The White Sox provided reporters with some updates on various injured players and their paths to rejoining the club, with James Fegan of The Athletic among those to relay the information (Twitter links). The ones closest to return are infielders Tim Anderson and Hanser Alberto, as they will be starting rehab assignments with Triple-A Charlotte tomorrow.
Anderson, 30 in June, has been on the injured list since April 11 due to a knee sprain. He was initially estimated to miss between two and four weeks, so it’s still possible for him to come back in that time frame. One of the club’s better players, his absence has corresponded with a dreadful downward slide in the standings. The Sox were 5-6 when he hit the shelf but have gone just 2-12 since, now sporting a record of 7-18.
The club is obviously better when Anderson is a part of it. Dating back to the start of 2019, he has 51 home runs and 58 stolen bases. His .317/.346/.471 batting line in that time amounts to a wRC+ of 122. Any club would be worse off when subtracting that kind of production, but his replacements have fared quite poorly. With him out of action, Elvis Andrus has become the everyday shortstop, but he’s hitting just .195/.260/.230 on the year for a wRC+ of 37. The second base position, which was previously covered by Andrus, has been mostly split between Romy González and Lenyn Sosa in that time. González is currently hitting .129/.129/.129 for a wRC+ of -39 while Sosa’s line is .122/.143/.220, -8 wRC+.
The tremendous drop-off from Anderson’s typical production to those numbers has surely played a role in the club’s recent struggles, making his imminent return fantastic news for the club. He’s been floated as a speculative trade candidate this summer if they fail to return to contention, given he’s in the final guaranteed season of his contract. However, the club has an affordable $14MM option for 2024 with a $1MM buyout.
There’s also good news in the return of Albero, on the IL with a quad strain, though he’s more of a role player. His career batting line of .271/.293/.380 translates to a wRC+ of 77, which isn’t terribly exciting but would still mean the club would have options to turn to when others are struggling.
Just slightly behind those two is left-hander Garrett Crochet, who missed all of last year due to undergoing Tommy John surgery in April. He’s getting a check-up in Chicago but would be approved for his own rehab assignment if everything looks good there. The southpaw has a career 2.54 ERA in 60 1/3 innings, striking out 29% of batters faced against a 10.7% walk rate. Getting him back in the bullpen would surely give the club a nice boost back there.
Another boost for the bullpen could be coming as right-hander Liam Hendriks, who has missed all of this season so far while undergoing treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, though he recently shared the good news that he’s been declared cancer free. He’s just slightly behind Crochet, as he will report to Chicago for his own pre-rehab checkup next week. He’s become one of the most dominant relievers in baseball in recent years, racking up 119 saves in the previous four seasons with a 2.26 ERA and 38.8% strikeout rate in that time.
While it’s great that those four players are making progress towards their respective returns, there’s one bit of news that’s less encouraging, per Fegan. Third baseman Yoán Moncada, who was been on the injured list for about two weeks due to back tightness, has been diagnosed with a protruding disc that is touching a nerve and causing pain in his glutes. While the issue is supposedly improving, Moncada still won’t be starting a rehab assignment during the current eight-game homestand that begins tonight. General manager Rick Hahn said that these issues don’t require offseason surgery about 80% of the time.
That’s surely not ideal information since Moncada’s IL placement originally seemed to be fairly precautionary. There was a period of a few days where it seemed he and the club were hoping to avoid an IL stint altogether but it’s now clearly more serious than initially thought. More updates will surely be forthcoming but it doesn’t seem like he’s close to a return and future surgery isn’t completely off the table.
Moncada has been fairly hot-and-cold in his career but was on a heater this year before the injury popped up, hitting .308/.325/.564 through his first nine games. Thankfully, his absence hasn’t created as much of a hole in the lineup as Anderson’s has, as Jake Burger has filled in with a .213/.309/.596 showing. Still, it’s a discouraging update on a key member of the core for a club that was held back by significant injuries last year and has been battling them again this year. His contract runs through 2024 with a $25MM option for 2025 that has a $5MM buyout.
I wonder if Jake Burger is related to former ML pitcher/outfielder Pete Fries?
They’re half-brothers, and Master Shake is their dad.
Master Shake might be too busy deep-frying a whole cow and looking to tip that giant vat of oil.
I’ll have Phil Coke.
No, but he’s related to actor Jon Hamm.
