You say these things and you’re excited. A whole month’s worth of content. “Good content!” you exclaim, all giddy with the anticipation for the words you’ll hammer out this month. It’s October and all the good teams are still playing, what else are you going to write about the White Sox?

And then you get your plan in place, which player is getting written up when, etc. You even make a spreadsheet outlining the whole thing! The more interesting players will get their own articles, and some of the guys who hardly played will be grouped together.

In theory, this sounds great. In practice, you get to days like today and you realize the error of your way. How the hell are you going to write an entire article about this motley crew of uninspiring part-timers?

The highlight of the season from this quizzical quartet came on May 3. Trayce Thompson had been reacquired about two weeks earlier after hopping from Los Angeles to Oakland, with a brief pit stop in New York. The Thompson acquisition wasn’t needle-moving, but it was cool because we knew and we liked him. He came up with the White Sox, battled through the minors, made it to the big club in 2015 and played well. He then played well with the Dodgers for a hot minute in 2016 after the White Sox shipped him West in a deal that netted them Todd Frazier. He was a homegrown thing with a famous brother who seemed pretty easy to root for, even if a few years riddled with injuries and some serious regression had taken the shine off considerably.

Before you started reading this or watched the above video, if I had asked you whose home run preceded Yolmer Sanchez’s infamous self-Gatorade bucket dump, would you have known it? Maybe you would have. After all, you’re probably a pretty big White Sox fan. But maybe it takes you a few beats longer than you expected. Either way, Thompson’s home run turned out to be one of just 14 hits he recorded with the White Sox in 2018. He hit .116/.163/.215 in 130 plate appearances, basically making Adam Engel look like Mike Trout. He was sent to Triple-A on June 20 and hit .213/.278/.363 the rest of the season.

What I’m trying to say is that it wasn’t great. But Thompson gave us the start of Yolmer Being Yolmer. For that, I’ll always be thankful.

It took Ryan LaMarre four years worth of cups of coffee in the majors to hit his first career home run. After tiny, little, itty-bitty samples in Cincinnati, Boston, and Oakland, and a somewhat longer opportunity in Minnesota, LaMarre clubbed his first career home run in Detroit — just down the road from where he grew up — in one of the cooler moments of a season that was mostly bereft of them.

He also had a four-hit day at Yankee Stadium, and put up a solid .303/.324/.485 line in 71 major league plate appearances while jumping back and forth between Chicago and Charlotte a good number of times. LaMarre will be 30 years old before the start of next season, which is older than you probably think, and will likely be squeezed out of the organization before long given the glut of outfield options sure to make their way up the ladder before long.

The best thing one can say about Ryan Cordell and Charlie Tilson is that they played — well, I mean, kind of. Cordell, who seemed to be toward the front of the line in terms of outfield promotions after a solid Spring Training, broke his clavicle about two weeks into the Triple-A season and missed three months. It was a frustrating turn for a player who’s struggled to stay healthy throughout his career. Things looked less promising upon his return as he struggled to regain whatever he had working in the spring while putting up uninspiring numbers at both Double-A and Triple-A, and promptly went 4-for-40 after a September call-up.

You know Tilson’s story by now. Unlike Cordell he was healthy all season long, which was a good and cool thing after missing more than a year with a myriad of ailments. He spent a little less than two months in the majors and at times looked the superior option to Adam Engel, at least at the plate, hitting .264 with a .331 OBP and 8 percent walk rate. He hit for no power whatsoever with just two extra-base hits in 121 plate appearances. Tilson is not the most interesting player in the overall scheme of things, but why hedidn’t get more playing time, nor even a September call-up, remains a mystery to me.

Finally, there’s Matt Skole. The White Sox signed him as a minor league free agent last winter and he appeared in four games in late May/early June during a Matt Davidson disabled list stint. He went 3-for-11 with a home run. Skole is 29-years-old and pretty much the epitome of minor-league depth at this point. Think of him as like the position player’s Rob Scahill or something. As a DH/1B type, he’s in the wrong organization what with the White Sox plethora of guys who can’t play anywhere else.

Look, I told you it’s difficult to find anything interesting to write about some of these guys, alright?

Lead Photo Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-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

2. The loss to the Cubs Tuesday afternoon wasn’t the headlining news of the day, but it did bear significance for the White Sox rebuild. That significance was in a puzzling outing for Carlos Rodon. The problem for Rodon is the same problem he’s had since he joined the team — he can’t find the strike zone. Or perhaps more precisely, he has no command. He has been able to find the strike zone at times in his career, but his finding of the strike zone has been paired with hitters feasting on fastballs in the zone. Not ideal.

