Can The 2024 White Sox WIN with a TERRIBLE OFFENSE?

My mind has been solidly in thinking about the White Sox from a macro level. Recently I took a look at a pitching staff that I think is probably underrated by most White Sox fans. Then on Saturday Chris Getz decided to leverage two of those in-house arms to add some outfield depth and other goodies to the cupboard. Chorizy-E and I took a look at those deals on Sunday morning, check that out HERE. But alas, my brain is still trying to process what the 2024 squad is going to look like before I actually get to see them in tight pants and ball caps on March 28th.

The 2023 White Sox Couldn’t Hit

If you are bothering to read this text, you already know the 2023 White Sox were a tire fire. One spot that I think is underrated about that disastrous campaign was how damn bad the offense was. Rolling into the 2023 season, the project modules mostly had them as something near a league average offense. The cutout from Baseball Reference tells the story. That squad was tied for dead last in OPS+, which is a measure that tries to take into effect all things offense, including park factors / environment to get to a single number indicator. 100 is average, and each point above or below 100 is effectively the % off of average you are. The White Sox were 17% worse than the average MLB offense. If you want to go by runs scored, they were second to last (lol A’s) with 641. Bad. BAD. BAAAAAD offense.

Looking ahead to the 2024 squad in tow, I’m really not expecting much more on that side of the ball. Below is a cut-out of the boys by wRC+ (which is a similar measure to OPS+, though not exactly the same).

That group averages to about a 95 wRC+, which is a lot better than 83 OPS+, but it doesn’t include all the lousy plate appearances that are contributed by bench players and fringy major leaguers throughout the season that tend to drag that number, so let’s say that the 2024 White Sox are probably trending towards being poo-poo (I used the thesaurus on that one) on offense again. I’ll peg their badness around 85 OPS+, just for shits and giggles. Do any teams win with offenses 15% below league average? I DON’T KNOW. LET’S FIND OUT!!

The Last 45 Years of WINNERS with Terrible Offenses

I searched Baseball Reference Stathead for all teams under 85 OPS+ from 1978 through 2023 and excluding the shortened seasons of 2020, 1994 & 1981, there are 98 teams total that have been that damn bad on offense and the chart above are the only 5 teams that were above .500 of those teams. So this is a TOUGH way to actually be good. Let’s take a quick look at these teams and see if there are similarities to our current boys.

1979 Houston Astros

This is the second best team out of the entire group, but the furthest away from today’s modern game. The squad was lead by the electric J.R. Richards throwing a whopping 292 1/3 Innings of 130 ERA+, couple that with Joe Niekro knocking back 263 2/3 Innings at a 117 ERA+ you had a formidable top of the rotation logging over a 38% of the teams total innings. Jose Cruz lead the team with a whopping 9 home runs, but they played in a ballpark that was notorious for suppressing runs, the Astrodome.

This was also before the era of advanced statistics for defense, but Baseball Reference’s stat “Defensive Efficiency” which basically measures batted ball chances turned into outs had them ranked #2 in MLB behind the Baltimore Orioles. The White Sox have an improved defense, but probably not 2nd in the league, there is no J.R. Richards around and the run environment is the opposite of the Astrodome. Oh well.

2003 Montreal Expos

The 2003 Montreal Expos were in their second to last season in Quebec before they would be foisted on the nations capital in 2005. This team had a horrible offense that was lead by two superstar hitters in Jose Vidro and Vladimir Guerrero Sr. The starting rotation was devoit of household names, but they fucking ate! Livan Hernandez was here throwing 233 1/3 Innings of 141 ERA+ ball with Javier Vazquez following that up with 230 2/3 Innings of 139 ERA+ performance. In total the starting rotation had (of guys that made at least 20 starts, which was 5 of them) all guys who were above 100 ERA+ for the season. Meaning their starting rotation had all above average starters. Tough to do.

