Chicago White Sox looking to take the next step in 2021

It is all starting to come together for the Chicago White Sox as they look to take the next step in 2021.

Spring training is a time when a fan’s mood can swing between boundless hope and deep despair. The following is a debate between the optimistic me and the pessimistic me regarding the 2021 Chicago White Sox.

Opti-me: Isn’t it great when a plan comes together? Five years ago the White Sox were going nowhere. So Rick Hahn traded a bunch of veterans for a bunch of kids, took the hits and in 2020 the whole thing started to come together for a post-season berth.  This season? There’s no limit.

The kids Hahn got – Yoan Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Eloy Jimenez – are the centerpieces of the 2021 team. Moncada may have had a bad 2020, but he’s proven himself a .300 hitter and a competent, if not great, third baseman.

Jimenez was good as a rookie and he got better last year. He had a 140 OPS+, which is All-Star level. Giolito has had solid back-to-back seasons, he was an All Star in 2019 and he’s getting consistent Cy Young support.

And none of those guys I mentioned are 27 yet. It wouldn’t surprise any White Sox fan if the 2021 Cy Young Award winner and MVP both come from the South Side this year.

Pessi-me: If that happens, the Chicago White Sox will be tough. Now let’s run the reality check. Moncada hit .225 with a 94 OPS+ in 2020. He’s had one decent year so far…one. Since 2018 – that’s nearly 1,500 plate appearances – he’s had a 30 percent strikeout rate. That’s not bad, that’s phenomenally bad.

Your big rookie find last season was Luis Robert. Nice first month; he came out of August hitting .298 with 10 home runs. Then pitchers started to figure out his weaknesses, which turned out to be many. Result: He hit .136 in the second half of the season with one homer and seven RBIs.

I get that you’re counting on that being a freaky one-month slump…but what if it isn’t? What if Robert can’t close all those swing gaps the pitchers found?

Opti-me: I totally trust Tony La Russa and hitting coach Frank Menechino to work those bugs out…if they even are bugs. Slumps happen, you know.

Beyond that, we’ve got depth. Jose Abreu is coming off a .317, 19-home run MVP season of his own, Tim Anderson is a 2019 batting champ who hit .322 in 2020, and we picked up Adam Eaton, who’s a proven commodity to play right field.

Eaton, you may recall, was the bait in the 2016 deal that landed Giolito and Reynaldo Lopez. So now we have all three parts of that trade in their primes.

Pessi-me: Lopez isn’t even a lock to make your rotation this season. But why should he be? He hasn’t produced an ERA under 5.00 since 2018. You’re also betting big on Dallas Keuchel and Lance Lynn, both of whom are at a point in their careers where a downturn would be no surprise.

Keuchel will be 33 and by season’s end, he’ll have 1,500 innings under his belt. He’s a soft-tosser whose FIP for the last full season he pitched was 4.72.

While you’re watching durability, keep an eye on Lynn, too. He’s a year older than Keuchel, he’s also coming up on 1,500 innings, he’s led the league in batters faced two years running and he’s totally dependent on his heater.

Opti-me: Again, the answer is Tony La Russa. No manager in the last 50 years has handled a pitching staff more adroitly. He’ll have a good pen to work with led by Liam Hendriks. But he’ll also have Evan Marshall, Matt Foster, and Aaron Bummer, all of whom looked good last season.

He’s also got Dylan Cease behind Giolito and Keuchel. Cease may not (yet) be a star, but at 25 he’s a solid rotation arm. His 4.01 ERA and 111 ERA+ last season show that you can count on him to give the Sox a chance to win.

Pessi-me: You really went off script with the La Russa hiring. I don’t want to be accused of ageism or anything, but let’s just keep in mind that he’s 76 years old. I can’t help wondering about whether he can maintain his energy level, especially if things don’t go well early in the season and it looks like he’s saddled with a loser.

If that happens, is this the guy who can rally a team around him? Or are you absolutely counting on winning to the exclusion of all other possibilities?

Opti-me: Actually yes, we are counting on winning to the exclusion of all other possibilities. The Sox scored the second most runs in the AL last season, they had the second best batting average, the second best OPS, they were above average in ERA, above average in runs allowed per game, and basically they didn’t lose anything.

The White Sox can also expect another season of development from Nick Madrigal, who took over second base in mid-season and hit .340. So by season’s end, we could have batting champs on both sides of the middle infield.

Pessi-me: Or a couple of guys could get hurt, in which case you’re through. La Russa’s age concerns me, but the big problem is you are very, very thin. Your main every-day backups are likely to be Adam Engel and Leury Garcia. Carlos Rodon – who absolutely got kicked around in 2020 – is your pitching backup.

The Chicago White Sox may be good, but they’re also thin. Stuff happens, and when it does Chicago will be hard-pressed to keep pace with either the Twins or Indians, both of whom are deeper. If you’re lucky, you can hold off the Royals or Tigers for third.

Opti-me: You can get good odds on that dire a forecast in Vegas. You’ll lose, but you can get good odds. The guys in the know make Chicago the second favorite to win the AL pennant. As for the division, you may not have noticed that the Sox are odds-on. I’m betting that the Vegas guys are smarter than you.