After winning a Wild Card slot in 2020 and running away with the Central Division title in 2021, the White Sox looked like an easy lock to make a third straight post-season appearance this October. Unfortunately, something (or somethings) went wrong along the way and after a long season where nothing ever seemed to click, the team was officially eliminated on Sunday after dropping six straight against the Guardians and the Tigers. So where did things fall apart? Let’s take a deeper look.
Injuries
After injuries rocked the White Sox in 2021, they revamped their strength and conditioning staff, hoping a new program would help stem the tide. Unfortunately, the lockout prevented the new staff from working with the players, leaving them to their own devices. GM Rick Hahn said in June that, between the lockout and the shortened spring training, the new program “got stymied a little bit this offseason” and that it would “be difficult in-season to perhaps change the results over the next few weeks and months in terms of health.” Boy, was he not kidding.
Things started at the end of spring training, when lefty reliever Garrett Crochet went down for the year with an elbow injury requiring Tommy John surgery. Two days later, starter Lance Lynn left his final spring tune-up with a bum knee, putting him on the shelf until the middle of June. Finally, before the White Sox arrived in Detroit for their season opener, Yoan Moncada suffered an oblique strain that knocked him out for a month and may have sunk his entire season. Relief pitcher Joe Kelly, signed during the offseason, also started the season on the IL rehabbing an injury from the year before and wasn’t activated until May.
Outfielder AJ Pollock left the second game of the year with a hamstring injury, missing over three weeks. The same day, Lucas Giolito was placed on the IL with an abdominal strain, keeping him out for nearly two weeks. The day he was activated, Eloy Jimenez was placed on the IL with a strained hamstring suffered that day against the Twins. It would be two and a half months before he returned. This was all before the calendar turned to May!
Things never let up. Andrew Vaughn missed time in May after getting hit in the hand by a pitch. Aaron Bummer suffered a right knee strain that kept him out for two weeks. Lucas Giolito and Luis Robert both missed time in May thanks to bouts with COVID. Joe Kelly went back on the IL with a hamstring strain. Tim Anderson missed three weeks with a groin strain, the same injury that kept Vince Velasquez for two weeks.
Aaron Bummer suffered another injury in mid-June which kept him out until September. Yasmani Grandal was felled with lower back spasms for six weeks. A right forearm strain put Liam Hendriks on the shelf for nearly three weeks. A strained hamstring took down Yoan Moncada for nearly three weeks. Adam Engel fell victim to the same injury for two weeks. On July 6th, Jake Burger went down with a bruised hand following a hit by pitch, Vince Velasquez was felled by a blister on his right index finger, and Danny Mendick was lost for the year with a torn ACL. We just now are getting to the All-Star break. Shall I keep going?
Luis Robert was shut down with blurred vision. A lower back strain put Reynaldo Lopez on the shelf. A torn finger ligament knocked out Tim Anderson for the remainder of the year on August 9th. Another lower back strain took down Leury Garcia. A bum knee sent Michael Kopech to the IL, while another hamstring strain stopped Yoan Moncada for the third time this year. Kopech was felled again with a shoulder strain on September 7th. Finally, after suffering with a wrist injury for nearly a month and a half, Luis Robert was shut down and placed on the IL on Saturday with the 2022 title all but wrapped up for the Guardians.
Aside from the sheer number of injuries, this meant that the White Sox were very rarely at anything approaching full strength. Some piece of the puzzle was always missing, and usually two or three pieces. The bullpen injuries led to some early overwork for guys like Kendall Graveman, which impacted his performance in the second half. Because of this, the White Sox never seemed to gel or to be able to string wins together to pull ahead.
Lack of Power
With nine games left on the 2022 schedule, the White Sox have hit a grand total of 144 home runs. Last year, they hit 190. That is a pretty big dropoff that is not easily explainable. Yasmani Grandal, Jose Abreu, and Tim Anderson will all finish this year with more than ten fewer home runs than they hit the year prior. The only players to hit more home runs in 2022 than they did in 2021 did so due to more playing time. That lack of power led to the White Sox finishing 6th in the American League in runs scored despite finishing 1st in hits.
No Left-Handed Punch
Going into the season, the White Sox were counting on Yasmani Grandal, Yoan Moncada, and, to a lesser extent, Gavin Sheets to provide left-handed balance to a lineup that was predominantly right-handed. As discussed above, Grandal and Moncada both missed significant time with injuries and, when they were in the lineup, their production left a lot to be desired. Grandal struggled all year, putting up an OPS of .579 through Sunday’s game. Moncada’s OPS of .630 wasn’t much better, though he did show flashes along the way before seemingly coming down with another injury. Sheets did provide some power, but only at home, as he hit 14 of his 15 home runs at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Management
Two years ago, when Rick Renteria was let go as White Sox manager following a disappointing ending to the 2020 season, General Manager Rick Hahn said that the ideal candidate would have had recent post-season experience with a championship organization. That plan went out the window when he was forced to atone for the sins of a predecessor and hire Tony LaRussa, who had last managed in 2011. There were concerns that, at 76 years old, LaRussa would clash with a young team led by the brash Tim Anderson. While, by all accounts, those fears were unfounded, something never quite clicked for LaRussa’s second go-around on the south side.
The first cracks in the armor came in an early May 2021 game against the Reds, when LaRussa didn’t know the rules around the extra inning ghost runner, sending Liam Hendriks out to second base in the 10th inning when he didn’t have to in a game the White Sox ultimately lost. I questioned at the time if nobody else in the dugout knew the rule or did they know and not feel comfortable questioning LaRussa. As time would tell, I might have been closer to the truth than anyone realized at the time.
After jumping out to an early lead in the Central Division last year, the White Sox have basically played .500 baseball since the 2021 All-Star break, going 115-112. When the White Sox announced at the beginning of September that LaRussa would step away due to a health condition, the team suddenly played with a spark that had been missing all of this year. Two weeks later, a report came out saying that LaRussa ran his coaching staff with an authoritative approach rather than a collaborative one, and that bench coach Miguel Cairo did not feel empowered to address the team about issues he saw without LaRussa’s approval.
Now What
Put all of this together and you start to wonder if anything went right this year. Rumors are swirling, and the Score is officially reporting, that LaRussa will not return to the White Sox in 2023 in any capacity due to ongoing health issues. The young core suddenly isn’t so young anymore, with Tim Anderson leading the way by turning 30 next June. Yasmani Grandal, the largest free agent signing in team history, is suddenly a very old catcher who no longer provides much offense. Lucas Giolito, heading into his walk year, is suddenly very hittable again. Two thirds of the starting outfield on most nights are first baseman.
Rick Hahn has big decisions to make if the White Sox are going to bounce back and contend again in 2023. At best, he will need to retool a problematic roster while hampered by ill-advised deals from last offseason to make his former manager happy. At worst, another reboot is in order, which, honestly, I very highly doubt will happen. With one more week to go in the 2022 season, the future is all any of us have to look forward to, which was not how this year was supposed to go at all.