The White Sox over/under for 2023 wins is 83.5

[Balta1701]

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Except:

-They picked up Johnny Cueto off the scrap heap and found their second best pitcher of the season. The only reason he was even available when he was signed was the lockout. Had Lance Lynn not gotten hurt, they never sign Cueto - who outperformed everyone other than Cease in their rotation. They had a replacement for Keuchel because of this.
-They picked up Elvis Andrus off the scrap heap and got 2 months of darn near MVP performance from him. He was a notable upgrade over Tim Anderson for those 2 months, they got better because Anderson got hurt. We will probably never see that kind of upgrade from a midseason veteran put on waivers again in our lifetimes.
-Seby Zavala, per innings played, was one of the most effective catchers in baseball. Effective offensively, avoided some of the defensive issues that plagued him in 2021. This combined with McGuire turned the White Sox' 
-The guys they brought in off the scrap heap were so effective that it basically offset almost all of the losses to injury (except for the stupidity with Robert's wrist). Had they been the healthiest team in baseball, they're basically the same team in the end, because of how effective these guys were.
-They weren't all that banged up anyway compared to the rest of the league. For example, "the White Sox had 3 pitchers hit the IL" compared to "Detroit's entire opening day starting rotation was on the IL when we faced them for a 3 game series. Ponder what the White Sox's losing streak would look like if they lost all 5 starters for a month. 
-Their competition was weaker than expected, particularly Detroit because of how banged up they were. 19 games against that banged up Detroit team. They outscored Detroit 100-59 on the season.
-They outperformed their run differential the whole season. Say what you want about ineffective management, this is generally a sign of luck that can't be easily repeated.
-Their bullpen performed extremely well in close games. Their record in 1 run games was top 5 in baseball, tied with Cleveland for that performance. This was notably better than their performance in the same type of games in 2021 and will be particularly difficult to repeat now that Hendriks is out for the year.

[ChiSox59]

3 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

-The guys they brought in off the scrap heap were so effective that it basically offset almost all of the losses to injury (except for the stupidity with Robert's wrist). Had they been the healthiest team in baseball, they're basically the same team in the end, because of how effective these guys were.
 

Lol, what a take that is.

Cueto and Elvis were great.  No doubt about that.  But I will take immensely talented players in their prime (like TA, Robert, Eloy, Moncada) being healthy and playing up to their potential than over the hill players doing well in SSS.  

I will gladly take health of the Sox core in 2023 over betting Cueto and Elvis could recreate their 2022 magic, or in the case of Elvis, like 1 month of magic.  Without looking, I seem to recall him being pretty terrible last couple weeks of the season (i think he had like an 0-25 stretched)....it really was just a really hot couple weeks for him after coming over.

In any event, I guess we'll see what happens.  

[bmags]

I think the only reversion that will truly be impactful is if we can become an above average power team. That requires sooo many profiles to change to happen and seems impossible. But physically, there is no reason why we shouldn't have more 25 hr hitters on this team.

Fortunately romy will supply 25 and Carlos perez 25.

[ChiSox59]

4 minutes ago, bmags said:

I think the only reversion that will truly be impactful is if we can become an above average power team. That requires sooo many profiles to change to happen and seems impossible. But physically, there is no reason why we shouldn't have more 25 hr hitters on this team.

Fortunately romy will supply 25 and Carlos perez 25.

I think that's how this team was intended to be built.  You look up and down the lineup, pretty much all of the regulars except TA and Benintendi are capable of 25+ home runs.  Even TA has hit 20, 18, 18, 17, so he's not too far off.  

The previous regime - Menechino specifically - had a lot to do with their profiles changing.  Health too, of course. 

[SoxBlanco]

54 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

The Sox won 81 games last year despite the following:

