The 2022 Chicago White Sox had a litany of issues – that’s why they’re sitting on the couch during the postseason. One of those issues was that the Pale Hose were playing too many natural first basemen or designated hitters (DH) out of position.
If you want to have the bats of José Abreu, Eloy Jiménez, Andrew Vaughn, and Gavin Sheets all in the lineup, then someone, or two, needs to play in the outfield. The issue is that these players are not outfielders and the team suffers in one way or another.
The White Sox front office has a lot of soul-searching to do this off-season. One situation they need to ponder is who is going to be the team’s primary first baseman and DH. Between roster construction and working with the eventual new manager, this organization needs to figure out how to best optimize the roster.
Part of the logjam might already have been figured out as Bob Nightengale of USA Today has reported the Sox will not re-sign their legacy first basemen José Abreu. Though nothing is official as of the posting of this article, it’s still worth exploring all possible scenarios. Further, if 2022 was the last time Abreu plays for the Southside, this will help explain why the front office made that decision.
José Abreu
Nik Gaur recently wrote a tremendous send-off to José Abreu for Sox on 35th. Abreu won AL ROY while on the Southside in 2014 and won the AL MVP in 2020. He has been nothing but incredible both on the field and in the clubhouse. The Cuban slugger had the best fWAR among AL first basemen last season and despite a down power year, still slashed .304/.378/.446, good for a wRC+ of 137.
Yet, despite all of the accolades and all of the great memories White Sox fans have had with José Abreu, now is probably the time to move on. Abreu will be 36 heading into the 2023 season. Maybe he’ll still produce next year, but at some point, his numbers will fade. In fact, 2022 already saw a significant decrease in his home runs totals – he hit 15 last season after hitting 30 the year before.
Even if José Abreu is like Tom Brady and defies Father Time, spending additional payroll on him and with the current roster construction doesn’t make a lot of sense. Without Abreu, Andrew Vaughn can move to first base and Eloy can move to DH. That leaves the outfield wide open for actual outfielders. Regardless of whether AJ Pollock exercises his 2023 player option or not, the White Sox can use whatever money they were going to pay Abreu to pay a left-handed, righty-hitting corner outfielder. This is a position of true need for the Sox that better helps the team the way it is currently constructed.
José Abreu’s contract with the White Sox expired after the 2022 season ended. Compare that to Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets who are still under team control for the next handful of years, and Eloy Jiménez, who signed a back-loaded contract that paid him out of his arbitration years, and who will not be a free agent until 2027. With much of the 2020 and 2021 core still under team control or under contract with the White Sox for years to come, letting José Abreu walk and reallocating any money they would have put toward him into other resources makes a lot of sense.
Emotionally, the loss of Abreu will be devastating. Sports go beyond numbers in a box score. But if you love something, let it go.
Andrew Vaughn
Reports are that the Sox are willing to let everyone but Dylan Cease and Andrew Vaughn go via trade and that they will not re-sign Jose Abreu. But, what if they did re-sign Abreu and did trade Andrew Vaughn? Abreu will still play first, Eloy would still DH full time, and that would still solve the “too many first basemen in the outfield” problem. Further, the Sox would be able to help their roster with assets they receive from trading the former Berkley product.
After showing flashes of excellence in 2021, 2022 was truly Andrew Vaughn’s breakout season. I wrote about it for Sox on 35th, and also made the argument he should have been an All-Star. AV cooled a bit in the past couple of months but still ended up slashing .271/.321/.429, with a club-leading 17 HRs, good for a wRC+ of 113. However, what’s worse is that he finished the season with a negative fWAR (-0.4). Despite Vaughn’s above-average offense, his outfield defense was downright atrocious. Out of 266 outfielders ranked, Andrew Vaughn was the absolute worst defender in 2022, pursuant to Baseball Savant. Andrew Vaughn’s poor defense is part of the reason the Sox had a logjam last season.
Andrew Vaughn’s poor defense is primarily the fault of the White Sox organization. Vaughn was drafted to play either first base or be a designated hitter, and he never claimed to be an outfielder. Vaughn first got his start in left field after Eloy Jiménez’s sudden injury in the preseason in 2021, and for some reason, the White Sox kept him in the outfield despite his obvious limitations.
