Instead he was bad, got hurt, was bad, got hurt, and also set a career high in home runs in only 385 PAs.  The power propped up his overall line of .236/.281/.438, and is consistent with the maddening tease that is Avisail Garcia. After all, this is the most power he has ever shown in a game, essentially hitting at a 30+ home run pace, but of course, he couldn’t stay on the field and was fairly terrible otherwise.  Even when he was on the field, he was still playing at less than 100 percent with a variety of knee and hamstring ailments visibly bothering him.  Indeed, he would undergo right knee surgery as soon as the season finished.

The optimistic take here is that when fully healthy, he has now shown he can get to his power and use his contact skills, leaving one to dream on a .280/.350/.550, classic star corner outfielder season. That’s certainly possible. The pessimistic angle says the White Sox have had him for five years now and he’s been both healthy and good in all of one of those years.  It seems crazy you may have given this guy 2,500 plate appearances, even helping to tank the tail end of your last contention cycle by leaving him with a full time job instead of upgrading, and you still might have no idea what you have. Since he flopped in 2018, his trade value is likely minimal, and you may genuinely be left to question whether you want to keep him instead of, say, Daniel Palka.

I’ve seen enough Avisail Garcia for one lifetime, but the same fear remains should you let him go, that he winds up with the Cardinals or Giants or Reds or Blue Jays, or any number of franchises who scoops up failed prospects and unlocks their potential. The safest prediction seems to be he will be tantalizing, occasionally good, and brittle in 2019 before hitting free agency and then posting three straight .300/.400/.500 seasons in St. Louis while the White Sox watch A.J. Pollock age horribly. On the other hand, the White Sox could extend him so he can keep playing 75-100 games a year with a 95 OPS+. Or maybe all of their hopes will be realized, and hey, 2017 did happen!

Lead Photo Credit: Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports

*They absolutely should have.

• Matt Davidson: Working in Davidson’s favor, he has Top 100 Prospect pedigree, even if that is now several years in the rear view mirror, which jives with his pretty, powerful swing.  He also used 2018 to nearly triple his walk rate while shaving five points off his K%.  The result is a 110 OPS+ on the year to date, with an OBP up nearly 70 points (!!) from wildly below league average to slightly above.  The drawbacks here are a lack of athleticism and positional flexibility on the weak side of a platoon, as he can barely manage playing third base once a week and does not have the footspeed to cover for an outfield spot.  The hope is, given his improvement from 2017 to 2018, there’s more in there.  A Matt Davidson with this walk rate who hits .250-.260 instead of .220-.230 moves further from “decent bat for the position and bench contributor” to a solid regular.  The most intriguing X Factor here is the ability he has flashed as a pitcher in extremely limited samples.  Modern roster construction where teams carry 13 or 14 pitchers leaves almost no room on the bench for position players.  If Davidson can throw 10-20 innings a year, even in the lowest of leverage scenarios, it might separate him from his competition or allow the team to carry one less pitcher.  My gut says he sticks around for 2019, but we have not yet seen the acquisitions and departures of the winter.
• Daniel Palka:  Beloved by StatCast and certain enthusiastic portions of the fanbase, Palka’s power has always been loud and obvious.  For much of the year, however, it was the only thing he could do at a major league level.  Palka turns 27 in October and although the White Sox have given him run in the outfield, he’s arguably worse there than Davidson is at third.  To his credit, September has been his best month in terms of getting on base yet, as he has hit .246/.317/.667  (with eight more home runs, pushing him into the team lead with 27).  Palka is also left-handed, and one wishes teams would start contracting their bullpens to start platooning their opponents to death with bats like this on the bench.   Even so, like 2017 Davidson, it’s hard to carry a bat-only guy who can’t get his OBP above .300, as Palka sits at .289 on the year.  He has an option year left in 2019, so as long as there is 40-man space, they don’t have to make a final decision on him just yet.  Depending on who is healthy / here / gone next spring, I expect Palka to start the year in Charlotte or to fill in if someone is hurt in the hopes he makes a Davidsonian walk rate jump and becomes a more well-rounded weapon at the plate, because he is basically DH-only at this point.
• Nicky Delmonico:  Here’s where things get a little more grim.  Delmonico started the year with the inside track on the left field job after an excellent, albeit brief, audition in 2017.  However, the power he showed last year already looked like an outlier before it vanished this year in limited action bookending a huge chunk of the season lost to injury.  He’s 26 and has flashed major league production before, but there’s only so many of these guys you can keep around, and frankly, I’m not sure there’s enough power in here to carry the glove.  It doesn’t help that his signature strengths–zone control and contact–absolutely imploded, as his BB% dropped from 13.9 to 9.0 and his K% spiked from 18.7 to 25.2.  Like Palka, I anticipate the White Sox will exercise his option, but one has to imagine Palka has jumped over him in the organizational pecking order.
• Avisail Garcia:  Look, all I’m saying is he has 2,475 major league PAs and only 518 of them were good.  Those 518 came in 2017 and they were amazing, as he went to the All Star Game and nearly won a batting title.  My concern is how volatile the profile is, particularly taken in tandem with his truly impressive cascade of injuries.  And, when he’s going well, he’s shoring up his batting average and on-base skills with a remarkable number of infield hits.  The guy gets down the line really, really well for anyone, let alone someone his size–but he’s been managing a lot of lower body injuries this year, and one wonders if gains in eye and power will make up for the loss in speed as he ages further into his late 20s.  He’s under contract for one more year in 2019 and barring the signing of say, Bryce Harper, he’s almost certainly the starting right fielder next year.  I’m just so certain he winds up on the Cardinals and hits .300/.400/.500 for three years sooner rather than later.  Conversely, if the White Sox extend him, he will continue to randomly hit .350 for a couple months between long stretches of basically being a non-contributor.

