2022 season was insane bad luck

[Dominikk85]

There definitely have been mistakes:

-not great on field management and coaching (TLR, menechino) 

-free agent signings and trade acquisitions not all working well (for example pollock) 

-general lack of activity by front office in off season and deadline

-lack of minor league development showing up in organizational depth

However still even with TLR, menechino and the lack of activity this team likely would have won 90 games in that weak ass division if not for dozens of DL stints to key players like lynn, Anderson, robert, moncada, grandal, eloy and others as the sox are a top heavy team who needs it's stars on the field (but even a team with better depth would have had a tough time with that many injuries).

That means next season definitely should be better, especially if TLR will really retire like those rumors are saying. 

Sure, parts of the core are aging and at some point it will get tough due to the lack of minor league development (albeit it seems to get a little better, at least Montgomery looks like a future star) but I expect more health by those core players and the sox competing for the division again next year even without changes to the front office and huge new player acquisitions. 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Dominikk85

[Sarava]

Injury prone players getting injured is not insane bad luck. It's an expected outcome.

If you're going to build a team based on a core of fragile players that can't stay on the field, then you at least better build up insane depth. Unfortunately the Sox depth is among the worst in baseball.

[Dominikk85]

36 minutes ago, Sarava said:

Injury prone players getting injured is not insane bad luck. It's an expected outcome.

If you're going to build a team based on a core of fragile players that can't stay on the field, then you at least better build up insane depth. Unfortunately the Sox depth is among the worst in baseball.

Sure, some of them are injury prone, older or both but still they got injured more often than expected. 

 

You have to expect anderson, robert and some others to have a DL stint but not 3 or 4 stints or even more. 

Maybe you shouldn't project them for more than 130 games but if you only get 80-100 (and some of them like grandal with reduced performance due to injury too) that is almost impossible to compensate, no matter how good your depth is. 

Even the astros,braves or yankees would have struggled if 4 of their top 9 hitters miss more than 60 games, only the dodgers are able to cover such a loss. 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Dominikk85

[Dominikk85]

Sox only have 3 hitters qualified for the batting title and so far that is the game count of some of the stars (probably not more than 4-5 will be added at max):

Robert 98

Eloy 77

Tim 79

Moncada 97 (and reduced performance) 

Grandal 94 (and reduced performance) 

 

That's 5 of their projected top 7 hitters missing a huge chunk of time (40-50% of the season). 

Also injuries to giolito and lynn missing significant innings (both about 30 less than last season) but that is something you have to expect from pitchers of course.

 

But the hitters should all have significantly more playing time next year, maybe not 145+ plus games but at least more than 130 or so (and maybe one of them missing 50 plus games). 

 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Dominikk85

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, Dominikk85 said:

There definitely have been mistakes:

-not great on field management and coaching (TLR, menechino) 

-free agent signings and trade acquisitions not all working well (for example pollock) 

-general lack of activity by front office in off season and deadline

-lack of minor league development showing up in organizational depth

However still even with TLR, menechino and the lack of activity this team likely would have won 90 games in that weak ass division if not for dozens of DL stints to key players like lynn, Anderson, robert, moncada, grandal, eloy and others as the sox are a top heavy team who needs it's stars on the field (but even a team with better depth would have had a tough time with that many injuries).

That means next season definitely should be better, especially if TLR will really retire like those rumors are saying. 

Sure, parts of the core are aging and at some point it will get tough due to the lack of minor league development (albeit it seems to get a little better, at least Montgomery looks like a future star) but I expect more health by those core players and the sox competing for the division again next year even without changes to the front office and huge new player acquisitions. 

You just got yourself a job selling Sox whole and partial season ticket packages.

[joejoesox]

3 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

There definitely have been mistakes:

-not great on field management and coaching (TLR, menechino) 

-free agent signings and trade acquisitions not all working well (for example pollock) 

-general lack of activity by front office in off season and deadline

-lack of minor league development showing up in organizational depth

However still even with TLR, menechino and the lack of activity this team likely would have won 90 games in that weak ass division if not for dozens of DL stints to key players like lynn, Anderson, robert, moncada, grandal, eloy and others as the sox are a top heavy team who needs it's stars on the field (but even a team with better depth would have had a tough time with that many injuries).

