to a greater proportion of innings being covered by the best relievers, rather than the 7th and 8th guys out of the ‘pen. Teams like the Sox with Hendriks & Bummer, or the Brewers with Hader and Williams could see their ‘pens “play-up” under these rules. In contrast to teams like the Rangers who, while having a good bullpen, benefit more from competence across the board rather than a few standouts.

HallofFrank

I partially agree with your point about PECOTA & bullpens but, to be fair, I wouldn’t call it a “blindspot.” There is a reason projections (not just PECOTA—look at ZIPS, too) don’t put much stock in good bullpens: bullpens are super volatile. Look no further than the Royals ‘pen you cite: Holland, Herrera, and Davis had some really not-so-great years after that. Sustained dominance is just rare for bullpen arms.