Pete’s A distant cousin of former Expo legend Pepe Frias
Random baseball musing… but I think the Sox get a big boost when Hendriks returns and maybe start pushing for a Wildcard berth.
Crochet’s return should establish the Sox ans a close knit club.
Oh look, Afghan and made another pun comment! No really, I’m in stitches here. You really have sewn that last comment close to the vest, and I like it.
Oh, stop needling him.
Doily noted.
For 2 years I’ve been writing how bad this team is – a rebuild that wasn’t, the low baseball IQ, the awful fundamental play, a group of guys playing for their stats and salaries, etc.
I actually thought the Sox might fight with the Guardians for the ALC title this year (the ALC is not only the worst division in MLB, they’re the worst by a lot).
This team is seriously bad. So much for Tony Larussa being the problem. It keeps coming back to owner Jerry Reinsdorf and his loyalty to Kenny Williams and Rick Hahn. They keep putting out teams that simply don’t know how to play baseball. Ozzie not only saved their hide, he won them a championship….all the while arguing with them to bring him in the ballplayers that knew how to play winning baseball.
White Sox fans should hire a crackerjack consumer lawyer to sue the franchise for selling a defective product year-after-year.
There’s a better chance that the minority owners will get together and vote out Jerry as the managing owner.
And the one I love that the entire national baseball media states in unison….
“They have so much talent”.
No one worth their salt that has played the game or scouted it feels that way.
AJ Pollock opting out of his contract after posting a 0.4 WAR just to get out of Chicago tells me all I need to know about the current state of that franchise.
The White Sox spend more time and energy on ‘hyping’ their young players and draftees, than they spend on developing those players.
That’s why so many of them are rushed, continually up to the majors. They’ve been doing this for years.
@Samuel: For the most part, I agree with your assessment. However, the blame for the team’s failure to provide winning players and constructing a strong farm system belongs to Reinsdorf. He refuses to provide his GM with enough money to build a contender. He’s tied Hahn’s hands so that all of his signings (with the exception of Benintendi) this off-season were players who weren’t good enough to make teams like Washington, Oakland and other rebuilding teams to minor league contracts. Throw in a bunch of dfa’s and players past their prime and you have a major league team with no depth and a minor league system that will be of no help to the major league team. These are not players to develop a strong farm system with. These are the only player’s Hahn could sign thanks to Reinsdorf desire not to put any meaningful money into the team. He’s done the same thing with the Bulls. Hiring TLR turned a promising team into one with no enthusiasm or desire to win. In 2017 the Sox started a five year rebuild. With Ricky Renteria as manager and Hahn and Williams allowed to do their jobs, the Sox made it to the PO in three years. But Reinsdorf decided Renteria wasn’t the guy to take the team to the next level, which he had already done in record time. TLR rode his coattails to the PO in 2021 amidst several disasterous decisions. By the time TLR left, he had completely demoralized the team Between him and Reinsdorf we now have the mess that are the White Sox. The board absolutely has to get rid of him or the Sox will be the worst team in bb for the foreseeable future.
It’s been really hard to watch the White Sox so far. Little glimpses of hope here and there. Hopefully with Liam Tim coming back, we get a little fire!
Gwynning:Hendriks return is probably the least significant since he doesn’t have any games to save.
Probably getting ready for the fire sale in June!
You’re right, the sell off probably starts in June. Cease has the most value. Probably could get 2 top-50 ish prospects plus. Baltimore has the need and the prospects, Dodgers, Rays and Mets might as well. Anderson a top-100 prospect plus. Hendricks, if the same guy as before, a top-100 plus. Giolito gets a couple high upside A/A+ prospects. Sox would need to eat some salary, but I’m guessing a team would take a chance that a change of scenery would help Lynn. Same with Grandal. Everyone else is available, you just have to hope they get in track before the deadline so there is value – Graveman, Lopez, Kelly, Crichet, Kopech.
This roster is dog water.
That window of contention didn’t last long. Hopefully neither will Kenny Williams job.
Where’s Stoney been on their broadcasts. A pattern is coming into focus – Stoney gets on all the airwaves in Chicago prior, and early in each season and pumps the White Sox chances, non stop. Oh he sells his supposed ‘insight’ as well.
But then . . . the season starts, and reality sets in. Then Stoney disappears from broadcasts. As it is impossible to make up enough excuses to cover up, this mess of an organization.
