The White Sox Offense is BAD, but it’s Doing This One Thing Well That We Have Wanted for a LONG TIME!
It’s Tuesday Night and the White Sox are just about to start playing after a nearly 2 hour rain delay in Cincy. I get near daily reminders from my good friend Polish w Xtra Onions about the White Sox 2025 futility.
The poor play is mostly offensive futility. The White Sox MLB rankings…..29th in wRC+ 76, 30th in Batting Average .214, 30th in Slugging .321….however, they are doing something well that they rarely do well.
The White Sox, despite being horrible at everything else on offense, are 11th in walk rate. WOW! The walkless White Sox has been a problem for about as long as I can remember. See below the 15 year track record of Jerry’s kids.
Other than what now looks like the miracle division winner of 2021, that featured an eye popping 23.2% walk rate from Yasmani Grandal, 13.6% from Yoan Moncada and damn near all of the one year free agent pick ups walking more than a traditional White Sox, this is a giant outlier. Even decent White Sox teams like 2010, 2012, 2020 and 2022 were absolutely allergic to taking ball four. So what exactly is happening here?
Who is drawing all of these walks?
The mix of White Sox that are pushing up this walk rate is a damn fun one….
Interesting crew, Luis Robert Jr. appears to be the only incumbent who is greatly benefiting from a potential approach change of the Ryan Fuller era (unfortunately, the batting average and slugging are still suffering). Many of the high walk crew in the snap shot are either trade acquisitions in Matt Thaiss and Miguel Vargas, waiver bait in Nick Maton and Joshua Palacios, or rookies like Chase Meidroth and Edgar Quero. The smattering does reek of a NEW organizational focus on SWING DECISIONS.
Swing Decisions can quickly be summed up below, but you the baseball fan knows this as sharpening up the most primitive of baseball skills, but probably using technology to it’s logical conclusion.
This is an early bud that is popping up from the foundational rebuild that Chris Getz and crew are undertaking. It’s a small thing, and it’s not turning into enough offense, yet, but it’s there. It’s real. If you want some hope…
-BeefLoaf
About The Author
beefloaf108
Low information White Sox Fan. Big Feet Energy ORIGINAL 108er Like Whore 2019 Opening Day #SoxMath WINNAR Mediocrity Personified