Grading the White Sox 2022

With the season fast approaching and most consequential free agents signed, it's time to look back on the White Sox offseason and grade their transactions. This will be my ninth annual installment of the series.

I’m going to provide an individual evaluation of every move involving major league players or major league commitments. I’m excluding minor league signings and waiver claims from the individual move assessments because even though some may have a some real impact, they generally boil down to either "no risk, but with upside" or "a little extra depth can't hurt." The next minor league signing that deserves an "F" will be the first. However, I will take these moves into account for the final grade.

Here are broad definitions I’ll use for the various letter grades. The rationale for the scale as a whole is that most moves that major league teams make are helpful to their goals and have a good deal of logic to them, so a particular transaction needs to be special in some way to push it above average.

For some orientation, I would consider a perfectly average move to be somewhere on the C+/C borderline.

Grade A – This includes moves that either are extremely significant in pushing a team toward its goals, involve "beating the market" (i.e. fleecing another team in trade, signing a key free agent at a very noticeable discount, etc.), or are otherwise brilliant for their fit or use of resources. For example, the trade of Chris Sale earned an "A" for both being the most critical trade of the rebuild and accomplishing the difficult task of attaining fair value for one of baseball's most valuable assets to ever be on the block.

Grade B – Like an "A" move, but less superlative. "B" moves represent above-average decisions and are generally remarkable in some way. The something-for-nothing swap of Zack Collins for Reese McGuire wound up in this range because the Sox clearly got the better end of the deal, even though it was a relatively minor transaction.

Grade C – This includes moves that are helpful to a team's goals, but relative to other moves, are not notable for their scale, brilliance, fit, or cost-effectiveness. They are generally reasonable decisions and preferable over doing nothing. The trade for Ivan Nova prior to the 2019 season is a good benchmark for this range.

Grade D – While not all-out blunders, Grade "D" moves are not obvious steps in the right direction. This section of the scale includes either moves with questionable strategic fit, moves with a difficult-to-accept risk/reward ratio, moves with preferable and seemingly feasible alternatives, or total nothingburgers. The acquisition of Nomar Mazara prior to the 2020 season fell into this range due to its inadequacy to address a position needing major attention.

Grade F – "F" moves are actively harmful to a team's goals, even if the degree of harm is small. The most prominent example of an "F" is non-tendering Tyler Flowers to sign Dioner Navarro, which would later demonstrate the cruel intersection of an awful thought process and unfortunate results.

Decisions to tender or non-tender a player, give a player the qualifying offer, and choosing whether to pick up a team option are binary decisions, so they’ll be evaluated on a pass/fail basis.

Let us begin.

The Harrison decision looked debatable until the White Sox eventually brought in Elvis Andrus.

Tendered contracts to:

Non-tendered:

Mendick got injured before his batting line could come back to earth, and the Sox have other options they want to explore in the infield. Engel may have been a casualty of the 2023 White Sox Leg Issues Epidemic; the Padres will try to figure out if that were the case. I’m convinced Jose Ruiz has incriminating information on a high-ranking White Sox officer, but with a base salary under $1 million, there's not much to complain about.

Grading a managerial hire is extremely difficult, unless there's a bunch of stuff obviously wrong with it. Grifol comes to the White Sox with no track record as a manager and with coaching experience only on some bad Kansas City Royals teams. I have no idea how he will do. What we can say is that the White Sox seemed to follow a real, actual process that led to them hiring someone outside of their immediate circle, presumably on their merits. That should make everyone feel more optimistic than whatever they did to find to find their previous three managers.

Based on how he's been sold, Grifol should bring energy, preparedness, analytics, and bilingual speaking abilities to the manager's chair, most of which were severely lacking under Tony La Russa. Time will tell whether inexperience will be a factor, but everything else about this hire has felt good. For a less insular, normal organization, picking a new manager might not rate among the more significant moves of the offseason, but for the White Sox — a team that doesn't make big signings and often shoots itself in the foot — it's easily the most important decision they made this winter.

Grade: B

This was a questionable signing from the outset, because it involved jumping the market to throw a large chunk of the budget at the team's fourth-most pressing need (behind two outfielders and a second baseman). Clevinger threw an uneven 114 innings for the Padres last season at diminished velocity and effectiveness after returning from Tommy John surgery, so $12 million is a lot of money for a player this risky, from each of the skill, injury, and character perspectives.

Of course, the character risk didn't take long to rear its ugly head, as it was revealed Clevinger has been under investigation by MLB for allegations of domestic violence and child abuse. No matter how the rest of this mess ultimately plays out, the White Sox would undo this signing in a heartbeat because it became a no-win scenario before Spring Training even began. When the buyer's remorse arrives this quickly and forcefully, there's not much gray area in evaluating the decision.

Grade: F

It is very sad for the White Sox organization that their franchise-record contract went to such a middling player, but that's not Benintendi's fault, nor does that mean it was a poor signing. The White Sox were starved for left-handed hitters, walks, and outfielders that could field their position, so Benintendi checks a lot of boxes. Plus, as Jim has analyzed, Guaranteed Rate Field could present a good opportunity for Benintendi to boost his power numbers.

Benintendi is a low-upside player as a left fielder whose single-season record for wRC+ sits at 123. He's also produced only two above-average seasons out of six in the major leagues. This means that this deal carries a good deal of risk without tremendous potential for reward. However, Benintendi's specific skillset is a perfect fit for the White Sox. It's rare for the team to properly identify their most pressing area of need and address it by signing an actual starting-caliber player, so what the heck. Let's give ’em an attaboy for this one.

Grade: B-

Andrus is an underwhelming solution to the gaping hole at second base, but that shouldn't undersell just how important it is that he's back. Or rather, just how important it is that they got *someone* who could insure the Sox against the bottom completely falling out in the middle infield. Romy Gonzalez, Leury Garcia, and Lenyn Sosa all showed last season why counting on any of them as Plan A could be disastrous, and Andrus’ presence is unlikely to keep them from getting their opportunities when it's warranted.

Andrus should be able to seamlessly slide over to shortstop when Tim Anderson misses time, and he probably still provides better defense at short than any other option the Sox have. The best-case scenario is that Andrus is right when he says he rediscovered the power in his swing, and the Sox get a plus bat at the keystone. However, even if he regresses to a wRC+ in the mid-70s, that's still better than what any second baseman other than Josh Harrison gave the Sox last season.

Grade: C

The White Sox came into the offseason in hopes of salvaging what they believed would be an extended run at contention. Their primary needs were multiple outfielders, a second baseman, and rotation depth. Unfortunately, none of their solutions have the upside one would like to see from a team allegedly competing for a championship.

Benintendi and Andrus are satisfactory hole-fillers that are likely to prevent their respective positions from becoming sinkholes, but are also tremendously unlikely to help compensate for deficiencies elsewhere on the roster. The Clevinger signing quickly went from a curious use of resources to, at best, a distraction that no one needs (and much, much worse than that if the allegations are verified). The White Sox didn't acquire a second legitimate outfielder, so untested rookie Oscar Colás has right field all to himself with no safety net.

Watching this team from 2017-2019 was often painful, but still fun because of the promise that the juice would be worth the squeeze. We were sold an extended run at contention, and thus far that has produced one division title and one season in which the team entered as a preseason AL Central favorite, which ended in an 81-81 disappointment. The team's trajectory has become concerning, and it's looking increasingly likely that the years of losing on purpose and resetting their payroll were in vain.

It's up to you whether you want to assign blame to what the White Sox did this past winter or their misguided decisions in past years. Maybe you want to hold Jerry Reinsdorf accountable for refusing to spend at the top of the market or forcing Tony La Russa on this team at a critical moment. Maybe you want to blame Rick Hahn for failing to build an effective player development pipeline or misallocating resources on a payroll that was actually on the high side in 2022.

No matter where you want to point the finger, the fact remains that the White Sox's multiyear strategy involved building a World Series contender in 2023. As things stood at the end of last season, the White Sox roster looked nothing like that, and nothing they did this winter substantially altered the trajectory. Their hopes are once again riding on great health and a bunch of guys hitting their 90th percentile projections for performance, which has more or less been the team's organizational strategy for decades. That plan of attack got them to their goal in 2005, but it's also the reason they haven't come close since.

Offseason Grade: D-