• They were managed by a corpse who's decisions more often than not seemed like he was actually trying to put the team in a position to lose.  He also set a precedent that hustling was not important. 
• Luis Robert recorded 2 RBI and 0 HR after July 14th - yes 2 friggin RBI - despite appearing in 25 games.  Missed 64 total games, but played 25 with 1 hand.  Robert basically missed the entire 2nd half of the season. 
• Tim Anderson missed 83 games, although wasn't himself even after returning from the May groin injury.  
• Yoan Moncada missed 58 games, and when he played, he posted a wRC+ of 76, a significant drop from 120 in 2021, and WELL below his career average of 108, which includes the awful 2022.
• Eloy Jimenez missed 78 games.  While he did post a strong wRC+ when he played, he still missed half the season, although expecting Eloy to play more than 120 games is fools good.
• Yasmani Grandal was -0.4 fWAR and 68 wRC+ player after posting 3.6 fWAR and 158 wRC+ in 2021.  Chances are Grandal didn't completely forget how to hit a baseball at 33 years old.  We now know he was dealing with significant injuries all season.  I don't have high hopes for Grandal finding the fountain of youth in 2023, but I think it'd be very difficult for him not to improve on his 2022 in a time share.  
• The Sox spent the vast majority of the season playing two first basemen in the OF leaving them with easily the worst OF defense in the game.  This turned a 113 wRC+ effort from Andrew Vaughn into a negative fWAR player.  The days of Vaughn being anything more than an emergency OF are over.  
• Lynn, Kopech and Giolito all missed starts, with Lynn and Kopech missing significant time.  Bummer missed significant time. 

Basically, nearly everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong in 2022.  Despite all of that going wrong, the Sox still were as close as 3 games back in mid September. I can understanding looking at this group and being discouraged.  We lost a franchise pillar in Jose Abreu, which sucks.  But in doing so improved the OF defense immensely which was, in my opinion, the biggest team need along with getting more left handed.  While we didn't get as left handed as I would have liked, adding Benintendi and Colas will balance the lineup a great deal, especially if Moncada and Yaz bounce back, even modestly.

This offseason sucked.  Jerry is the worst.  Hahn appears to be puzzled, and handcuffed.  The Clevinger thing is terrible. Lots of bad.  But this this squad still has a boatload of talent, and the division still isn't good.  The Twins have hardly improved on a team that finished 3 games behind the Sox.  The Guardians are the Guardians, and frankly were bad for most of the season before getting hot at the right time. I think all three of those clubs will finish above .500 and we'll have an entertaining 3 team race all season. 

I would be really shocked to see things go as poorly for The Sox in 23 and they did in 22.   I have this team winning 88 games, and I think 90+ is in the cards if their best players can stay healthy enough play 130+ games.  I, for one, cannot wait for April for some White Sox baseball.  I think this club will surprise, and I think Grifol will be the freshest of fresh air for the boys. 

Granted we're only 33 days into 2023, but this is the post of the year so far.

I'll add one thing: You mentioned that Robert basically missed the second half of the year, but it was actually WORSE than that. He was hurting the team, and the Sox would have likely been better off if he was actually just out the entire second half.

[bmags]

7 minutes ago, SoxBlanco said:

Granted we're only 33 days into 2023, but this is the post of the year so far.

I'll add one thing: You mentioned that Robert basically missed the second half of the year, but it was actually WORSE than that. He was hurting the team, and the Sox would have likely been better off if he was actually just out the entire second half.

I don't know, that would be Leury who was one of the worst players in baseball. One Armed luis robert had a 52 wRC+ in the second half. Leury had a 44.

[SoxBlanco]

1 hour ago, Tnetennba said:

but does Beni replace Abreu and then some?

You can't just look at offense. Abreu is undoubtedly a better offensive player than Benintendi, but you need to look at the whole picture. The domino effect improved our outfield defense by A LOT.

[southsider2k5]

3 minutes ago, bmags said:

I don't know, that would be Leury who was one of the worst players in baseball. One Armed luis robert had a 52 wRC+ in the second half. Leury had a 44.

Sure but if you had asked me which was more likely to happen, it was Leury by a country mile.

[SoxBlanco]

3 minutes ago, bmags said:

I don't know, that would be Leury who was one of the worst players in baseball. One Armed luis robert had a 52 wRC+ in the second half. Leury had a 44.

Haha, you make a good point if it was indeed Leury who was filling in.  I'd like to think it would be someone else, particularly when Cairo was managing. 

[CaliSoxFanViaSWside]

2 hours ago, Harold's Leg Lift said:

and they lost their best hitter and second best starter, haven't replaced any of them but they're going to be better.  Ok

Plus they lost a hot hitter for  43 games in Elvis Andrus. I saw the Sox winning percentage with Andrus in the line up was .528 and that's with him being in the lineup every day of the 8 games losing streak from Sept 20- Sept. 28. Only in 3 of those games did he have a hit.

He may have contributed more than even Anderson at his best would've in that time span that they had him, both offensively and defensively. He basically gave the Sox close to 2 fWar in only 43 games. From Aug 19th when they got him to the end of the season, he arguably was the Sox position player MVP.

