The Power Position Problem

As I’m writing this, the White Sox are unsurprisingly dead last in runs per game at what we’ll call a limp 3.04. I don’t know why I even mention “as I’m writing this”, since there are only 20 games left and the next closest terrible team is Miami at 3.76. I won’t even bother calculating what they’d need to do to catch them, but I can assure you they won’t.

The more important question is: why is this offense so terrible? There are plenty of places to put the blame including Luis Robert’s poor hitting performance. But what I want to look at today is the normal power positions of designated hitter, first base, and left field.

I am focusing on those, because the Chris Getz “defense first” philosophy should not impact these. And they have not prioritized defense at first base or in left field. So these should be your sluggers. But they absolutely are not.

Left Field

Andrew Benintendi has had a bad year. There is no denying this. He’s a negative WAR player and his OPS is sub .700. The first half of his year greatly contributed to tire fire that this season is. However, his second half has been pretty good. Post All-Star break, he has a .815 OPS in a short sample of 43 games. He’s also very locked in with the size of his contract. Perhaps you find a suitor in the off-season that gives you nothing and eats the money, but more than likely he’s here next year and is one of the highest paid White Sox. Which means I need Beni to be at least a 100 OPS+ next year more than most of White Sox Twitter needs to get laid. I’m gonna pray on this one.

DH/1B

Eloy, when on the field, was mostly on the struggle bus this year. His glorious .642 OPS and absolute lack of position were no help to the White Sox. That said, he’s gone and much like your ex-girlfriend, already fucking someone else. So forget about that.

Let’s talk Gavin Sheets and Andrew Vaughn. I wrote earlier in the year that while Eloy was hurt, they should give Gavin the plate appearances and get a really good look at what he truly is. And we found out, collectively, that he probably should not be on the 26 man roster most of the season. Now, I’ve heard like 25 times during this season that he’s on a heater. Yet he somehow still only has an OPS of .677? How is that possible? If you’re gonna be a 1B/DH, you cannot have 8 HR in 126 games. Just ain’t happening, unless you get on base at like a .450 clip.

Vaughn is similar. You hear that he’s got it going now or he’s figuring it out. The sub-par production looks pretty evenly spread over each half of the season to me. Only 16 HR out of him and it’s September. That’s a combined 24 HR out of these two guys and that’s the 1B/DH combo. To put that in perspective, earlier I mentioned Miami having a terrible offense, their 1B has 25 HR by himself. You might remember him.

Both Vaughn (92) and Sheets (93) are in the sub 100 OPS+ range. This against league average, not against their position. When looking at players this year that have played at least 40 games at one of those positions, they ain’t even on the first page. They rank 53rd and 55th. These positions expect production at the plate and they just simply do not provide it.

All that said, both Vaughn and Sheets are under team control next year. So what do you do assuming they’re not gonna cycle on some PEDs and produce like late ’90s fringe players? It’s not that simple, considering the assumed low payroll the Sox will have. But in any scenario, they need to bring in new players at those positions to, at the very least, compete for the jobs. It’s not impossible to find a reasonably priced player that can exceed what these guys are doing. The Twins are paying 38 year old Carlos Santana $5.25M to give them a 108 OPS+ at the same spots. There are likely some bat first catcher options you can bring in that will spend time at DH. There are options, not to mention both Vaughn and Sheets should have minor league options still available next year. So you don’t even have to cut them if you want that one thing the White Sox never have: depth.

-Chorizy-E