Chicago White Sox: Team preview and prediction for 2020 season

One of the quieter franchises in baseball spent their hearts out this offseason. Now it’s time to see what the Chicago White Sox are made of.

At the top of the list of “Most Improved Teams This Offseason,” we have to look at the Chicago White Sox as one of those teams after the Winter they had, and 2020 looks all the more promising for the South Side because of it. Is this going to be the year the White Sox breakthrough into the playoffs, or are they still too young and inexperienced?

For me, I’ve been eyeing the Sox for a number of years now with the amount of talent they possessed in their farm system, and that notion has only been enhanced with continuous success through the draft as well as the surprising surge of Lucas Giolito last season.

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I saw this team as a future powerhouse with the likes of Luis Robert, Dylan Cease, Eloy Jimenez, Dane Dunning, and Michael Kopech leading the charge once they broke into the league, but they’ve managed to add onto that core group with the drafting of Nick Madrigal and Andrew Vaughn in most recent years.

In addition to all the young talent the White Sox has accumulated, we also have the resurgence of Lucas Giolito who burst onto the scene last year to the tune of a 3.41 ERA, 228 Ks in 176.2 innings, 3 complete games, and 2 shutouts. On top of that, we must also remember just who this guy was in 2018 and how much he grew from that year to last.

Giolito led the American League in walks (90) as well as the entire league in earned runs (118) in 2018, but in 2019, he cut his walks almost in half and tweaked his mechanics to suit is motion and retain his velocity he came up with.

He shortened his arm motion which, in turn, allowed him to use his legs more and generate power to get added velocity. And as 2019 showed us, his adjustments did him wonders because he was in that CY Young conversation for most of the year, so I’m excited to see if he can repeat or improve upon what he did last year because if he can, the Chicago White Sox have themselves the ace that they’ll need going forward.

Chicago White Sox:  Team preview, prediction for 2020 season

But unfortunately, I have a ton of questions about the Sox’s rotation and bullpen this year and if it can step up to the plate and keep pace with their offense that I expect to be pretty explosive. As far as the Chicago White Sox pitchers are concerned, I feel pretty good about Giolito having himself another great year and potentially winning the CY Young.

Aside from him, I really like Aaron Bummer and Jimmy Cordero in the bullpen. A lot of people don’t know either of these guys, but Cordero is an unbelievably-hard thrower who came aboard the Sox last year mid-year and pitched to a 2.75 ERA in 30 appearances. Bummer is an even more impressive reliever that pitched to a 2.13 ERA last year in 58 appearances with 60 Ks and 43 holds in 67.2 innings.

Alex Colome is solid as well and is probably the closer of this team, but I think the real show will be in the setup innings with both Cordero and Bummer. One big concern will be what will become of Kelvin Herrera because unfortunately, he has absolutely disappeared since leaving the Royals. They’ll need him to get back to his old self as well if they hope to have a strong overall bullpen.

Other than those guys, to me, it just seems like their pitching staff isn’t strong enough right now to win this division over two very good Twins and Indians teams. I love me some Dallas Keuchel. I think he moves the ball around the strike zone as well as anybody in the game and I’m still shocked to this day that it took a team until late June of last season to sign him.

But I worry he may have lost his momentum much like how Craig Kimbrel has lost his. Both guys were top of the line the year before they became free agents. Teams seemingly saw something they didn’t like in both, so neither were signed until mid-2019.

Gio Gonzalez is another guy in this White Sox rotation that I wonder about because he obviously isn’t the same pitcher he was a few years ago. The two veteran lefties the White Sox have brought on to go behind Giolito aren’t exactly in their primes anymore.

That leaves the back end rotation guys to hopefully be the ones who spark this season, and I see two standout injuries that could prove to be big losses for the Sox in 2020.

Carlos Rodon is out after Tommy John last year, so I think if we see him at all, it will be at least sometime after the All-Star Break. And Michael Kopech, though he’s recovering from his Tommy John a bit ahead of schedule, is still a prized commodity for the White Sox, so they have to be really careful when he comes back that he’s fully healthy.

That leaves Dylan Cease and Reynaldo Lopez. Both guys have high ceilings. Cease got beat up a little bit in his rookie year (understandable) and Lopez has consistently had a problem with walks and losing command of the strike zone. So, with all of these questions around the White Sox rotation, who is going to step up behind Giolito? It cannot be a one-man show if they want to win the Central.