2022 ZiPS Projections: Chicago White Sox

After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago White Sox.

Batters

The White Sox offense projects similarly to how it did prior to the 2021 season, which is good news for the team considering how easily they made the playoffs. But that also means the fundamental problems in the offense remain, with an additional issue compared to last year. ZiPS may be underestimating Eloy Jiménez — it’s always hard to evaluate players coming back from injury — but we can’t pretend that there isn’t some risk involved there. The remaining outfield position and DH are thornier concerns, and ZiPS is more pessimistic here than Steamer is. This is not a popular opinion, but if the White Sox plan to use Andrew Vaughn like our depth charts indicate they will, I really hope they just let him crush Triple-A pitching for a few months rather than juggling him with Gavin Sheets and Adam Engel. The basic problem is that though Vaughn was deservedly a terrific prospect, and 2020’s lost season of course did him no favors, he still doesn’t have a professional season in line with what you would expect from a top first base prospect.

ZiPS did not see huge upside remaining for Nick Madrigal given how low his power ceiling is, but him being missing here is a loss, regardless of whether you think picking up Craig Kimbrel was worth the exchange. Danny Mendick is an adequate enough stopgap, but isn’t terribly exciting, and the computer is not sold on Romy Gonzalez, at least, not yet. The Sox do have some breathing room in the division, but like Vaughn, I would like them to see how Gonzalez does in Triple-A and take the less risky path here. I was disappointed that the team didn’t pick up César Hernández’s option, even though he didn’t play particularly well in Chicago.

Tim Anderson, Yoán Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, and Luis Robert are the big playoff pushers here. You may not be familiar with Grandal’s top comp, but Duke Sims is an interesting one. Grandal is the better player, but Sims had a nice little peak in his late 20s until he got supplanted by Ray Fosse (he had already been traded before Fosse’s famous collision with Pete Rose).

Pitchers

There are few complaints about the rotation here. I think they could still use another arm, but four of the five likely starters for the Sox have a projected ERA+ north of 110. The only exception is Dallas Keuchel, but ZiPS sees him having a bounce-back season and at least eating innings for the team; a 99 ERA+ would be an excellent result for a team’s fifth starter. The only thing really keeping Kopech down is that I’m still not totally convinced about his 2022 role, even though I think logic dictates he’s in the rotation, though possibly with more care than his rotation-mates. Reynaldo López is just fine to have around as a spare starter, and if the Sox are only willing to spend so much money this offseason, you can make the argument that a hitter is the greater need, even assuming that Carlos Rodón does not return to the team. ZiPS has a certain fascination with Johan Dominguez as worthy of some mop-up duty, but I’m skeptical until he does it in the high minors.

Don’t be alarmed by Dylan Cease’s top comp of Bobby Witt. This comparison is from the era when it looked like Witt had figured things out. That era turned out to be rather short-lived, but that doesn’t mean that will be the case for Cease.

The bullpen is deep and though Craig Kimbrel ranks highly in the group, his projection is weak enough to make me wonder if picking up his option was a good idea from the point of view of a contender; Chicago may look to trade him this winter. Jimmy Cordero, outrighted recently, is coming off Tommy John surgery and feels like the kind of reliever who could pop up in August with the Dodgers or Rays or Brewers.

One pedantic note for 2022: For the WAR graphic, I’m using FanGraphs’ depth charts playing time, not the playing time ZiPS spits out, so there will be occasional differences in WAR totals.

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned, players who will miss 2022 due to injury, and players who were released in 2021. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a big band orchestra that only plays nu-metal versions of baroque cantatas, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.36, similar to the post-June substance-enforcement environment.

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR. ZiPS is assuming that the designated hitter will continue in force in 2022.

ZiPS is agnostic about future playing time by design. For more information about ZiPS, please refer to this article, or get angry at Dan on Twitter.