[Jose Abreu]

2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Except:

-They picked up Johnny Cueto off the scrap heap and found their second best pitcher of the season. The only reason he was even available when he was signed was the lockout. Had Lance Lynn not gotten hurt, they never sign Cueto - who outperformed everyone other than Cease in their rotation. They had a replacement for Keuchel because of this.
-They picked up Elvis Andrus off the scrap heap and got 2 months of darn near MVP performance from him. He was a notable upgrade over Tim Anderson for those 2 months, they got better because Anderson got hurt. We will probably never see that kind of upgrade from a midseason veteran put on waivers again in our lifetimes.
-Seby Zavala, per innings played, was one of the most effective catchers in baseball. Effective offensively, avoided some of the defensive issues that plagued him in 2021. This combined with McGuire turned the White Sox' 
-The guys they brought in off the scrap heap were so effective that it basically offset almost all of the losses to injury (except for the stupidity with Robert's wrist). Had they been the healthiest team in baseball, they're basically the same team in the end, because of how effective these guys were.
-They weren't all that banged up anyway compared to the rest of the league. For example, "the White Sox had 3 pitchers hit the IL" compared to "Detroit's entire opening day starting rotation was on the IL when we faced them for a 3 game series. Ponder what the White Sox's losing streak would look like if they lost all 5 starters for a month. 
-Their competition was weaker than expected, particularly Detroit because of how banged up they were. 19 games against that banged up Detroit team. They outscored Detroit 100-59 on the season.
-They outperformed their run differential the whole season. Say what you want about ineffective management, this is generally a sign of luck that can't be easily repeated.
-Their bullpen performed extremely well in close games. Their record in 1 run games was top 5 in baseball, tied with Cleveland for that performance. This was notably better than their performance in the same type of games in 2021 and will be particularly difficult to repeat now that Hendriks is out for the year.

Thank you. I always see the "everything went wrong last year and they still won 81 games" line, but I couldn't disagree with it more. Had Cueto and Andrus not shown up and played like it was 2011, last year's team probably wins more like 72 games.

Elvis Andrus was a 7.5 fWAR/162 player for the White Sox last year. Things like that don't happen in a year where "everything goes wrong," and the true worst case scenario for this team is accordingly much lower than 81 wins 

[SoxBlanco]

3 hours ago, Jose Abreu said:

Thank you. I always see the "everything went wrong last year and they still won 81 games" line, but I couldn't disagree with it more. Had Cueto and Andrus not shown up and played like it was 2011, last year's team probably wins more like 72 games.

Elvis Andrus was a 7.5 fWAR/162 player for the White Sox last year. Things like that don't happen in a year where "everything goes wrong," and the true worst case scenario for this team is accordingly much lower than 81 wins 

Cueto started 25 games last year, and we only won 11 of those games. Yes, he was a fantastic surprise last year, but we didn't win that many of the games he started.  If I was the starting pitcher for all 25 of those game, the Sox would have ended with 70 wins. If somebody like Davis Martin started all 25 of those game, the team win/loss results probably aren't much different than what Cueto did. 

Edited February 2, 2023 by SoxBlanco

[ChiSoxTrojan]

1 hour ago, bmags said:

I don't know, that would be Leury who was one of the worst players in baseball. One Armed luis robert had a 52 wRC+ in the second half. Leury had a 44.

Leury was also playing hurt in the second half of the season.

I think this season Leury will bounce back to his usual level of suck, not the horrific "worst player in baseball" suckage we witnessed last year. Going from a -1 WAR player to a +1 WAR player is as helpful as going from a 2 WAR to a 4 WAR.

[ScootsMcGoots]

3 hours ago, ChiSox59 said:

The Sox won 81 games last year despite the following:

• They were managed by a corpse who's decisions more often than not seemed like he was actually trying to put the team in a position to lose.  He also set a precedent that hustling was not important. 
• Luis Robert recorded 2 RBI and 0 HR after July 14th - yes 2 friggin RBI - despite appearing in 25 games.  Missed 64 total games, but played 25 with 1 hand.  Robert basically missed the entire 2nd half of the season. 
• Tim Anderson missed 83 games, although wasn't himself even after returning from the May groin injury.  
• Yoan Moncada missed 58 games, and when he played, he posted a wRC+ of 76, a significant drop from 120 in 2021, and WELL below his career average of 108, which includes the awful 2022.
• Eloy Jimenez missed 78 games.  While he did post a strong wRC+ when he played, he still missed half the season, although expecting Eloy to play more than 120 games is fools good.
• Yasmani Grandal was -0.4 fWAR and 68 wRC+ player after posting 3.6 fWAR and 158 wRC+ in 2021.  Chances are Grandal didn't completely forget how to hit a baseball at 33 years old.  We now know he was dealing with significant injuries all season.  I don't have high hopes for Grandal finding the fountain of youth in 2023, but I think it'd be very difficult for him not to improve on his 2022 in a time share.  
• The Sox spent the vast majority of the season playing two first basemen in the OF leaving them with easily the worst OF defense in the game.  This turned a 113 wRC+ effort from Andrew Vaughn into a negative fWAR player.  The days of Vaughn being anything more than an emergency OF are over.  
• Lynn, Kopech and Giolito all missed starts, with Lynn and Kopech missing significant time.  Bummer missed significant time. 

