White Sox Depth Is Tested With Jiménez Injury

The White Sox lost a good chunk of the best parts of their starting lineup to the injured list in 2022. Indeed, it was one of the main reasons the team fell to a .500 record after winning 93 games the year prior. So when Eloy Jiménez was placed on the 10-day IL with a strained hamstring just five games into the 2023 season, it was an unwelcome reminder of both the team’s problems last year and their limited depth in the present.

Jiménez, who was one of the two main prospects acquired from the Cubs in the 2017 José Quintana trade (Dylan Cease was the other), has spent a great deal of time on the shelf since 2020. After an encouraging 138 wRC+ in the COVID-shortened season, he tore a pectoral tendon during spring training in 2021. It required surgery and kept him out until the end of July; last season’s early injury, a torn hamstring tendon, also required surgery. Still, Jiménez was able to come back more quickly than the year before, and his .305/.372/.523 line after returning was one of the team’s highlights over the second half of the season.

Fortunately, this injury does not appear to be on the same level as either of the other two. The strained hamstring, resulting from running the bases in a game against the Giants, is not the same one that required surgery last spring. There has been no talk of surgery, and the team seems relatively optimistic, floating two to three weeks as the timeframe for his return. Jake Burger was called up from Triple-A Charlotte to take Jiménez’s place on the roster.

Eloy Jiménez said he played catch and ran today. He added that if he were available, he would be ready to pinch hit. He is not available, but Pedro Grifol said they’ll be reviewing his day to day once his minimum 10 days on the IL are up.

— James Fegan (@JRFegan) April 6, 2023

A relatively quick return for the hitter with the best power upside on your roster would be good news for any organization, but it’s especially crucial for the White Sox. The team lost a big bat this offseason in the form of longtime first baseman José Abreu, and his skill set isn’t one that Andrew Benintendi can’t easily replace. A healthier Jiménez, playing 140 games a year, is a crucial part of Chicago’s offensive plans, and trying to keep him healthy and available is a big reason they finally made him the regular DH (Jiménez prefers playing the outfield).

One of the major reasons ZiPS was so down on the White Sox entering the season wasn’t because it didn’t like the starting lineup, but because of what it expected to happen if the team started losing players to injury. Gavin Sheets is an adequate enough hitter — his respectable ZiPS wRC+ of 103 is actually the most pessimistic of the projection systems. The problem is that Sheets, in addition to having limited defensive value, is basically the fallback for nearly half the starting lineup. At the more offense-forward positions, the upper minors are practically empty of anyone with any real upside for the organization. Yoelqui Céspedes is the only player even close to that status, and Charlotte’s outfield is basically all minor league free agents pushing 30.

Complicating matters in the event of a more serious Jiménez injury is that the White Sox are already banking on Oscar Colás working out immediately. While his first season in the United States was successful, ZiPS only has his minor league translation for 2022 at .265/.312/.418 due to age and the fact that basically everyone hit in the minors the last couple years; a mailbox might put up a .750 OPS in the Pacific Coast League. Considering Colás only has a single season stateside and only got the slightest taste in Triple-A, there’s enough risk involved that the projection systems are far from sold. Our Depth Charts only project him for 0.8 WAR over the rest of the season. ZiPS, the middle projection system in terms of Colás optimism, only gives him a 15% chance at an OPS+ of 110 this year, with a one-in-three shot of finishing below replacement level.

As I noted above, after Sheets, the offensive options for outfielders or designated hitters become bleak very quickly. Here are some basic projections for the remaining plausible options:

Not a single one of these players projects to either get on base at a .300 clip or slug .400. And this was reflected in the ZiPS sims. In the simulations where more than one of Jiménez, Benintendi, or Andrew Vaughn missed significant playing time, Chicago’s offense dropped like a rock into the bottom quarter of the league. The balanced schedule’s slightly tougher slate of opponents this year wrings out another win or two from the team in the Wild Card race.

A better plan this offseason — one that would have left the Sox less susceptible to any injuries or underperformance, and wouldn’t have required spending hundreds of millions dollars that I doubt anyone could pry away from owner Jerry Reinsdorf — would have been to aggressively go after someone like Michael Conforto or Mitch Haniger, who are both better fits at Guaranteed Rate Field than Oracle Park. That would have given Colás time to develop at Triple-A while still providing depth for the organization so the team wouldn’t have to rely on Sheets as the all-purpose Plan B. Instead, Benintendi was the club’s only significant offensive signing (apologies to Elvis Andrus and Hanser Alberto), leaving much of the team’s hopes wrapped up in the idea that we can just forget about the 2022 season.

The White Sox appear to have dodged a bullet here with Jiménez’s injury, which isn’t serious enough to send the red sirens blazing. But over the course of the season there will be plenty of opportunities for nastier surprises, and because of the team’s decisions over the last year, the organization will be hard-pressed to deal with those problems.