In sum, injuries and mixed performances have not shed as much clarity as you might like on this pecking order, although I would give Davidson and Palka decent odds of being deployed creatively as significant complementary contributors down the line if they continue to shore up their weaknesses.  As has been the case for most of his career, how the organization chooses to handle Avisail depends on his performance and their own willingness to keep betting on his underlying talent, which in turn, will have big consequences for the fate of the team as a whole.

Lead Image Credit:  Jay Biggerstaff-USA TODAY Sports

I can’t prove the injury is the cause for the slump, I suppose.  It’s based on my observations.  When he is going badly, he gets caught looking, or when he does get into a good count and gets a pitch he wants to drive he tries to unload and fouls it back.  When he’s been locked in, you can see him crushing first pitches, blasting the pitches he wants in play instead of backwards, and spitting on balls outside of the zone.

So, because this season is cursed, when he started to get back in sync—he’s hit .317/.417/.537 in his last eleven games—he gets hurt again, banging his knee on a pickoff play while running the bases.  He’s listed as day-to-day, but one has to hope against hope he not only comes back quickly, but shows he can hold his timing for more than short stretches.

In the era of prospects hitting the ground running as fully formed stars, it’s easy to forget that’s still unusual.  Moncada is muddling along as a roughly league-average player when you net out his performance, but he’s shown there’s more in there.  It just keeps getting interrupted.

Other notes:

• Bruce Rondon was designated for assignment in favor of Jeanmar Gomez. As he has for his whole career, he showed an intriguing skillset with plenty of velocity and a frequently-nasty slider, but after nearly 30 innings of walking virtually a batter an inning the White Sox pulled the plug on the experiment.  Rondon is the type of experiment they should be conducting in a season like this, but that doesn’t mean they’re all going to work.
• Gomez as the call-up is a somewhat surprising choice. The veteran scrap heap pickup has closing experience and has had extended periods of success in the majors in the past, despite not missing any bats.  It’s good to show priority minor league free agents and NRIs they’ll get a shot with your organization, but this profile isn’t really the kind you’d expect to mean anything at the trade deadline.
• The reason Gomez was a bit of a surprise callup is that Ian Hamilton is actually a prospect who is also in Charlotte and has now gone 8 innings there without allowing a run. In fact, he has more strikeouts in that time (10) than he has allowed baserunners (6).  When it comes to pitchers I still am of the opinion the White Sox know their business, and maybe they’re a little gunshy after Aaron Bummer’s Race to the Majors resembled a mad prospect rush.  But Hamilton is what it looks like when a relief prospect is Ready with a capital R.
• The White Sox outfield might get very crowded in the near future. Avisail Garcia isn’t expected to be out very long, Leury Garcia is hitting well, and Nicky Delmonico has begun a rehab assignment in Triple-A.  Given Avisail’s repeated lower body injuries this year, it may make sense to use him at DH a little more often, and obviously you can find other spots for Leury Garcia to play, but there are only so many plate appearances to go around.  The organization seems to love Adam Engel, despite another 270 PAs of sub-.600 OPS baseball, but at a certain point Engel, Charlie Tilson and Daniel Palka are going to feel the squeeze.

1. Jose Abreu was voted as the starting first baseman for the AL All Star team, the first White Sox player voted to start the game since Frank Thomas in 1996. Ironically, it comes as he is having the worst year of his career, but given that there aren’t really any other standout years of consequence, it’s perfectly fair to give the nod to the steady and much-loved Abreu.

2. Dylan Cease and Luis Alexander Basabe were also selected for the Futures Game. Basabe has cooled off somewhat in the weeks before his promotion to Birmingham, and continued to scuffle in Double-A.  Still, he is an exciting athlete who got off to a good enough start, and one can easily imagine him putting together a highlight or two in the game itself.  As for Cease, five more innings and he will match his single-season career high in pro ball.  After being brought along very cautiously by the Cubs, Cease carved through his first look at High-A and has gotten off to a strong start in Double-A.  That Cease is putting himself in the picture for a big league arrival in 2019 is a pleasant surprise, particularly given how many other White Sox prospects have been derailed by injury.

3. Between James Shields always pitching at least six innings a game and the White Sox losing so much on the road, their bullpen is still only 17th in the majors in innings pitched. Still, as the season has gone on, Rick Renteria has leaned more and more heavily on Jace Fry and Xavier Cedeno.  They’ve acquitted themselves well, but Bruce Rondon, Chris Volstad, and Hector Santiago have struggled.  All of this brings me to Ian Hamilton, as the 2016 11th round pick continues his march to the majors.  After 25 dominant innings in Double-A, he has yet to allow a run in 6 2/3 Triple-A innings, boasting a K:BB ratio of 9.00. As much as I appreciate the White Sox giving run to a loyal organizational soldier like Volstad, Hamilton and others not far behind him may squeeze him out before we get to September.

4. After 2016, we thought we had a good idea of who Avisail Garcia was. Then in 2017 he went nuts and challenged for the batting title and seemed to cash in on his massive potential, although he did so in a different shape than we’d thought, as his raw power indicates a classic corner outfield masher rather than an off brand version of Tony Gwynn. So 2018 was a chance to get an answer to the question: Who is Avisail Garcia? We may still not know! He was horrible and then hurt … and then since he got back from the DL he just started hitting for all of that massive power we knew was in there but seemed inaccessible. Coming into Sunday’s game, Garcia had hit .333/.348/.803 with eight home runs in his 16 games post-hamstring strain. Sure. Why not?

5. Omar Narvaez has also thoroughly broken out, following a June where he hit .391/.440/.522 with a scorching start to July as well. Unfortunately, our framing metrics still have Narvaez as one of the worst in the majors, but this is the most power he has ever shown (a low bar, but still) and he’s coming up on 600 PAs as a .273/.360/.352 hitter. Neat trick for a catcher. Maybe he can pull a Welington Castillo and randomly fix his framing in his late 20s. Not the steroids thing.

Lead Photo Credit: Erik Williams-USA TODAY Sports

1. An uptick in velocity and command of his breaking pitches were the main fuel behind a month where Dylan Covey seemingly transformed from Rule 5 afterthought to a legitimate candidate for future rotation consideration. A Friday night in Texas where he struggled to command anything and left quite a few changeups high in the zone showed just how small his margin for error is, as Covey was tagged for eight earned runs in just 2 1/3 innings in a start that more resembled his forgettable 2017 than the pitcher we saw for the majority of June.

Covey didn’t show any ill effects of the groin injury that forced him out of his previous start early, but was routinely beat around during a second inning in which he allowed three of the four home runs the Rangers hit off him on the day. The fact that he walked three and struck out zero — he induced just four swinging strikes on the evening — only further illustrated how badly he was locating throughout his 74-pitch outing.

Covey showed enough during his hot stretch to earn more opportunities on a team going nowhere in 2018. But he’s now on a three-start stretch where he’s walked 12 against just three strikeouts, so while optimism regarding the 26-year-old is obviously higher than it was even just a month or so ago, it will be interesting to see how he adjusts and if he’s more like the pitcher we saw for the majority of June or not.

2. Carlos Rodon certainly has more margin for error than Covey in any given start, but the Rangers jumped all over his first sign of command issues and what started out as a dominant start ended earlier than expected. Rodon retired the first seven Rangers he faced, including three strikeouts, but hung a fastball to Joey Gallo in the third inning for a solo home run and lost control in the fourth when a single and a pair of walks came home on a Robinson Chirinos bases-loaded double.

It was the first truly bad start of Rodon’s five since returning from injury on June 9, but what’s prevented him from truly living up to his potential during his three-plus years in the majors has been an inability to consistently command from start to start or, like Saturday, inning to inning. The good news for Rodon is that he seems completely healthy after being plagued by injury for the better part of the last year and a half, but we’re still waiting for Rodon to put together a complete and consistent performance like we know he’s capable of.

3. The White Sox weekend woes were not limited to the poor starts by Covey and Rodon. The bullpen was overburdened and allowed eight earned runs in 8 1/3 innings between Friday and Saturday, although a large chunk of that can be attributed to Bruce Rondon, whose ERA has ballooned up to 8.31 after allowing five earned runs while retiring just one batter on Saturday. Similarly, the White Sox committed a pair of errors in each of their two losses and five for the entire weekend, which is only part of the story of a weekend where a team that already wasn’t exactly known for its smooth fundamentals appeared to lose control of it entirely

Things like this are going to happen when a team rosters a handful of borderline major leaguers or young players still getting their feet wet, but while we’ve somewhat gotten used to the White Sox losing more often than they win, one thing you’d prefer they shore up is on that side of the ball. It’s easy to excuse a rebuilding team playing, say, Adam Engel when his bat isn’t up to snuff,, but when players who are already limited extrapolate things by failing to communicate, missing the cutoff, or some other mental miscue, it becomes much more difficult to excuse. Those are aspects of the game within their control, and while mental errors costing the White Sox wins is hardly detrimental to the immediate future, it’d at the very least make watching the losing more aesthetically appealing, and one would hope they get under control if and when they have eyes on contention.

4. The White Sox did win a game this weekend, as Reynaldo Lopez threw 6 1/3 mostly successful innings in a 10-5 win on Sunday, allowing just two earned runs with three walks and six strikeouts. Most notable in the win, and over the weekend as a whole, was Jose Abreu busting out of his slump and Avisail Garcia putting together a nice post-injury streak. Abreu, who hit was in the midst of a .188/.233/.325 slump from June 5 through 26, is 6-for-20 with a home run, a triple, and three walks since Wednesday, hardly world-mashing numbers, but a vast improvement coming out of one of the worst slumps of his career. Garcia went 4-for-5 on Sunday and is hitting .333 with six extra-base hits in 42 plate appearances since returning from the disabled list on June 22. He’s still hacking away at an absurd rate — zero walks in 118 plate appearances overall this season — but if he can start making solid contact again like he did in 2017, it would be a great sign.

5. A mostly unsuccessful weekend was also felt at the minor league level, where Luis Robert was placed on the seven-day disabled list and Eloy Jimenez left Sunday’s game with an apparent leg injury (the severity is not yet known). The arms fared better, as Michael Kopech tossed six innings on Saturday, giving up just three hits and striking out eight, although he also walked four. Dylan Cease continues to be the biggest bright spot in their stable of prospect arms, rebounding from a rocky debut at Double-A to toss seven innings on Sunday, allowing just one earned run with seven strikeouts and two walks. Alec Hansen has yet to get completely acclimated to the same level since returning from injury, however, as he turned in his third straight rough start on Thursday, giving up three earned runs with five walks and four strikeouts in just 3 2/3 innings.

Lead Photo Credit: Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports

1. James Shields again finished the seventh inning, allowing only two runs.  He has gone at least five innings every outing this season, barring an extra-inning relief appearance, and has now gone at least six innings six starts in a row, with quality starts in five of those.  While the year is still most assuredly 2018 and not 2011, his DRA on the year sits at 4.73, and his cFIP of 101 are the peripherals of a below average innings eater.  None of this removes the sting of Fernando Tatis Jr. starting to nuke Double-A as a teenager for San Diego.  And, there is still risk for regression here, as his 5.6 percent HR/FB rate and .254 BABIP are on the lucky side.  That said, Shields deserves credit for continuing to make adjustments as he ages into his late 30s and the White Sox desperately need his ability to soak up innings at a credible rate.

2. The White Sox’ outfield situation is dire.  Avisail Garcia was awful and then injured, and is not expected back until the end of June.  Nicky Delmonico’s power evaporated and he will be on the disabled list for 4-6 weeks with a broken hand.  Adam Engel is hitting .183/.262/.229 and opposing managers are intentionally walking batters ahead of him because they realize he can’t hit.  Trayce Thompson is hitting .117/.145/.300.  Tyler Saladino was traded to Milwaukee.  Daniel Palka is hitting perfectly well, for the moment, but putting him in the outfield is … well, extremely detrimental to your run prevention.  We’re at the point where Leury Garcia is hands down the best all-around outfielder on the active roster.