That means next season definitely should be better, especially if TLR will really retire like those rumors are saying. 

Sure, parts of the core are aging and at some point it will get tough due to the lack of minor league development (albeit it seems to get a little better, at least Montgomery looks like a future star) but I expect more health by those core players and the sox competing for the division again next year even without changes to the front office and huge new player acquisitions. 

I agree that injuries probably played a large part in their final record but look at the last 2 years if you want a gauge on how this team would fare against a playoff opponent with a pulse, Sox just don't do s%*# correctly as an organization 

[Balta1701]

White Sox are the second healthiest team in the AL Central. 

White Sox fans: “this is insanely bad luck it will never be this bad again”.

[Balta1701]

3 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

Sox only have 3 hitters qualified for the batting title and so far that is the game count of some of the stars (probably not more than 4-5 will be added at max):

 

Qualified hitters per team in the AL Central:

CHW: 3
MIN: 3
KCR: 3
DET: 2
CLE: 6

[WBWSF]

5 hours ago, Dominikk85 said:

There definitely have been mistakes:

-not great on field management and coaching (TLR, menechino) 

-free agent signings and trade acquisitions not all working well (for example pollock) 

-general lack of activity by front office in off season and deadline

-lack of minor league development showing up in organizational depth

However still even with TLR, menechino and the lack of activity this team likely would have won 90 games in that weak ass division if not for dozens of DL stints to key players like lynn, Anderson, robert, moncada, grandal, eloy and others as the sox are a top heavy team who needs it's stars on the field (but even a team with better depth would have had a tough time with that many injuries).

That means next season definitely should be better, especially if TLR will really retire like those rumors are saying. 

Sure, parts of the core are aging and at some point it will get tough due to the lack of minor league development (albeit it seems to get a little better, at least Montgomery looks like a future star) but I expect more health by those core players and the sox competing for the division again next year even without changes to the front office and huge new player acquisitions. 

I agree with you.  2023 should be a much better season. Hopefuly they're able to replace Moncada and Grandal.

[Balta1701]

13 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

I agree with you.  2023 should be a much better season. Hopefuly they're able to replace Moncada and Grandal.

They are perhaps the two most likely players in the entire white Sox 40 man roster to be back next year. 

I look forward to hearing how it is insanely bad luck that they didn’t play 140 games in 2023 and no one could have predicted it.

[Dominikk85]

27 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

White Sox are the second healthiest team in the AL Central. 

White Sox fans: “this is insanely bad luck it will never be this bad again”.

Not all injuries are equal, the guys I mentioned are basically all among the top 10 players on the roster. 

I know other teams have more injuries but who cares about the injury to a middle reliever or 6th starter? 

Sox as I mentioned lost 5 of their top7 hitters for 40-50% of the season and two of their top3 starters also for significant time. 

I don't care if the sox rosterspots 18-25 stayed more healthy than other teams, what matters is losing so much playing time that all their best hitters except for jose stayed below 100 games and two war. 

What's true is that the sox pen and back of the rotation stayed pretty healthy but the lineup was a mess. 

Edited September 28, 2022 by Dominikk85

[Balta1701]

12 minutes ago, Dominikk85 said:

Not all injuries are equal, the guys I mentioned are basically all among the top 10 players on the roster. 

I know other teams have more injuries but who cares about the injury to a middle reliever or 6th starter? 

Sox as I mentioned lost 5 of their top7 hitters for 40-50% of the season and two of their top3 starters also for significant time. 

I don't care if the sox rosterspots 18-25 stayed more healthy than other teams, what matters is losing so much playing time that all their best hitters except for jose stayed below 100 games and two war. 

What's true is that the sox pen and back of the rotation stayed pretty healthy but the lineup was a mess. 

Back of the rotation was healthy? What happened to Cease?

[WBWSF]

15 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

They are perhaps the two most likely players in the entire white Sox 40 man roster to be back next year. 

I look forward to hearing how it is insanely bad luck that they didn’t play 140 games in 2023 and no one could have predicted it.

The team released Keuchel this past season. I'm expecting  them to do the same thing to Grandal. Hopefully Moncada will be moved to another team. I realize that the team  will have to eat alot of  Moncadas contract but I'm still hoping There's a change at third base.