The notion of trading Andrew Vaughn is a seemingly never-ending topic of conversation, which admittedly, we at Sox On 35th have contributed to it. The balance between Vaughn’s on-the-field production, both prior and going forward, his age (he’ll be 25 coming into the 2023 season), and years of team control make this topic ripe for conversation. For as good as Andrew Vaughn was offensively last season, ultimately, he was just fine and not great. Even though Vaughn led the Pale Hose in home runs last season, he still hit under 20. The fact that he was the club leader was more an indication of how poorly the club performed versus how well Vaughn performed. First basemen-types who hit 25 or fewer home runs with a wRC+ under 120 are ultimately not THAT valuable of an asset. If another baseball team views Vaughn as their future slugging first baseman, yet Vaughn consistently ends up producing as he did in 2022 going forward, then it would be prudent of the White Sox to sell Vaughn based on his potential.
The flip side of that coin is that 2022 might just be the next step that elevates Vaughn into the same stratosphere as fans currently view José Abreu. If Andrew Vaughn keeps improving, then White Sox fans will be treated to the best first basemen run in franchise history from Frank Thomas to Paul Konerko to José Abreu to Andrew Vaughn, assuming the Sox do not end up trading AV.
Eloy Jiménez
For all of the talk of “the White Sox should not re-sign José Abreu” or “the White Sox should trade Andrew Vaughn”, there doesn’t seem to be many people having the “the White Sox should trade Eloy Jiménez” conversation. What if Andrew Vaughn and José Abreu split 1B/DH duties throughout the season and the Sox traded away Eloy?
Despite a rocky and injury-prone start, Eloy Jiménez ended up being one of the White Sox’s best offensive weapons in 2022. He slashed .295/.358/.500, good for a wRC+ of 144. He hit 16 bombs, one fewer than Andrew Vaughn, but in 228 fewer plate appearances. Further, Jiménez was the 5th best hitter in the American League (169 wRC+) in the second half of the season behind Aaron Judge, José Altuve, Yordan Álvarez, and Nathaniel Lowe. When healthy, Eloy Jiménez makes a legitimate argument as the White Sox’s best hitter, no matter who is on the team.
The problem is that qualifier Sox fans seemingly have to use when discussing Eloy: “when healthy”. Eloy was hurt during the 2020 playoffs, tore a pectoral muscle in Spring Training which saw him miss almost all of the 2021 season, and missed a significant amount of games in 2022 thanks to a hamstring injury he suffered running to first base. Jiménez’s second half last season was the longest stretch of time he has been healthy for a while.
If Eloy is going to continue to be injury-prone and miss significant time, then it might behoove the White Sox franchise to sell when Jiménez’s value has never been higher. Having an excellent player doesn’t matter if he’s on the IL or struggling at the plate as he works through injury. While Eloy is under contract through the 2026 season, his salary increases every year until then. Eloy will make over $13M in the last three years of his deal, and if he’s not healthy to perform during those years, it might be beneficial for the Sox to sell him now and let another team pay Jiménez during his potential lengthy IL stints. Ultimately, you can not predict health, but Eloy doesn’t have the best track record either.
Gavin Sheets
Gavin Sheets is another player on the 2022 White Sox whose primary defensive position is first base. Though he is not part of the core players like Abreu, Vaughn, or Eloy are, Sheets is still worth noting considering he received 410 plate appearances last year and played 88 games in the outfield.
Gavin Sheets’ primary defensive position in 2022 was right field for the White Sox. Sheets was a little bit better than Andrew Vaughn defensively last season, though admittedly that’s an extremely low bar to meet. Pursuant to Baseball Savant, Gavin Sheets was the 217th-best outfielder (out of 266) with -5 Outs Above Average (OAA). Again, Sheets’ poor defensive play is not necessarily his fault considering the White Sox organization is playing him out of position. Still, it’s an issue for the team to have an awful defensive outfield in which both Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets are the team’s corner outfielders – which happened quite frequently throughout the 2022 season.
But even with only two of José Abreu, Andrew Vaughn, and Eloy Jiménez still on the team going forward, if the White Sox want Sheets’ bat in the lineup, a poor defender will have to play in the outfield. However, this begs the question: do the White Sox need Gavin Sheets’ bat in the lineup?