Stoney tries to look at the positives but is honest when the team plays as bad as the Sox are playing. Him and Ozzie are the only ones you can trust to tell the truth. The reason Stone isn’t always on the broadcasts is that he takes some time off during the season. He’s in his mid-70s and owns restaurants in Arizona which he has to take care of.
That and I assume they’re grooming Gordon to take over when Stone decides to retire. I’m guessing it won’t be long.
I’d rather have someone without vocal cords do color commentary than Beckham. He never shuts his mouth and amazingly finds a similarity to his illustrious career to everything that happens in a game. Stoney and Benetti were voted the best broadcast team in bb last year. Stone and Ozzie are the best analysts in the game. They tell the truth.
I like Stone. I believe part of the job of an announcer (and reporter) is to educate the audience, not be a cheerleader. Stone educates. But reality is, unfortunately, he’s nearing the end.
@avenger: I agree that Beckham is absolutely terrible and that he never shuts up. But to me, Benetti never shuts up either.
Benetti is more concerned – – and in tune, to what food is being eaten, or who is wearing crazy clothes in the stands, than he is about what’s going on in the game.
Then Benetti never stops asking dumb questions, like “Why did the P throw a fastball on the first pitch “.
@Dogbone: I think Benetti’s observations during a game are boring, but so are the Sox. While I think he can find better ways to fill time, part of it is the nature of the game. You wouldn’t hear an NHL announcer say in the middle of a power play “oh, there’s my mailman, the guy in the green sweater, sitting next to the guy in baggy pants-What was that? A goal? Oops!”
@Dogbone – Benetti gets Beckham talking about his career. Like that other nite in Toronto, asking Beckham to name the 15 guys he got a hit off of when he played for the Sox in Toronto. Or may favorite, “Tell us about your minor league career Gordon, cause it’s interesting.” I’ve got a laundry list if issues with Benetti, not a fan.
I doubt Crochet and Hendriks are back before June. Then, I had highly doubt that you put them on the mound with a full workload. Even then, how in the world do 2 relievers help a starting staff that can not go further than 5 innings and has a 5.30 ERA, that’s greatly helped by Cease’s 2.73.
Then you have the issue with an offense that has a .280 OBP.
It isn’t 2-3 players that turn this sinking ship around… 2 relievers giving them a boost., Who you crapp’in.
Clubhouse/motivation factor. I could be wrong, of course, but I think some of those intangible things go a long way to helping a club rebound and/or resuscitate a playoff drive.
I could be wrong as well, but this team feels a lot like last year. Hendriks, Anderson and Abreu were in the clubhouse all year. This doesn’t feel like a team capable of making a playoff run. As mentioned by drasco above, there’s a reason Pollack opted out of a gauranteed $13M with an open spot in RF.
You’re just proving to be a regular Ace_hole, huh?
Maybe next he will claim to be the younger generations’ version of Lindsey Graham.
That doesn’t make any sense.
you have to cut him some slack he really only has the 2 troll moves – he’s trying to expand his repertoire so people don’t get bored of him and he loses the attention he craves. When he doesn’t try to troll he has the occasional decent comment.
I’m going to give my best OzzyMan impersonation and say “yeah nah, yeah” and completely disagree, riffraff. I’ve never seen any meaningful insight or humor from Ace_hole and his latest antics have invoked my 2nd ever block. He brings nothing to the discussion, and my life is for the better. 🙂
The good: Jake Burger is actually underperforming his expected stats quite a bit. BA of .213 vs. an xBA of .283. SLG of .596 vs. xSLG of .718, and currently an xwOBA of .447, which is elite.
The bad news: almost every other hitter is overperforming, even if they’re doing bad. Moncada advanced metrics show he’s due for significant regression. Tim Anderson is the only one hitting about the way he should (will help when he’s back). Everyone else just looks awful. Sheets, Grandal, Benni… they’re all overperforming right now.
It’s obviously still a fairly small sample size, and I imagine the morale in the clubhouse is dreadful. But not much to be excited about if you’re a believer in the advanced numbers.
I have access to the advanced advance numbers. After adding a bunch of plusses to meaningful stats like ERA and a tiny “f” before the ever useless WAR, I see that Grandal’s overachievement on offense will level out while his defense will continue be horrendous, yet the sign will re-sign him to a club-record $76m contract. Anderson’s metrics will fall to the bottom 75% percentile and Moncada will come back wearing a truss and become AL MVP. So all you pitchers out there, you now have a glimpse of the future thanks to the never ending world of idiotic analytics.
mostlytoasty;
Statistics – especially offensive statistics – are great in rotisserie league. But see, in MLB they play on a field. And there’s a lot of things that public statistics don’t account for.