Worse, the alternatives in Charlotte are no better. Charlie Tilson is finally healthy, but he is hitting .237/.279/.288 in Triple-A.  Understandable, perhaps, given how long he’s been out with various lower body injuries, but he’s not in a position to be called up.  Ryan Cordell is hurt again.  Jacob May had his first season in Triple-A in 2016 and hit .266/.309/.352.  He’s hit worse there each year since.

Everyone knows this year is not about major league wins and losses, but at a certain point a sub-.500 OPS from multiple outfield spots just isn’t tenable and isn’t fair to the fans or the rest of the roster.  They’ve brought in Michael Saunders, who was once an underrated and solid player, but has since been destroyed by knee injuries and hit poorly in Triple-A last year.  Presumably Eloy Jimenez and Garcia are intended to be two thirds of the outfield at some point in 2018, but it’s unclear how long you’ll have to wait to get there.  The more advanced outfielders in Double-A like Jameson Fisher and Tito Polo have not hit well enough to merit promotions to Charlotte, let alone to the majors.

Short of a trade, though, I’m not sure what else can be done in the meantime if they genuinely believe Jimenez isn’t ready.  I suppose Seth Smith is still out there?  Perhaps with Jose Rondon looking competent you can see why Rick Renteria is musing on moving Yolmer Sanchez to the outfield as an empty .270 from Rondon would be a huge upgrade on one of these glaringly deficient lineup spots.

3. Unlike the outfield, however, the bullpen has somewhat gratifyingly progressed through the process of shuffling through internal options.  Bruce Rondon is so far putting his name forward as the latest “Don Cooper Reclamation Success Story.”  The erstwhile Tigers Closer of the Future boasts a 2.74 DRA over his first 16 innings on the South Side of Chicago.  A 27-year-old flame-throwing reliever rounding into form is quite common.  Who knows? Maybe Bruce Rondon will be one of those players the rebuild yields due to having innings available rather than a high draft pick or obtained via trade.

Another big boost to the ‘pen has arrived in the form of Jace Fry, who has now thrown 8 1/3 innings while only allowing two walks so far this year.  Fry only converted to relief last year, and he struggled mightily in his first look at the majors.  He’s actually throwing his fastball slower than he did last year, but he’s throwing his slider a lot more — up from 6.45 to 33.64 percent from 2017 to 2018.  So far it’s working really, really well.

4. After a slow start, Welington Castillo is slowly rounding into the normal, power-heavy but above average catcher hitting line one might have expected, as he’s up to .270/.314/.477.  This is unsurprising.  However, 2017 represented a quantum leap in terms of his catcher defense, going from near the bottom of the barrel to well above average.  So far in 2018, he’s reverted back to his poor results.  An area worth monitoring on his BP player card as the season progresses.

Meanwhile, Omar Narvaez has not managed to improve his framing numbers at all, and so far his on-base heavy offense profile has also collapsed as his average has slid well below the Mendoza Line.  Still, with these two and Kevan Smith stashed in Charlotte, there are much better teams with far worse catching situations.

5.  A quick note: as I was digging around in the minor league stat lines, I noticed Ti’Quan Forbes.  The White Sox acquired this 2014 second round pick from the Rangers in August 2017 for Miguel Gonzalez.  However, coming into this season, he had yet to slug above .350 or post an OBP above .315 in two full seasons above Rookie Ball, and so I wrote him off as organizational depth.  But, it’s worth pointing out his 2018 has been a huge step forward, as he’s hitting .276/.343/.402 in High-A Winston-Salem.  He’s walking more and has slashed his strikeouts approximately 10-12 points from his track record, and is down to 12.6 percent on the young season.

The road is very long, and he may turn back into a pumpkin at any time, but he does not turn 22 until August and for the first time he’s showing signs of real progress, and perhaps there’s a major leaguer in here somewhere after all.

Lead Image Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

The White Sox banged out seven straight hits to start the game against Seattle’s Mike Leake, with the only out recorded during that time coming when Avisail Garcia was picked off. They led 7-0 after two innings and never looked back, as all 10 players to appear registered at least one hit.

1. I wrote Monday about how the White Sox being bad is a lot more tolerable if the young players we hope are going to be part of the next contender show progress. Monday’s win saw a lot of that, most specifically from Yoan Moncada. We’re still early enough in the season that one big game can do a lot for one’s batting line, and Moncada’s 3-for-5 evening brought his OPS from .729 all the way up to .838. A triple, double, and home run all before the end of the fourth inning will do that for you.