Basically, nearly everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong in 2022.  Despite all of that going wrong, the Sox still were as close as 3 games back in mid September. I can understanding looking at this group and being discouraged.  We lost a franchise pillar in Jose Abreu, which sucks.  But in doing so improved the OF defense immensely which was, in my opinion, the biggest team need along with getting more left handed.  While we didn't get as left handed as I would have liked, adding Benintendi and Colas will balance the lineup a great deal, especially if Moncada and Yaz bounce back, even modestly.

This offseason sucked.  Jerry is the worst.  Hahn appears to be puzzled, and handcuffed.  The Clevinger thing is terrible. Lots of bad.  But this this squad still has a boatload of talent, and the division still isn't good.  The Twins have hardly improved on a team that finished 3 games behind the Sox.  The Guardians are the Guardians, and frankly were bad for most of the season before getting hot at the right time. I think all three of those clubs will finish above .500 and we'll have an entertaining 3 team race all season. 

I would be really shocked to see things go as poorly for The Sox in 23 and they did in 22.   I have this team winning 88 games, and I think 90+ is in the cards if their best players can stay healthy enough play 130+ games.  I, for one, cannot wait for April for some White Sox baseball.  I think this club will surprise, and I think Grifol will be the freshest of fresh air for the boys. 

This is all very valid. The biggest question mark is health. If they can even have an "average" amount of injuries I think your 88 win+ is possible.

[GreenSox]

83.5 is about right.  I'll take the over though. Don't know why - probably just wishing.

[pettie4sox]

In Grifol we trust.  Let's hope he can motivate the boys to their true potential and be pleasantly surprised in 2023!

[SonofaRoache]

The team is on the floor for multiple championships concluding in parades as money was indeed spent wisely. 

[4uckOffCommieScum]

3 hours ago, ChiSox59 said:

Lol, what a take that is.

Cueto and Elvis were great.  No doubt about that.  But I will take immensely talented players in their prime (like TA, Robert, Eloy, Moncada) being healthy and playing up to their potential than over the hill players doing well in SSS.  

I will gladly take health of the Sox core in 2023 over betting Cueto and Elvis could recreate their 2022 magic, or in the case of Elvis, like 1 month of magic.  Without looking, I seem to recall him being pretty terrible last couple weeks of the season (i think he had like an 0-25 stretched)....it really was just a really hot couple weeks for him after coming over.

In any event, I guess we'll see what happens.  

This makes no sense. The Sox would still have those players if they re-signed Andrus, so taking them over Andrus isn’t a relevant consideration. The question is someone like Alberto over Andrus. Alberto is nowhere close to Andrus

[southsider2k5]

We will learn a lot about the Sox this season.  It's funny because despite my ultra-pessimism lately, I can still picture the season going one of a couple of ways.  I have said it before, but it bears repeating, this is the first normal spring training since 2019.  There is no COVID limitations or interruptions, there is no lock out or strike,  For the first time in years players can operate normally in the post season time with work outs and training, and working with White Sox officials directly and in person, instead of virtually, or not at all.  It is also the first year post Tony, and I really feel like that will make a difference all by itself.  Look I have no idea what to expect out of this new staff, exactly, but I have to imagine at the very least they will get the baseball rules down, and most other basics.  That also it worth something.

The other side is this team has zero depth and a real injury history.  Can some of that be fixed with proper off seasons?  Maybe?  Who knows.

[southsider2k5]

Also we can talk about Elvis all we want, but if he is holding out for someone to offer him a promise of significant time at SS to keep his career going, we can't do that.  We can offer him a sit around and wait for TA to probably get hurt for a while, and a lot of time at 2B.  I don't think that is going to be his most ideal offer, even if it came with the most money.