On Tuesday Rodon struggled to command, or even control, his pitches the same way he’s struggled to do so in each of his starts this season. That’s still a very limited sample size, but some concern is warranted. The good news is that Rodon managed to strike out 11 batters while pitching just four innings. He also walked three batters, allowed seven hits, and gave up four earned runs. His inability to tap into his incredible potential has been extremely frustrating for both the White Sox and their fans. Some patience is required, however. Rodon is coming off an arm injury that knocked him out for half the season. There’s bound to be some rust there. The strikeouts in Tuesday’s game are a good sign that he’s beginning to shake that off but, like always, the command has to come. The good news is that the White Sox aren’t trying to win anything as they witness Rodon’s growing pains, so for now he can struggle in the big leagues and find his way well before the next competitive White Sox roster arises.

3. Down on the farm, two of the top pitching prospects took the mound on Tuesday. Lucas Giolito had a fine night in Charlotte, going seven innings with no earned runs. He allowed four hits while walking three, but he struck out six. Jeff Long of the BP prospect team got a good look at him two weeks ago and remarked that, “This new Giolito is still very, very good. He’s just not a dominant stuff guy anymore, showing elite pitchability and getting outs by outsmarting hitters rather than overpowering them.” Alec Hansen, another darling of the BP prospect staff, also pitched Tuesday. He went six innings while giving up two earned runs on two hits. He did walk three batters, but he struck out seven. Hansen is relatively new to the level, so that’s certainly a good performance. There’s no rush, but the White Sox would surely like to see a college arm make his way past A-ball by 2018. He looks in line to do so.

4. Avisail Garcia’s first half of 2017 is well-documented. He got in shape, improved his plate discipline, and became an All-Star. With a little boost from a .371 BABIP, he posted a .310 average with an .850 OPS. His 125 wRC+ made it seem like he had become a legitimate weapon. In the past week he has gone 3-for-19 with four strikeouts and one walk. That’s a small sample size and certainly something he can crawl out of, but it does appear as though the BABIP dragon is beginning to breathe a little fire on Garcia. His BABIP in the second half (small sample!) is down to .333, which is a reasonable place for a player like Garcia if he continues to show some speed down the line and hit the ball hard. Maybe it’s the cynic in me expecting the bad Garcia to return, but the cracks in his dream season are already starting to show.

5. A player who is even more difficult to figure out than Garcia is Matt Davidson. Co-editor-in-chief Nick Schaefer wrote about the mystifying Davidson last month, and not much has changed. It is worth noting, however, that he’s striking out at a 39.0 percent rate while still managing to post an above average 103 wRC+. This is reminiscent of Todd Frazier’s 40 dinger season a year ago where he looked abysmal aside from the times the ball flew over the outfield wall. What is even more impressive than Frazier’s season is that Davidson is doing it not as a three true outcome player. He’s striking out far more than Frazier did and walking at just a 4.8 percent clip. Even the .255 ISO is good but not all that great. Hitting 19 home runs in fewer than 300 plate appearances, however, remains an impressive feat that has allowed him to find success. Where the team goes with him in the future is a decision to be made down the road when the major league roster starts to fill. For now, they can afford to play a mediocre to bad defensive player at third who strikes out almost half the time but still clobbers dingers.

Lead Photo Credit: Erich Schlegel-USA TODAY Sports

Swarzak was given a minor league deal back on January with a non-roster invitation to Spring Training. He parlayed that opportunity into a spot on the Opening Day roster and became a surprising success story during the first half of an otherwise forgettable season. The journeyman and former starter increased his velocity by 3-4 mph and was downright dominant at times, opening the season with a 19 2/3 inning scoreless streak and posting a 2.23 ERA with 52 strikeouts in 48 1/3 innings overall.

Where the prospect of trading Tommy Kahnle was contentious given Kahnle’s age and the prospect of him remaining a dominant reliever until the White Sox next contention window, cashing in on Swarzak is a no-brainer. This season’s success has been unexpected and helped the White Sox get through injuries to expected contributors Nate Jones and Zach Putnam and later trades of Kahnle and David Robertson, but he’s also 31 years old and has zero track record of sustained success. Given his unexpected rise, the fact that he came to the White Sox for nothing, as well as the volatility of relievers, getting anything remotely valuable in exchange for him prior to the July 31 trade deadline is a bonus.

What, exactly, the White Sox got in return is the question. Cordell is a 25-year-old outfielder/utility type who is ranked No. 17 in Milwaukee’s farm system, per MLB Pipeline. The Brewers acquired him last summer as the PTBNL in the trade that sent Jonathan Lucroy and Jeremy Jeffress to the Texas Rangers. He’s played all three outfield spots, as well as first and third base during his minor league career, and is hitting .284/.349/.506 at the hitter friendly environment of Triple-A Colorado Springs this season.

He’s likely nothing more than a fourth outfielder type long term, but having Swarzak go from NRI to trade deadline asset was an unexpected bonus for the White Sox. And they were smart to cash in.

Lead Photo Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports