Unfulfilled Expectations: Assessing the Weaknesses of the White Sox Offense

Baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. That's what America is supposed to be about on Independence Day. It was on this day, our forefathers escaped the shackles of a tyrannical monarchy to try and form a more perfect union. As White Sox fans, however, we are shackled by a baseball team that produces more heartache than joy, and 2023 has served as no exception.

Sitting at 37-49, it's all but fait accompli that the season will end without playoff baseball, and the once-promised "competitive window" is essentially slammed shut. Just a few short years ago, many of us believed we were entering a potential golden age of White Sox baseball. We had hoped that this team had built a core group that would be one of the most exciting offenses in the sport and a perennial postseason contender. Breaking news, these things failed to materialize.

Regrettably, we now confront the harsh reality that the aggressive dismantling that transpired after the 2016 season has largely fallen short due to an offense that never lived up to its potential. What was once anticipated as an offensive powerhouse has revealed itself to be nothing more than a disjointed collection of parts, lacking a unified vision.

Cracks In The Foundation

Coming into the season, there were many on the interwebs who believed a new, modern coaching staff would be the cure for all that ailed the Sox offense in 2022. I tried to caution many that this wasn't the case, but in many instances, I was summarily dismissed because of the false promise of underlying talent. That underlying talent on the roster has failed to materialize in a meaningful way, in some cases, due to poor health and in others due to spotty performance which has been all too familiar with this group.

New hitting coach, Jose Castro, was brought in from the Atlanta Braves, a team that in many ways embodies what we thought the Sox would be. The Braves are the very definition of a baseball powerhouse, and the hope was that Castro would bring the concepts and philosophies that have turned the Braves into the most destructive offense in the sport.   

Those things simply haven't happened. The Braves are a Major League-best 57-27 coming into play today, winners of 16 of their last 17 games, while the Sox don't appear to be playing the same sport. If you contrast the offensive rankings between the two clubs, it's clear to see why one is on its way to a 6th consecutive division title and the other has already started making vacation plans for early October.

The Braves are simply an offensive machine. They've hit 30 more home runs than the next closest team and slug 35 points higher than the number two team in the sport. When contrasting their offensive output with the White Sox, it's like comparing a high-level varsity team to their freshman counterparts.  

How much of this can really be placed at the feet of Jose Castro and Chris Johnson? That remains to be seen, as clearly, the Sox cannot match the talent of the Braves and thus makes one of the great Twitter debates raging in 2017 and 2018 seem like a sick joke. Whether Castro and Johnson have attempted to implement similar principles to what is working so well in Atlanta, can't be determined at this time. All we know is, they simply aren't in the same ballpark in terms of production.  

The offensive approach of the two clubs is still night and day. The Sox are a free-swinging team that doesn't put the bat on the ball with regularity. In contrast, the Braves are a team, while the middle of the pack in terms of walk rate, they are a club that swings with intent to inflict damage upon the baseball and they do so regularly.    

The Braves as a team rank 12th in the sport in BB%, while the Sox rank 29th ahead of only the lowly, Washington Nationals. The Sox are also bottom tier in the league in terms of K% ranking 20th, compared to the Braves who rank 7th in the sport. Simply put, the Braves don't go up to the plate looking to walk. They look for pitches to drive and when they get them, they don't miss. That is what we all hoped this Sox offense would be.  

Fundamentally, the Sox are a bad offense any way you slice it. They don't manage the strike zone well, swing too much, don't make enough contact, and don't impact the baseball frequently. Those are really bad traits for an offense to have in 2023.

Ball Go Far?

For years now, I've championed the phrase popularized by Joe Sheehan, formerly of Baseball Prospectus, "Ball go far, team go far." Generally speaking, this is true, as going back to the beginning of the live ball era, teams that out-homer their opponents win close to 3/4 of games played. We've seen numerous instances this season of the Sox outhomering their opponents only to come up on the short end of the stick.  

They completed a stretch a few weeks back, where 14 of the clubs' 15 home runs were of the solo variety. This is a major problem as we saw in the series against the Los Angeles Dodgers when the Sox led a game 4-0 thanks to 4 solo homers, only to lose the lead, and eventually the game, following a Chris Taylor grand slam.  

This is where the team's poor offensive approach manifests itself negatively for all to see. While the Sox rank in the top half of the league in terms of total homers, I was curious to see what percentage of them were of the solo variety due to this team being allergic to getting on base. I wasn't shocked when I saw the results.

The Sox rank T-4th in the league in terms of the percentage of home runs that are of the solo variety. A whopping 66% of the team's dingers come with nobody on base. The team is tied with the Tampa Bay Rays and their crosstown brethren on a percentage basis. The difference between the brand of ball being played in Chicago versus what is happening in Florida, is the Rays have a significantly higher volume of home runs. They are tied for second in the sport behind only the aforementioned Braves, with 131 home runs entering play today.  

That's a gap of 32 home runs compared to the Sox, so while the percentage may be equal this is where the volume comes heavily into play. You can get away with hitting close to 2/3 of your homers with nobody on base if you do it with a higher frequency than all but one team.  

So while "Ball go far, team go far" may ring true in many instances combining that with having runners on base is truly how you will win baseball games in 2023. Until the Sox are able to consistently have ducks on the pound, the solo dingers are the equivalent of empty calories from gorging yourself on hot dogs at a 4th of July party.  

Tough To Watch

The Sox offense is truly a chore to watch most nights. Far too often, you can get up to get something from your fridge and the inning will be over before you sit back down on your couch. It wasn't supposed to be this way.  

A baseball team looks like they're just going through the motions when they have a lethargic offense, and that is what we have with the White Sox. The offensive fireworks are too few and far between to make up for the mistakes they still make in other phases of the game.

This team dug itself an unescapable hole early in the season because the offense was the weakest link on the club. Little has changed in that regard over the season's next two months, thus we prepare for subtractions rather than additions in the coming weeks. Steve Stone talked about building a house with a solid foundation years ago on Twitter, and the team's offense is constructed from the flimsiest of building materials imaginable.