One of the strangest complaints we’ve had about Moncada’s tenure with the White Sox to date is that he seemed, at times, almost too passive at the plate. In the first, he laced a 1-0 sinker into the gap (it would’ve been a double if not for a misplay by Dee Gordon, but I digress), in the second he crushed the first pitch, a hanging knuckle-curve, over the head of Mitch Haniger for a double off the wall, and in the fourth … well, he took a couple of called strikes before ending Leake’s night with his fourth home run of the season.

2. Carson Fulmer took a small step toward giving the White Sox rotation more strikeouts than walks on the season, and an even bigger step in helping reestablish confidence he can succeed long-term as a starter.

Fulmer struck out three and walked just one in six innings, allowing two runs on three hits. Strangely enough, all three of the hits he allowed went for extra bases, including his only mistake, a 1-1 fastball to Mike Zunino that the catcher took out for a two-run homer.

It was an efficient outing if not overly impressive. Fulmer was able to induce contact using primarily his fastball, which he threw 67 times out of his 97 pitches. He only induced three swings and misses, but routinely hit the mark, succeeding in A) not falling behind, and B) not giving Seattle hitters anything to drive.

3. As strange as it may be, I often think about — particularly in seasons where the White Sox are as bad as they are currently — who the team’s All-Star representative is going to be. Right now, the answer is pretty definitively Jose Abreu, who is up to six home runs and a .949 OPS after Monday’s 4-for-5 performance.

Amid all of the focus on the White Sox young players and what they are or aren’t doing, it’s easy to overlook the continued brilliance of the 31-year-old first baseman. Plenty has been said about his mentorship to Moncada and the plethora of youngsters in the clubhouse, but he’s off to the best start since his rookie season and he’s performing on a level among the top first basemen in the game.

4. Chris Beck is back. The White Sox added him to both the 40- and 25-man rosters on Monday after the team placed Miguel Gonzalez on the 10-day disabled list with right rotator cuff inflammation and transferred Danny Farquhar to the 60-day DL.

Beck was the White Sox innings pitched leader among the relievers in 2017 kind of by default as he stuck around through the trades of every reliever with any semblance of value. And in those 64 2/3 innings of work he was … terrible, walking 34 against 42 strikeouts with a 6.40 ERA.

He’s back, though! And picked up his first career save by virtue of tossing the last three innings of Monday’s win. Saves are dumb, man. He throws hard, though, which has a lot (or all) to do with his continued opportunities, and gave up a lot of hard contact — and two runs — in his three innings of work. He also was the benefactor of one of the weirdest double plays I’ve seen in a while.

5. With Beck, who was starting in Triple-A before his promotion, tossing three innings on Monday and Gonzalez disabled, the White Sox rotation is up in the air, as  Chris Volstad, who last pitched Saturday when he tossed three innings, will take a turn on Tuesday as Hector Santiago was used Sunday.

Beyond Tuesday, things are more unclear with a taxed bullpen and doubleheader against the Royals on the horizon. There’s no indication they’re ready to give Michael Kopech his highly-anticipated debut, but given the state of the rotation, clamoring for exactly that will only grow.

Bonus Morning 6: While Monday’s win had plenty of positives, Avisail Garcia left with a right hamstring strain after coming up lame on a groundout in the third inning. It’s unknown at this point whether the injury will require a DL stint, but if it comes to that it will likely mean a healthy dose of Trayce Thompson in right field. Daniel Palka would be a logical replacement in the interim, as it’s hard to imagine Eloy Jimenez — who hit two home runs for Double-A Birmingham on Monday — would be the choice at this point.

Lead Photo Credit: David Banks-USA TODAY Sports

Outfield

Opening Day starters: Nicky Delmonico, Adam Engel, Avisail Garcia

All-Star Break starters: Nicky Delmonico, Ryan Cordell, Avisail Garcia

End-of-season starters: Nicky Delmonico, Ryan Cordell, Eloy Jimenez (Avisail at DH)

Optimistic take: Garcia hits as well as he did in 2017 and his defense takes another step forward, Delmonico’s bat-to-ball skills lead to a high batting average and his glove doesn’t hurt in any meaningful way, and Engel is merely “bad” at the plate instead of “totally lost” while providing value defensively and on the base paths. Cordell’s hot spring translates into a hot stint in Triple-A, where he forces his way to Chicago and either surplants Engel or is a useful utility outfielder. Charlie Tilson proves he can stay healthy over the course of an entire season and gets some useful time in the majors at some point during the season. Jimenez comes up by virtue of totally obliterating the minor leagues and turns into the second coming of Giancarlo Stanton.

