When we put a call out for P.O. Sox question to subscribers at our 10 WAR tier and higher, the White Sox were 1-5. When we set out to answer them, they swept the defending American League champs, so the timing wasn't right.
Then they lost three in a row, so the White Sox reset the appropriate tone for bulk of the questions below. Then they snapped their 14-game losing streak at Kauffman Stadium, so let's address them now in the event that they're somehow the kings of KC.
1. How injured is Brooks Baldwin? Is he headed for TJ surgery? Are the Sox already giving up on Acuna as a CF and primarily seeing him as Leury Garcia 2.0? If so, what is the CF plan? Derek Hill? Thanks again and hope that the White Sox someday will approximate the Dodgers level content on this site.
cmansoxfan
James: So since this mailbag was opened, the White Sox announced that Baldwin underwent internal brace surgery and will miss the season, which is generally what you start to expect with pitchers when they go down with elbow discomfort and then retreat into radio silence. Leury García is a great comp for Acuña on two fronts. First, the version of Acuña that has a role on a winning team probably bounces around like García did in 2021 rather than becomes an everyday regular in center. Second, García played 120 games in the outfield on the 2019 team, which is roughly where the Sox hope they are in terms of rebuild progress. I think Acuña leads the team in starts out there this year, and currently Peters seems like the guy who will start there when he’s elsewhere. Hill can play a great center, but since most of his limited starts will come against lefties, Acuña will likely be part of those lineups too, and has been playing over Hill in those situations.
Thanks for all that you do and sticking with this thankless project through thick and thin. Mostly thin these days. My question pertains to the outfield mess. It really seems that Benintendi is a hindrance in all phase of the roster as he can't play effective LF and the DH spot is suffering from a glut of possibilities from Teal to Sosa, to Quero, etc. What if any, way out of this quagmire it available? I would think a trade would have already happened if that was feasible. Is a DFA the only route here?
John S.
Choosing only from a universe of in-house options, what do you see the outfield rotation looking like on August 1? Do you think Benintendi will still be in the organization at that point?
Steve B.
James: I think in identifying the hurdles Benintendi faces toward providing good production, you’re sort of answering your own question about trade viability for someone making ~$15 million per year for another season after this one. In this current logjam of DH candidates, he’s playing a lot more than Lenyn Sosa is, right or wrong, which doesn’t offer the impression that he’s on the chopping block.
This really seems like an area where they could wind up working the waiver wire or target a post-hype prospect at the deadline to give some runway to, because it’s really in flux at the moment, dinged with injuries, and there’s not a crush of near-ready prospects. The biggest hope–and optimistic plan for the Sox–would be Braden Montgomery has bashed his way into the picture by this point, but I don’t think it’s better than 60/40 odds, and it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad indicator for his long-term prospects if he’s not. He’s so physically talented that you give him all the time in the world to figure out his contact issues. Given the lack of depth and the remaining time left on his deal, I think Benintendi’s in the fold this year, since he’s still being regularly used like he’s one of their better offensive options.
Jim: With the Aug. 1 forecast, you can start with this year's Plan A – Benintendi, Acuña, Hays, then Hill/Peters/Harris/Kelenic mixed in – because it might be hard to move any of them in their current state. But I think before Braden enters the chat, the most significant player to accommodate would be Sam Antonacci. If the infield is all major leaguers and the outfield is decidedly not, and Antonacci needs both playing time and a position to get major league reps, then left field looks like the best spot. And if the White Sox still have two catchers who warrant playing time, then Benintendi's fit finally starts getting claustrophobic.
Until that point, as long as the White Sox's depth chart continues to be bereft of starting outfielders, then the talk of DFAing Benintendi will be mostly spleen-venting, as I don't think Chris Getz is as tired of/frustrated by Benintendi's name and face as the average fan. It's probably more useful to think of it as a phase-out, which at least puts part of the responsibility on other outfielders outplaying him.
Back in February, Will Venable spoke about how he was approaching Spring Training in his second season. "Our approach going into camp is to start at zero and really get back to the basics and create habits around the things that we know lead to winning."
What habits did they instill down in Glendale? Can those habits be broken? Is Will Venable in over his head?
Asinwreck
James: Based on the messaging to the team after the first road trip, Venable and Sox coaches feel more like they’ve deviated from what was preached during the spring. Davis Martin cited just that message being communicated before the Blue Jays series, Colson Montgomery talked about the hitting group having their spring training production and approaches reiterated to them. Venable is kind of the last person who comes off as being over his head just via his communication style, and White Sox execs have mentioned that in personality tests they had him undergo in the hiring process, he graded out as exceptionally unexcitable (a fun wrinkle from that is these types of people tend to have less control when they finally do lose it, prompting some fun ejections). Ultimately, whether he’s ever effective in guiding this team to consistently play the style of ball they aspire to is the real test, but it doesn’t seem like he told the outfielders to airmail the cutoff man in spring training.
