And injuries are helping
Yes, it’s true — there are things going the right direction for the White Sox, and not just on the pitching side. The fine, and sometimes surprising, performance of the young starting pitchers is well-known at this point, but there are signs of life on the position player side as well now.
Much of that is thanks to injuries.
Huh? Injury benefits?
Yep.
Consider who has been out for much of the season. Except for Korey Lee, they’re all players of no use to the White Sox future. And even in Lee’s case, had he not been hurt Edgar Quero wouldn’t have been brought up from Charlotte nearly this soon, and Quero has become one of the best hitters on the team among those with more than a handful of trips to the plate. Will Quero’s offensive prowess continue after the league has a better chance to analyze any weaknesses? Maybe, maybe not, but without Lee’s injury there would not have been this chance to find out.
As for the rest:
Mike Tauchman is 34, and had 6.6 bWAR coming into 2025, less than one win per MLB year (he was in Korea for a season), a level that makes clear he’s not good enough to be a regular.
Austin Slater is 32, with 5.1 bWAR over eight seasons, so not even one win per year.
Josh Rojas is 30, with 6.1 bWAR over six seasons, a bare one a year, with his career total going down with poor performance since coming off the IL.
Andrew Benintendi — well, we all know about Andrew Benintendi.
Put them all together and maybe, just maybe, the Sox would win three or four more games. So, what — 110 losses instead of 114, 105 losses instead of 109? They won’t be breaking their own loss record, which the Rockies are on track to blow through around Labor Day, so there’s not even the thrill of that chase.
Except for Benintendi, whom the Sox are stuck with for two more years unless a very major sucker is found, none of these veterans will likely be around after this season. True, not playing has probably harmed their deadline trade value, but as trade bait goes they weren’t even minnows before they got hurt. There are reasons they were willing to sign with the White Sox.
Meanwhile, their absence has meant more playing time for young players, though for some reason GM Chris Getz keeps making some new dumpster dive every day or two for yet another washed-up or never-was veteran. The hope is he runs out of those, so the kids can play.
Unfortunately, the old guys will eventually all be back, something that hasn’t worked at all well for Rojas.
Meanwhile, what offense there is comes from the right places
The Sox offense is pretty much the same horror show it was last year. Runs per game are up slightly, to 3.38 from 3.13, largely due to a a few big outbursts (blowouts are an early storyline across baseball, and the White Sox are doing their part more than a year ago). The team batting average has edged up, from .217 to .221. On-base percentage is up a hair also, from .278 to .290. But OPS is dead even with 2024, at .618.
True, the White Sox are no longer last at everything, but that’s due to collapse of other teams, not any real improvement — thank you, Colorado!
So, how is that good? The good is because the hitting is now coming from players with a future with the Sox.
Luis Robert Jr. could be gone within a week or two if Bob Nightengale has typed Jerry Reinsdorf’s intentions correctly, but certainly no later than July (both for the good of the team and the good of Robert, who deserves a chance to play in games that matter). He is a non-factor beyond stealing bases.
Andrew Vaughn has a hearty OPS+ of 52 to go with horrible defense (come on, Boston, you’re really desperate enough to need him, aren’t you?). That’s why Tim Elko is being given a chance, and if Elko proves to just be a AAAA player, Lenyn Sosa is getting some innings at first, which improves the D both there and at second, where he’s terrible. Miguel Vargas has also seen some time at the other corner, although a fielding slip at first is what saw him sidelined for a few games recently.
Matt Thaiss is doing OK, so there is that, but the rest of what there is of offense is coming from rookies or near-rookies.
Had Rojas not been hurt, there would have been less playing time for Miguel Vargas, who has been on an absolute tear since changing his stance to raise his hands (have the Sox finally found someone who can actually coach hitting?); Sosa, who has shown for the first time he may be an actual major league hitter, with a modest but usable 88 OPS+; and Chase Meidroth, who fields very well at second and almost adequately at short, and has an on-base percentage of .357 which gets him an 89 OPS+ despite no power at all (two doubles have been only extra-base hits).
The absence of Tauchman, Slater and Benintendi has opened up outfield slots for Brooks Baldwin, who has played all over the field, and Joshua Palacios. Neither has fared at all well at the plate — 61 OPS+ for Baldwin, 75 for Palacios — but at least the team gets an evaluation at the big league level. And because the farm system is devoid of any outfield talent except Braden Montgomery (who is a couple of years away), any evaluation is important.
But back to the positives. The offense is mostly being provided by Quero, Vargas, Sosa and Meidroth, all of whom should improve with experience if they are as advertised. The O is still very poor, but what good there is is coming from the right direction. (Yeah, yeah, Vaughn and Robert are second and third in RBIs, but a look at the batting order explains that.)
SO, YOU’RE SAYING THERE’S HOPE FOR THE FUTURE?
Well, not HOPE by any means, but at least not despair forever.
We hope.