Pessimistic take: Delmonico hits like someone who was never on anyone’s radar to begin with, Garcia hits like the year 2017 never happened, and Engel hits like he has his entire career. The back injury that kept Cordell on the shelf for most of 2016 flares up and he ends the season as a 26-year-old minor leaguer who can’t seem to stay on the field. Tilson gets hurt again, and Jimenez struggles with the high minors and ends the season looking farther away from the majors than he did before it.

Hot take(s): Cordell leads all White Sox outfielders in WARP.

—Collin Whitchurch

Infield/DH

Opening Day starters: Welington Castillo, Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, Yolmer Sanchez, Matt Davidson

All-Star Break starters: Welington Castillo, Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, Tyler Saladino/Yolmer Sanchez platoon, Matt Davidson

End-of-season starters: Welington Castillo, Jose Abreu, Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson, Tyler Saladino/Yolmer Sanchez platoon, Avisail Garcia

Optimistic take: Castillo performs more or less exactly as he did last year in Baltimore, both offensively and defensively, but with ~150 more plate appearances. Abreu is Abreu, and we put away our worries of him aging ungracefully for at least another year. Moncada lives up to the pedigree of a former top prospect and solidifies himself as a legitimate superstar for years to come. Anderson is a 20 homers, 20 stolen bases guy with improved defense (asking him to increase walks is too unreasonable, IMO). Sanchez and Saladino solidify themselves as worth rostering as we move farther along into the rebuild. Davidson adds 50 points to his OBP to go along with his mammoth power and proves rosterable beyond 2018.

Pessimistic take: Castillo’s defense regresses to pre-2017 levels and his offense takes a significant step back, making him more or less platoonable and thrusting Omar Narvaez into more playing time. Abreu starts to age as poorly as we’ve feared, and he spends the year battling nagging injuries that zap his power. The swing-and-miss in Moncada’s bat is more of a hinderance than anticipated, and his other tools aren’t able to carry him as well as hoped. Anderson has essentially his 2017 season again, and the Sanchez/Saladino combo is below-replacement level.

Hot take(s): Moncada makes the AL All-Star team. Saladino bounces back from his poor 2017 and is traded before July 31.

—Collin Whitchurch

Lead Photo Credit: Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

1. Avisail Garcia attributed a new offseason program and 17-lb. weight loss to his surprising turnaround in 2017. On Monday, he reported to camp seven lbs. lighter, according to him, with eyes toward turning his improvements at the plate last season into more power in 2018.

We joked a lot last season about how long it would take the most stringent Garcia doubters *raises hand* to finally come around to him being an above-average contributor, but the fact that his breakout at the plate was fueled by an insane .392 BABIP leaves reason to believe regression will come. Indeed, PECOTA expects a .275/.329/.431, 1.6 WARP season out of Garcia, down from .330/.380/.506, 3.7 WARP a year ago.

Considering where Garcia came from (he had never been so much as a 1 WARP player before last season) even those numbers would be acceptable when you consider the fact that he was borderline DFA-able a year ago, but it’s clear he’s still kind of in the “prove it” phase of his supposed turnaround. If he can indeed add some more pop (his .176 ISA in 2017 was slightly above average) it would certainly make the expected did in his batting average more tolerable.

2. When Corey Dickerson surprisingly hit DFA Land on Sunday, it brought about the usual flurry of rumors about where the 2017 All-Star could land. Dickerson had been a solid if unspectacular outfielder for most of his career before last season’s breakout in which he hit .282/.325/.490 with a career-high 28 home runs and an ISO on par with the likes of Justin Turner and Chris Davis. He was worth 3.9 WARP, although like Garcia PECOTA projects some regression (1.0 WARP).

It’s borderline sacrilege of me, the world’s staunchest Nicky Delmonico supporter, to suggest a move that would shuffle him to the bench, but one wonders if someone like Dickerson, who will be 29 in May, might be of interest to the White Sox. He’d be under team control for the next two seasons and, depending on what the White Sox think of Delmonico, could be a short-time contributor or a long-term solution. This all, of course, depends on Tampa’s asking price, but the Rays aren’t operating from a position of strength following the DFA, and surely want to get something for instead of letting him hit the open market for nothing. I’d be surprised if it’s not something Rick Hahn & Co., are at least considering.