[cuban_sammiches]

2 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

The team released Keuchel this past season. I'm expecting  them to do the same thing to Grandal. Hopefully Moncada will be moved to another team. I realize that the team  will have to eat alot of  Moncadas contract but I'm still hoping There's a change at third base.

So is the idea that Moncada gets traded and Jake Burger is the full time 3rd baseman?

[EloyJenkins]

ALL the money needs to be spent on replacing the entire coaching staff and especially building a world class sports medicine training team. Chicago has incredible talent in that realm, but it seems preventative maintenance was horrific this year. Get them on a plan in Oct/Nov, and build a philosophy geared to each player. They may do this already...but it seems light years different than the herm era. 

[southsideirish71]

31 minutes ago, Dominikk85 said:

Not all injuries are equal, the guys I mentioned are basically all among the top 10 players on the roster. 

I know other teams have more injuries but who cares about the injury to a middle reliever or 6th starter? 

Sox as I mentioned lost 5 of their top7 hitters for 40-50% of the season and two of their top3 starters also for significant time. 

I don't care if the sox rosterspots 18-25 stayed more healthy than other teams, what matters is losing so much playing time that all their best hitters except for jose stayed below 100 games and two war. 

What's true is that the sox pen and back of the rotation stayed pretty healthy but the lineup was a mess. 

So how many times has Robert been healthy for a full season.  Eloy?   Kopech?   But they will all be healhy next year because unicorn farts and fairy dust?  

[South Side Hit Men]

55 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Qualified hitters per team in the AL Central:

CHW: 3
MIN: 3
KCR: 3
DET: 2
CLE: 6

There are 134 qualified hitters across The MLB per Fangraphs (about 4 1/2 per team).

The White Sox player most here want to get rid of, Jose Abreu, ranks 40th in fWAR., so a solid #2 player.

The other two are Pollock (120th) and Vaughn (126th), though going strictly by offense fWAR they rank 24th (Abreu), 76th (Vaughn) and 115th (Pollock).

 

 

[WBWSF]

22 minutes ago, cuban_sammiches said:

So is the idea that Moncada gets traded and Jake Burger is the full time 3rd baseman?

If they put Burger at third base, so be it. I have no doubt that Burgers  offensive numbers will be better than Moncadas. Lets hope that Burgers defense improves.  But yeah, I would rather have Burger at third than Moncada. Moncada has had 3 bad years in a row offensively. Its time to move on from him.

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

White Sox are the second healthiest team in the AL Central. 

White Sox fans: “this is insanely bad luck it will never be this bad again”.

But have the other teams had just as many missed games from key/core players?

[Squirmin' for Yermin]

31 minutes ago, cuban_sammiches said:

So is the idea that Moncada gets traded and Jake Burger is the full time 3rd baseman?

If you can get something interesting back I'd be all for it.  Moncada seems to never play with fire.  Burger seems to always play with fire.  Our team has no fire, and no good leadership.  Start replacing the slugs.

[Goober]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

White Sox are the second healthiest team in the AL Central. 

White Sox fans: “this is insanely bad luck it will never be this bad again”.

Yeah but what are the quality of players? The rest of the division just plain doesn’t have any good players to miss

[Rowand44]

36 minutes ago, WBWSF said:

If they put Burger at third base, so be it. I have no doubt that Burgers  offensive numbers will be better than Moncadas. Lets hope that Burgers defense improves.  But yeah, I would rather have Burger at third than Moncada. Moncada has had 3 bad years in a row offensively. Its time to move on from him.

Trading Moncada while his value is at its lowest just to replace him with someone who is going to make our little league defense even worse doesn't seem to make a ton of sense to me.  Yoan was also just fine in 2021 offensively.  Yes, it's no where near the power we want/expected from him but it certainly wasn't a "bad" offensive year.

[Rowand44]

14 minutes ago, Goober said:

Yeah but what are the quality of players? The rest of the division just plain doesn’t have any good players to miss

If this was the case we still should have won the division easily, right?

[Big Hurtin]

Sounds like the White Sox front office in offseason mode.

[hogan873]

IL stints are one thing.  Players playing hurt is another.  Players being told not to hustle is yet another.  Maybe there was some bad luck there, but there was plenty of poor managing and leadership.