The White Sox have been playing the sloppiest baseball in MLB since Ozzie left. But their position players have great stats (as you noted) and the pitchers throw real, real hard and K a lot of guys – so they’ll get good money in arbitration as well as with contract extensions (and how about that contract Mike Clevinger got!).
Unfortunately, most fans of a baseball team want it to win games – they couldn’t care less about the salaries their players make.
If Hahn believes that 80% of players with protruding discs in their back don’t require surgery then he must be a Trumper to believe that crap. Myself with that same problem although probably much more serious, can tell you something. Not only is that pain excruciating, but it causes numbness down to your feet effecting balance and also a huge decline in muscle strength. If a guy with an already incredible fitness level has this injury and Hahn thinks he can rehab it. Then I’d bet the same amount on that as I would of seeing Enron bounce back!
I too have a similar issue with my back. Nerve pain can be agonizing. Much like watching the Sox play lately.
So hard being a fan of this team.
bigpooky;
Based on what he produces Hahn long ago proved that he’s not a “Trumper”.
Man. This comment is one of the most incoherent grammatical messes I’ve seen in a while. I’m not even sure what all of it is supposed to mean so good job in a sense.
Nice win against Brighton. Relegation-saving, perhaps.
Absolutely crucial.
eh – not great ..but at least its something new from you so I’ll give you a thumbs up
What? NEVER feed the trolls!
Michael X?
No positive insight from Aaron Sapoznik? Haven’t seen him post in any Sox articles on here lately.
He and Priggs have been missing for a long, long time. I hope they are OK. Pretty solid posters.
I wouldn’t put them firmly in this category, but all the Sox “fans” that were on here in 2021 only because that was the year the were better than the Cubs have disappeared as well.
Yeah, last I saw him, he was trying to convince everyone how great the Sox bullpen would be.
I think Aaron has changed his user name to Mr MacPhisto.
Gonna lose a hundly and they’re not supposed to be in a “rebuild “ lol wake me up when they score a run
They’ve scored 2! (…but given up 8)
Edit: 12*
They scored 5 and Benetti was smelling comeback all the way. He’s such an insightful announcer.
Moncada, a pain in the glutes… couldn’t have said it better myself.
We sat through 2017-2020 hoping for something good. Then the Madrigal trade happened and the team has only gone downward since.
They spent too early and poorly. The stars and scrubs roster construction doesn’t work real well when you have so many injury prone players.
I was thinking the same thing today. Instead of waiting for their young guys to mature and see how they’d developed, they put the foot on the gas and went and got a veterans to fill in the roster.
I mentioned this at the time of a lot of these signings, but fans never want to take a team’s budget into consideration when discussing whether a free agent signing is good or not. Unless you’re the Mets, you also have to consider if the money could have been better spent upgrading other spots.
Injury prone is apparently expressed in factors of ten LOL. If prone is a standard broken leg then this is Ventura’s ankle.
Careful. MLB and the wokes will call you a racist.
LOL this clown thinks that Tim Anderson is some sort of savior for the White Sox. Laughably bad
I would argue that he’s part of the problem.
The Sox would have to win at Rays current clip to climb back in. Great starts are essential look at Yanks last year. No guarantee but it keeps you in the ballpark.
When TA , Moncada get back trade them for more talent. No chance of going anywhere with them now
The other nite Frank Thomas did the post game show and actually said “Everyone needs to relax, they’re 3-4 against the 2 teams that were in the WS last year.” Which is awful on so many levels. He followed that up by saying “You don’t win the WS in April.” Of course he didn’t finish that adage with, “but you certainly can lose it”
The countdown is officially underway—-only 63 days until the Sox travel to Oakland.
Time to start paying players by games played or available to play.
The player’s union has just priced baseball out of its own market. Free agency and bargaining agreements are counterproductive. It shortens careers and promotes pricey inexperience and marginal performance. The price of injuries is more than the real production. No one on the field will complain though. Make the big league for a few years, instant millionaires.
Anderson thrilled his return is imminent. It seems like months since he was tossed for saying the magic word, but it’s only been a few weeks. I’ll make a bold prediction that he’ll outdo himself this year – 3 more ejections before all is said and done in 2023.