[ChiSox59]

18 minutes ago, FourEyesShottenhoffer said:

This makes no sense. The Sox would still have those players if they re-signed Andrus, so taking them over Andrus isn’t a relevant consideration. The question is someone like Alberto over Andrus. Alberto is nowhere close to Andrus

Elvis isn't very good at baseball any more and has never played 2B in his life. Pretty sure you and I discussed Elvis like yesterday.  I said I'd take him for $2M at this point.  But Elvis playing out of his ass for 4 weeks with the Sox last August doesn't just render the Sox "basically the same team as if they were the healthiest team in the league", which is what Balta said and is an insane take. 

Not to mention the stat that the Sox went 11-14 in Cueto's starts last season.  How in the world will they ever survive not having him when the team put up a .444 record in his starts.  Unfathomable, I know. 

[Buehrle>Wood]

The schedule should be significantly harder this year, no? I don't know how that's going to affect things or I'd put a ton of money on the over.

Edited February 2, 2023 by Buehrle>Wood

[caulfield12]

13 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

Elvis isn't very good at baseball any more and has never played 2B in his life. Pretty sure you and I discussed Elvis like yesterday.  I said I'd take him for $2M at this point.  But Elvis playing out of his ass for 4 weeks with the Sox last August doesn't just render the Sox "basically the same team as if they were the healthiest team in the league", which is what Balta said and is an insane take. 

Not to mention the stat that the Sox went 11-14 in Cueto's starts last season.  How in the world will they ever survive not having him when the team put up a .444 record in his starts.  Unfathomable, I know. 

Cueto covered a ton of innings that would have further exposed the back of the bullpen, though.

It's the opposite of years past when guys like Baldwin or Danny Wright were terrible but won a lot behind the Sox offense.

(Cueto, to summarize, was good no matter how you slice it.  He was also good for settling the clubhouse...along with Harrison and later Andrus.)

 

Losing Crochet also hurt more than realized...as it put even more pressure/responsibility on Bummer.

And now having just Graveman/Lopez/Kelly/Bummer at the back end...it's going to be almost impossible to find another closer earlier than June/July if they do falter.  Assuming they can add any more salary, which would require much more than the expected 16-24000 variety of attendance for most of April/May.

Edited February 2, 2023 by caulfield12

[35thstreetswarm]

5 hours ago, ChiSox59 said:

Basically, nearly everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong in 2022.  Despite all of that going wrong, the Sox still were as close as 3 games back in mid September. I can understanding looking at this group and being discouraged.  We lost a franchise pillar in Jose Abreu, which sucks.  But in doing so improved the OF defense immensely which was, in my opinion, the biggest team need along with getting more left handed.  While we didn't get as left handed as I would have liked, adding Benintendi and Colas will balance the lineup a great deal, especially if Moncada and Yaz bounce back, even modestly.
 

Everybody cites "81 wins" as if it's the definitive and precise mathematical measure of team quality, but let's face it -- there are different ways to get to 81 wins.  They were 5 games over and very much in the race going into that September Cleveland series, and frankly took their foot off the gas for several weeks once they lost that first Cleveland series game in a heartbreaker.  They were in free-fall for a while after they realized they were out of it.  They were probably an 85-win team that fell to .500.  A meaningless and negligible difference, really, but then so is the difference between 81 and 83.5.  83.5 seems reasonable.

As a sidenote, I love threads like this where neutral, outside reality creeps in to the Soxtalk doom chamber for a moment.  The cognitive dissonance can be fascinating to watch.  I swear, we could be heading into the ALCS next year and somebody would post that "the people celebrating the ALCS are missing the real point, which is that Rick Hahn failed to sign Zach Wheeler in the 2019 offseason and..."

[Bob Sacamano]

22 minutes ago, ChiSox59 said:

Elvis isn't very good at baseball any more and has never played 2B in his life. Pretty sure you and I discussed Elvis like yesterday.  I said I'd take him for $2M at this point.  But Elvis playing out of his ass for 4 weeks with the Sox last August doesn't just render the Sox "basically the same team as if they were the healthiest team in the league", which is what Balta said and is an insane take. 

Not to mention the stat that the Sox went 11-14 in Cueto's starts last season.  How in the world will they ever survive not having him when the team put up a .444 record in his starts.  Unfathomable, I know. 

I’ve come around to the idea of signing Andrus to about $2M (like you suggest), having him compete for the 2B job in Spring Training and if someone out plays him, he’s your backup MI.