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:
| Player | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS+ | 80th Percentile OPS+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Victor Reyes | .256 | .296 | .399 | 91 | 110 |
| Adam Haseley | .233 | .291 | .366 | 81 | 100 |
| Romy Gonzalez | .215 | .270 | .377 | 77 | 99 |
| Yoelqui Céspedes | .211 | .273 | .352 | 72 | 91 |
| Jake Marisnick | .212 | .265 | .359 | 71 | 94 |
| Laz Rivera | .219 | .274 | .313 | 63 | 83 |
| Billy Hamilton | .179 | .240 | .245 | 36 | 54 |
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.
Dan Szymborski is a senior writer for FanGraphs and the developer of the ZiPS projection system. He was a writer for ESPN.com from 2010-2018, a regular guest on a number of radio shows and podcasts, and a voting BBWAA member. He also maintains a terrible Twitter account at @DSzymborski.
Every time somebody gets hurt it just exposes the flaws in their last two off seasons. It shouldn’t be a surprise. They played about 400 games from 2020 – 22 and only Abreu played in more than 300 of them.
I don’t know how they expect to be successful with no depth and pretty much all their good hitters having significant recent injury histories.
I think Jake Burger is deserving of at least a little analysis, even though ZiPS isn’t a fan of him. He’s got serious raw pop– his first PA of the season yesterday resulted in a career-high 116.5 EV laser double– and while he’s not a credible 3B, he should be fine at 1B/DH. As a Sox fan, 1B/DH is the only place I do feel good abt depth between Sheets and Burger. CF and the rotation terrifies me much more re plan Bs.
I would like to reiterate my Burger-stumping after today’s showing from him
Poor Eloy. Dude just always hurt. Such a shame; he was the prospect I liked most for years.
The White Sox payroll is $192M while their evenue, as reported by Forbes, was $276M so they’re spending a gargantuan 71% of revenue on payroll. Szymborski’s solution is always more free agent spending, but I don’t think it’s possible in the White Sox scenario. Basically, Rick Hahn did the right things in extending Moncada, Anderson, Jimenez, and Robert while they were rookies or 2nd-year players, but they’ve all turned out to be more injury prone than their young-star peer group. (At least I suspect that’s the case. I haven’t looked at the IL-time of young stars.)
This upcoming Free Agent season for the White Sox will be similarly tight. They’re probably at around $182M in committed salaries, picked-up options, Arbitration-salaries, Leury Garcia’s pay, and 5 minimum-salary guys. So they’ll have to find replacements for Grandal, Giolito, and Reynaldo Lopez in the bullpen for say, $15M in additional payroll. Colson Montgomery can play 2B and maybe they can trade Bryan Ramos for a C or SP? Else, move Moncada to the OF to clear 3B for Ramos?
That payroll number is for the 40-man or the entire org, minors included?
25-man. They’re at $192M currently according to Roster Resource.
And that doesn’t include an extension for Cease who becomes a FA after the 2024 season.
I’m at least a little dubious about the Revenue and Operating Income claims made by Forbes. Only the Braves situation really allows the general public to pull back the curtains a bit into the actual finances of teams, and even that includes some creative accounting.
Obviously, cash is king, but at a $2B valuation, you’d still think Jerry could open up the pocket book a bit wider.
If you add up tall Forbes-reported team revenue, it’s pretty close to what MLB reports (and MLBPA accepts) as league-wide revenue. I think it’s organic and doesn’t account for revenue-sharing, so the White Sox total revenue may be more like $325M. They’d still be at 59% of revenue for payroll, which is quite high.
They reached their limit with Benintendi and Andrus, so MORE wasn’t an option. The $2B worth is predicated on cash flows — reduce those to satisfy baseball journalists and the value goes down. Thats the problem with spending other people’s money: the spender isn’t very concerned with how it’s earned.
And where would it end? $12M more for Conforto would then beg another $12M for a 6th-starter, and then a backup CF, backup SS, backup Closer. The better answer for a $300M-ish revenue team is to spend instead on a larger scouting organization who can build up a farm system from talent worldwide and eliminate the reliance on FA to patch multiple holes with a budget that only allows for 1 hole to be patched.
A current dollar valuation is only slightly related to a team’s current year payroll.
At least Eloy is the most replaceable regular on this team given their love of DHs. The Yankees are missing their #2, #4, and #5 SPs right now. Imagine the White Sox with a rotation of Cease, Giolito, Davis Martin, Sean Burke, and Jesse Scholtens.
Not sure that rotation would have done any worse this week.
The problem is not that the White Sox haven’t spent money. The problem is that their once their pipeline of interesting young talent dried up (almost entirely consisting of more advanced prospects they got in trades) it really, really dried up.
Now typically speaking teams don’t get a lot out of the draft. The vast majority of draft picks are busts. Although it varies wildly from year to year, even first round picks tend to bust half the time. But typically teams do pick up 1-WAR players in the draft, the sorts of players that cushion the blow of a starter getting hurt. But whoever was in charge of the 2018-2020 drafts really dropped the ball because aside from Andrew Vaughn they didn’t get anyone.
It’s a shame this guy can’t stay in the lineup. He’s so fun to watch hit, ball just explodes off his bat like few in the game today