On the defensive side of the ball by Defensive Runs Saved, the Expos were slightly above average at 7 DRS for the season. By Defensive Efficiency they were exactly league average, so the defense wasn’t a carrying tool. The White Sox are highly unlikely to have two ace level starters, let alone get ~140 Starts from their man 5 guys and those guys be above average. Oh well.

2003 Los Angeles Dodgers

The 2023 Dodgers had a 38 year old Kevin Brown pitching at an ace level, they had Hideo Nomo doing this thing and their terrible offense was buoyed by aging stars Paul Lo Duca, Fred McGriff and Shawn Green. A young Adrian Beltre is in here playing 3b all season, but slashing an uninspiring .240 / .290 / .424. The real story with this team was peak Eric Gagne. Cy Young Eric Gagne, throwing a ridiculous 82 1/3 innings out of the bullpen for 55 saves and a 1.20 ERA with an 0.86 WHIP. That’s good for an ERA+ of 337, which is fucking bonkers. He also had Guillermo Mota and Paul Quantrill having slightly less insane, but still ridonkulous seasons out of the pen. This is a story about a bullpen that came together and stopped giving up runs.

Defensively that Dodgers team was 3rd in MLB with 68 Defensive Runs saved and tied for 7th in Defensive Efficiency, so they could definitely glove it. This is also an unlikely outcome for the White Sox, but bullpens having wild hot years with batted balls finding gloves do happen occasionally. I still find this one highly unlikely though, but it’s got a scratcher lottery tix chance imo.

2007 Arizona Diamondbacks

The 2007 Diamondbacks won the most games out of the group, 90 and they pecker slapped the Cubs in the NLDS before finally showing they were lacking and losing to the Rockies in a sweep in the NLCS (that magical Rox team). The snakes were lead by Brandon Webb in his Cy Young form. Livan Hernandez was also here, I wonder if the guy is just good luck or something. “Papa Grande” Jose Valverde was tough closing games out with 47 saves and Juan Cruz, Tony Pena and Brandon Lyon were all super tough out of the pen. Offensively Chris Young nearly had a 30 / 30 season while posting an 88 OPS+. The best hitters by that measure were Conor Jackson and Mark Reynolds, woof.

On defense the D’backs were 7th in DRS with 36 and 10th in Defensive Efficiency, so a good, but not elite team on that side of the ball. This team was basically very lucky, out kicking their Pythagorean record by 11 games, lead by a very strong 32-20 record in 1 run games. Of the teams we’ve looked at so far, this is the one that seems most possible for the White Sox, although it would require a full year of Dylan Cease to really line up properly.

2009 San Francisco Giants

The 2009 Giants had a single good offensive player and it was Pablo Sandoval who at age 22 was slashing .330 / .387 / .556 for a 144 OPS+, the next best hitter was Juan Uribe in a part-time role with a 112 OPS+. Tim Lincecum lead the way here winning the Cy Young and Matt Cain was following close behind as he came into his own. Lesser forms of Randy Johnson and Barry Zito were also in full effect here. Brian Wilson (not that one) was the save catcher, but the entire bullpen was terrific, Brandon Medders, Bob Howry and Jeremy Affeldt were all way way above average, with Affeldt’s ridonkulous 246 ERA+ leading the charge. Even a 19 year old Madison Bumgarner logged 10 innings. Definitely a deep pitching staff.

The defense of this team was characteristically strong finishing 10th in Defensive Runs Saved at 17 and 3rd in Defensive Efficiency. This team also had Bruce Bochy at the helm for all those who believe the manager can lift up the play of a rag tag group. The White Sox don’t have Bruce Bochy, that’s for sure.

So What Did We Learn??

I knew the math was against these teams with 5 out of 98 surpassing the .500 mark in a full season in 45 (well actually 42) seasons. I think the other thing that is at play is it is super hard to be this bad on offense, so maybe one hope is that the White Sox are a little better than we think and can clear this low bar. That requires a lot of things we as White Sox fans have learned NOT to bank on. But good defense, good bullpen and at least one top end pitcher can lead a team to surpass their menial expectations. It’s not likely to happen, but if it does, it will look something like these examples.

-BeefLoaf