3. One of the more intriguing new faces in White Sox camp is Thyago Viera, the flame-throwing reliever the White Sox acquired for international money from Seattle during the Mariners’ ill-fated pursuit of Shohei Ohtani. Viera is the type of highly-volatile arm that’s easy to dream on, but while he’s maybe more interesting than most players acquired for $500K and nothing else, there’s a reason he was available for exactly that. His fastball touches 100 and he has a developing slider, his BB% has never been lower than 9.0. His lineout in the BP Annual sums it up:

Thyago Viera has the potential to be a bullpen weapon if he can harness his command, which is something that can be said about dozens of other minor-league relievers.

That potential is the reason you write about someone like Viera, of course, and if there’s anyone capable of harnessing Viera’s command it would seemingly be Don Cooper. The uncertainty in the White Sox bullpen is such that Viera will likely get his share of opportunities (if you’re a fantasy player you could consider him a deep sleeper closer candidate if things break right for him and if something were to happen to Nate Jones and/or Joakim Soria), and if he lives up to the potential the White Sox have in him, it will aid their bullpen rebuild a lot quicker than anticipated after last season’s clearing house sale.

4. Speaking of fantasy baseball, Baseball Prospectus came out with its Dynasty 101 on Friday, which is the fantasy-focused version of their Top 101 prospects list. The list features six White Sox, No. 5 Eloy Jimenez, No. 12 Michael Kopech, No. 19 Luis Robert, No. 53 Alec Hansen, No. 75 Jake Burger, and No. 80 Dylan Cease.

From a purely baseball perspective, the list isn’t a whole lot different from the Prospect Top 101, which isn’t unexpected. (Good prospects are good prospects, fantasy or otherwise, ya know?) But given how combustible pitching prospects are, it’s understandable that Robert and Burger are higher than the other list while Hansen and Cease are lower. The fantasy team on the main site provides good coverage all season long, if you’re into that kind of thing, and I hope to supplement it with some White Sox-specific fantasy thoughts this year as well.

5. Speaking of Burger (dang, you are killing it with those transitions today, Collin), James Fegan’s feature story on the White Sox most recent first round pick makes him sound like an sponge for information. Burger moved to Arizona over the offseason and spent time with Mike Gellinger, the White Sox minor league hitting instructor whom both Matt Davidson and Nicky Delmonico have credited with helping them develop within the organization.

The spring, of course, is filled with optimism from a number of players confident that the work they put in over the summer will translate to success on the field. As James notes, Burger’s draft spot was considered high by many observers and he has plenty of doubters among professional scouts and analysts. But his profile is such that, if all of his hard work truly translates as he moves his way through the season, he’ll wind up a helluva find for the White Sox.

Lead Photo Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

So starting from there, the projected standings are never going to be perfect.  Then throw us imperfect humans into the mix, as the player projections have to be weighted by how much playing time they’re going to get — a difficult task on the most stable of rosters, and the White Sox roster is anything but stable.

Jose Abreu is a safe bet for ~600+ PAs in some distribution between first base and DH, ditto Avisail Garcia at right field or DH — unless one or both are traded mid-season. Welington Castillo will probably get most of the reps at catcher. Yoan Moncada and Tim Anderson should get the majority of the time in the middle infield.

After that it gets really murky really quickly. Presumably, Nicky Delmonico will get first crack at left field.  How long of a crack that is depends on how well he does, but also how quickly Eloy Jimenez comes, if that happens in 2018 at all.  Then again, maybe Ryan Cordell winds up impressing and soaking up more of left field than we’d think sitting here today.

In center field, I’d have to think Charlie Tilson would get first crack at it if he’s healthy, but who knows if he’s healthy? Adam Engel might be next up, but then, if he can’t get his OPS above .600 I’m not sure how much run he gets.  Straight up, I suspect Leury Garcia could outperform them both, but the White Sox probably want to deploy him judiciously among the seven positions he can cover and we had to try to guess how much of that would go where.  What if Tito Polo kills Double-A and Tilson is hurt and Engel is terrible?

Oh and third base. You know, where Yolmer Sanchez might play regularly. Or, Davidson splits time with him. Cordell can play third, too. Is this where Leury gets extra PAs too? Tyler Saladino looked like a pretty dynamite third baseman once upon a time. What of him?

And that’s just the position player side.  The permutations on the pitching side are even more ridiculous, given there’s simply a huge pile of innings and oh so many pitchers to throw at them.  And players also get hurt.

As a result, even if PECOTA were bang on perfect, the standings still wouldn’t be, because we, sitting here in February, tried to guess how the six month season would play out.

But, y’know. We tried.

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