{"id":19401,"date":"2022-09-28T05:34:33","date_gmt":"2022-09-28T11:34:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/?p=19401"},"modified":"2022-09-28T18:09:25","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T00:09:25","slug":"what-went-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/2022\/09\/what-went-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"What Went Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 So where did things fall apart?\u00a0 Let’s take a deeper look.<\/p>\n

Injuries<\/h3>\n

After injuries rocked the White Sox in 2021, they revamped their strength and conditioning staff, hoping a new program would help stem the tide.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the lockout prevented the new staff from working with the players, leaving them to their own devices.\u00a0 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.”\u00a0 Boy, was he not kidding.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Outfielder AJ Pollock left the second game of the year with a hamstring injury, missing over three weeks.\u00a0 The same day, Lucas Giolito was placed on the IL with an abdominal strain, keeping him out for nearly two weeks.\u00a0 The day he was activated, Eloy Jimenez was placed on the IL with a strained hamstring suffered that day against the Twins.\u00a0 It would be two and a half months before he returned.\u00a0 This was all before the calendar turned to May!<\/p>\n

Things never let up.\u00a0 Andrew Vaughn missed time in May after getting hit in the hand by a pitch.\u00a0 Aaron Bummer suffered a right knee strain that kept him out for two weeks.\u00a0 Lucas Giolito and Luis Robert both missed time in May thanks to bouts with COVID.\u00a0 Joe Kelly went back on the IL with a hamstring strain.\u00a0 Tim Anderson missed three weeks with a groin strain, the same injury that kept Vince Velasquez for two weeks.<\/p>\n

Aaron Bummer suffered another injury in mid-June which kept him out until September.\u00a0 Yasmani Grandal was felled with lower back spasms for six weeks.\u00a0 A right forearm strain put Liam Hendriks on the shelf for nearly three weeks.\u00a0 A strained hamstring took down Yoan Moncada for nearly three weeks.\u00a0 Adam Engel fell victim to the same injury for two weeks.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 We just now are getting to the All-Star break.\u00a0 Shall I keep going?<\/p>\n

Luis Robert was shut down with blurred vision.\u00a0 A lower back strain put Reynaldo Lopez on the shelf.\u00a0 A torn finger ligament knocked out Tim Anderson for the remainder of the year on August 9th.\u00a0 Another lower back strain took down Leury Garcia.\u00a0 A bum knee sent Michael Kopech to the IL, while another hamstring strain stopped Yoan Moncada for the third time this year.\u00a0 Kopech was felled again with a shoulder strain on September 7th.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Aside from the sheer number of injuries, this meant that the White Sox were very rarely at anything approaching full strength.\u00a0 Some piece of the puzzle was always missing, and usually two or three pieces.\u00a0 The bullpen injuries led to some early overwork for guys like Kendall Graveman, which impacted his performance in the second half.\u00a0 Because of this, the White Sox never seemed to gel or to be able to string wins together to pull ahead.<\/p>\n

Lack of Power<\/h3>\n

With nine games left on the 2022 schedule, the White Sox have hit a grand total of 144 home runs.\u00a0 Last year, they hit 190.\u00a0 That is a pretty big dropoff that is not easily explainable.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The only players to hit more home runs in 2022 than they did in 2021 did so due to more playing time.\u00a0 That lack of power led to the White Sox finishing 6th in the American League in runs scored despite finishing 1st in hits.<\/p>\n

No Left-Handed Punch<\/h3>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Grandal struggled all year, putting up an OPS of .579 through Sunday’s game.\u00a0 Moncada’s OPS of .630 wasn’t much better, though he did show flashes along the way before seemingly coming down with another injury.\u00a0 Sheets did provide some power, but only at home, as he hit 14 of his 15 home runs at Guaranteed Rate Field.<\/p>\n

Management<\/h3>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 There were concerns that, at 76 years old, LaRussa would clash with a young team led by the brash Tim Anderson.\u00a0 While, by all accounts, those fears were unfounded, something never quite clicked for LaRussa’s second go-around on the south side.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 I questioned at the time if nobody else in the dugout knew the rule or did they know and not feel comfortable questioning LaRussa.\u00a0 As time would tell, I might have been closer to the truth than anyone realized at the time.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Now What<\/h3>\n

Put all of this together and you start to wonder if anything went right this year.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The young core suddenly isn’t so young anymore, with Tim Anderson leading the way by turning 30 next June.\u00a0 Yasmani Grandal, the largest free agent signing in team history, is suddenly a very old catcher who no longer provides much offense.\u00a0 Lucas Giolito, heading into his walk year, is suddenly very hittable again.\u00a0 Two thirds of the starting outfield on most nights are first baseman.<\/p>\n

Rick Hahn has big decisions to make if the White Sox are going to bounce back and contend again in 2023.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 At worst, another reboot is in order, which, honestly, I very highly doubt will happen.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 Unfortunately, something (or somethings) went wrong along the way and after a long season where nothing ever seemed to click, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[9974,4953,7626,7622,8838,8844,8490,7511,9665,9685,6917,9687,9686,10147,4187,9669,9100,3621,9660,7032,8123,7028,10164,53,8035,3251,4119,3602,230,5985,2433,2428,118,10176,49,5569,8483,7027],"class_list":["post-19401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-2022-lockout","tag-a-j-pollock","tag-aaron-bummer","tag-adam-engel","tag-andrew-vaughn","tag-corona-virus","tag-danny-mendick","tag-eloy-jimenez","tag-garrett-crochet","tag-gavin-sheets","tag-guaranteed-rate-field","tag-guardians","tag-jake-burger","tag-joe-kelly","tag-jose-abreu","tag-kendall-graveman","tag-lance-lynn","tag-leury-garcia","tag-liam-hendriks","tag-lucas-giolito","tag-luis-robert","tag-michael-kopech","tag-miguel-cairo","tag-reds","tag-reynaldo-lopez","tag-rick-hahn","tag-rick-renteria","tag-the-score","tag-tigers","tag-tim-anderson","tag-tommy-john","tag-tony-larussa","tag-twins","tag-vince-velasquez","tag-white-sox","tag-wild-card","tag-yasmani-grandal","tag-yoan-moncada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19401"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19416,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19401\/revisions\/19416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/learningturkey.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}