It's possible that team analytics are proprietary/secret/whatever, but it'd be interesting to know what they're using to calculate the formula for when to play the infield in. So many people think analytics are just black-boxed ("the numbers say X, end of story"), but really, they're based on human decisions to prioritize certain factors over others--in other words, they can be either useful or shitty, depending on how they're calculated (i.e. the algorithm used). Guess which one I think the Sox's are.
Chris M.
James: The White Sox obviously have their own calculations, but the cost-benefit analysis of playing infield in has been done publicly and can be summed up pretty simply: batting average goes up, and thus the risk of a big inning, and the percentage of the time the offense scores at all goes down. Like many organizational strategies with the Sox, it’s based off an unflattering self-assessment. They don’t have a high-powered offense and think they need to chase the chance of posting a zero and treat every run as possibly game-altering, rather than trusting their hitters to come back if they keep the opposition at arm’s length. It seems like something they’re committed to as part of the defense-first identity they aspire to, so I don’t think anecdotal evidence at the start of the season is going to easily sway them.
Jim: I thought about writing/complaining about the infield-in deployment, but it seemed a little too emotionally charged when I didn't have a great handle on the frequency of other teams doing it. Sure enough, the Orioles played the infield in during a time I thought was premature, especially since they came back and won that game. So it's possible that the infield-in debate is somewhat akin to the football conversation of whether it's smart to simply “take the points” when a field goal is available, in that the data says staying the course wins out in the end no matter how aesthetically unpleasing the individual failures are.
But the point about the identity being something they aspire to reminds me a little bit about what Garrett Crochet said about F.A.S.T(S) – the White Sox are not Cleveland and they were never going to be Cleveland in 2024, so what were they even doing? It's also runs the risk of being counterproductive at a time when starters are struggling to get through half the game, and what they want to be in the future doesn't mesh with what they need to survive now. I guess it comes down to buy-in. If the players are with him in preventing every possible run, then you'll just have to deal with everything looking uglier than it is. If they think they're being put in a position to fail and Venable isn't articulating it in a convincing fashion, then you get that dissonance that prompted Crochet to speak up.
It seems Getz is good at managing the organization and bringing in smart people and new technology, but it seems he is not a good talent evaluator. Most recent examples of his miscues are the Luisangel Acuña Experience and passing on Pallette for two unknowns that are now, as of this email, no longer with the organization. Is there a different role he would be better suited for? Or is there a better lieutenant he can bring in to oversee that aspect of the job?
Tim B.
Jim: Before getting to the bigger point, I think time will tell on Acuña and Palette. They've definitely seemed scattered on the former, but the loss of Baldwin hampered their plans to ease him in to center field, and then the 1-5 start made it easy to fixate on the places with the aesthetics that were easiest to upgrade. Pallette's been good so far, and I was surprised at how cavalier they were about his prospects of being somebody who could be useful, even if he wasn't the sort of true setup guy they envisioned, but he's only appeared in low-leverage situations thus far, and we'll see whether he's able to level up over the course of the year.
James: I think the idea of the GM as the master scout making their own evaluations and forcing them on everyone else went out with the last generation or two of baseball executives. It’s still on all on his record and ultimately weighs against Getz what sort of players his operation brings in, but you’re often hearing him sum up the attributes of players that have been highlighted by analysts, scouts and the acquisitions department, which is a department that exists now in modern baseball. What I was trying to highlight in the piece about him this spring, the primary thing his underlings praise him for is empowering them to have autonomy and fostering a good work environment, which is more what a GM is directly responsible for these days.
Jim: He'd have to spread it around, because otherwise he'd be doing the jobs of at least two people – overhauling the entire infrastructure of the front office while also assembling the on-field product. I suppose this is the benefit of the president of baseball operations-headed structure, where that person is responsible for the big picture, and the GM is the one handling the day-to-day matters, and both share public-facing responsibitilies. That's how Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn theoretically divided the labor, except it wasn't clear exactly what the former did. Getz is delegating the responsibilities, but not so much the communication.
The result is that it seems like it's all on his plate, and it's not a job he's done before, or even been a second-in-command for. He's also not polished as a communicator, so the recipe doesn't generate any benefit of the doubt. The best thing he has going for him is a lack of defensiveness, which makes it easier to think that his ego won't get in his way of improving the team. A lot of other things might, but he can't afford to add to the pile.
