What if the White Sox were to line up in 2025 based on spring stats?
It would definitely make for an interesting lineup
It’s well established that you should never make much of anything of teams’ spring training records, though the White Sox 5-13-1 reecord may prove a little too close to how things will go when games count. Each team has a different way of looking at exhibition games, using, for example, a different balance of major and minor league players.
Likewise, it’s often a bad idea to put much importance on individual performances, because pitchers may be working on a new pitch or delivery, batters may be concentrating on a new stance, and so on. Or a AAAA player may just be good at dealing with opposing minor-leaguers.
But what the heck, let’s have some fun and create a White Sox 2025 lineup based on how well hitters have done this spring. To make the comparison, let’s go with OPS since that’s the most comprehensive batting evaluation, imperfect though it may be. Let’s also make a cutoff of at least 10 at-bats through the first 18 games, which, among other things, eliminates from consideration the injured Andrew Benintendi — probably a good idea, anyway.
This won’t go along with the GM pledges from Rick Hahn and Chris Getz that defense will be a priority, but results showed they were just kidding about that, anyway.
CATCHERS
As it happens, the two top Sox hitters so far this spring by OPS have both been catchers. Kyle Teel is tops at 1.244, followed by Korey Lee at 1.077. They could also well be the reality for the regular season, at least after a month or two, so our system works well in this case.
OTHER POSITIONS
Normally, you’d break this down to infielders and outfielders, but that won’t work for how the spring has gone so far, so let’s just list the next best OPS’s, eight of them to cover seven fielders and DH:
Nick Maton 1.047
Luis Robert Jr. 1.033
Miguel Vargas .990
Lenyn Sosa .899
Brandon Drury .889
Tristan Gray .886
Bryan Ramos .764
Josh Rojas .751
The first thing to notice is that if those performances carried over to the regular season, the White Sox would go from the worst offense in MLB to the best, scoring about 15 runs a game. Alas, that will not be the case, since almost all of these hitters have been mediocre at best when it counts, and often much worse.
The second thing to notice is that the position distribution is a tad unwieldy. With the exception of Robert (who could be traded or injured at any time) there’s not a single real outfielder in the mix. The Sox have a history of jamming people into corner outfield slots just for the heck of it, and at least most of these guys aren’t human statues like others that have been sent out to the grass in recent years, but it still calls for some manipulation.
There’s not a real shortstop in the bunch, either; the only decent defender at short last year, Jacob Amaya, is only 2-for-16 this spring, which is all too consistent with his hitting in the past. Brooks Baldwin, who was iffy at short and at the plate last year, is only hitting .200. Thus, we will have to follow recent White Sox tradition and jam someone in at short who can’t really field the position.
There’s also the small problem that other than center fielder Robert, they are all lousy fielders, with negative dWAR and defensive runs saved. The Sox have been the worst or near the bottom of MLB in defensive metrics for more than a decade, so this keeps with tradition.
There’s also no one on the list who has been a regular first baseman, as Andrew Vaughn didn’t make our cut despite a decent spring. But that’s an easy switch, and any of these guys would handle the big mitt better than Vaughn.
Maton, who has played mostly left this spring, has 26 career games at short, but Josh Rojas tops that with 44 — almost all of them in 2021, an indicator that no other team has wanted him there again. Maybe his -13 DRS had something to do with it. But, hey, there are the White Sox, so a shortstop he suddenly is again. We’ll put Maton in right because he’s been practicing in the outfield, and actually has decent outfield metrics.
To fill out the outfield, let’s put Brandon-of-all-positions-and-master-of-none Drury in left, since he’s less apt to do serious harm there.
At first, let’s go with Vargas, because, why not? Besides, he has an actual +2 DRS in 14 career games there.
That leaves second and third, where the others have mostly played. Gray actually has a +2 DRS over seven MLB games at third, so he’s the best shot there. That puts Sosa at second, where he’s awful, but in this crowd he won’t stand out. By elimination, Ramos ends up at DH, which is his best defensive position, anyway.
There you have it, a lineup based on Spring Training performance that will make the White Sox defenses of recent years look almost competent by comparison.
Or, of course, the powers that be could once again pretend they’re going to put a good defense on the field. That will at least be good for a laugh.