After the 2021 season, that answer seemed like a resounding “yes”. Sheets was a left-handed bat that crushed right-handed pitching. In 160 PA, Sheets slashed .268/.344/.556, with 11 HRs, good for a wRC+ of 141. Though after last season, the answer is murkier. After receiving significantly more plate appearances in 2022 (365) against RHP, Sheets only slashed .250/.301/.435 with 15 HR, good for a wRC+ of 108. Granted, some of these numbers are the result of a horrendous start to the season which saw him get sent down to AAA for a spell to work on his swing, and Sheets did show a marked improvement once he returned to the major league squad. But still, he did not provide an overwhelming amount of evidence to force his bat into the everyday lineup against RHP either.
If the White Sox do decide to trade away Gavin Sheets, the haul in return will most likely not be anything special, especially compared to the return that the Sox could get for trading away Andrew Vaughn or Eloy Jiménez. Sheets will be 27 during the 2023 season and is a good, but not great prospect. Sheets didn’t “wow” against RHP last season, and he primarily plays a defensive position that is easily fillable by all other clubs. Maybe Sheets can be a fill-in or complementary piece in a trade, but he probably has the most value by being a bench player for the Pale Hose.
If Sheets does make the 2023 White Sox, it will be incumbent on the organization and the new manager to limit the amount of games Sheets starts in the outfield. Unless Sheets will get starts at first base or designated hitter, he probably best provides value by being a bat off of the bench.
Keep Abreu, Vaughn, Eloy, and Sheets
For as bad as the 2022 season turned out compared to pre-season expectations, it was not necessarily the fault of these four players. Yasmani Grandal, Yoán Moncada, and Lucas Giolito saw their stats crater after successful 2021 campaigns, the bullpen was mired in mediocrity despite their high payroll, and everyday players like Tim Anderson and AJ Pollock went through long stretches of being outright bad.
The White Sox were one of the worst defensive teams in the league in 2022, and giving players like Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets significant corner outfield starts did not help. However, there is a decently easy way to maximize all four players while limiting their defensive liabilities – a way that management either didn’t want to or refused to do last season. The White Sox could have simply made José Abreu the primary first basemen, Andrew Vaughn the primary designated hitter, Eloy Jiménez the primary left fielder, and had Gavin Sheets primarily be a bench player.
José Abreu has always been a first baseman, so it would have been silly to have him be anything but last season. As mentioned previously, Andrew Vaughn had a hot bat for most of the entire season and was literally the worst defensive outfielder in the league, so it would have made so much sense to have AV be the team’s primary DH. Instead, management chose to use the DH position to give players rest or for those coming off of injury or the even more frustrating decision to have both Yasmani Grandal’s bat and the primary catcher’s bat in the lineup, despite the former having a horrific offensive season. Because Andrew Vaughn technically could, in the loosest sense of the word, play in the outfield, he did. That was a mistake to the team’s detriment.
Further, for as much as fans on Social Media called for Eloy to primarily DH (and probably were proven right for how good Eloy’s bat was as the DH towards the end of last season), he is not that bad defensively. Jiménez had a -2 OAA in 2022 and a 0 OAA in 2021. Granted, he started off his career being almost unplayable – -11 OAA in 2019 and -4 OAA during the shortened 2020 season – but he’s played much better of late where it’s not the worst thing in the world to have him play outfield defense.
Lastly, Gavin Sheets started a lot of games in right field, which was not the best idea. As mentioned earlier, Sheets is probably more valuable to the White Sox as a bat off of the bench, so starting Abreu, Vaughn, and Eloy will not affect that.
It may not ideal, but there is a world where it makes sense to have José Abreu, Andrew Vaughn, Eloy Jiménez, and Gavin Sheets on the same team, but it requires the White Sox organization as a whole to be a lot smarter for how these players are primarily used.
What are your thoughts? How do you want the White Sox organization to handle the first base/designated hitter log jam going forward? Let us know in the comments below!
Featured Image: Brian Sevald-USA TODAY Sports
I think they should re-sign Pito and trade Vaughn. Vaughn didn’t even do that well at 1B and the Sox don’t have a great history of allocating funds wisely (see: Joe Kelly, Dallas Keuchel, etc.). So trade Vaughn for a 2B or OF, make Sheets DH when a RHP is on the mound, Eloy the DH otherwise, and trade Burger, too. Go out and get a real backup C and either re-sign Cueto to a short-term deal or get someone else. Unfortunately, they’re probably stuck with Moncada and Grandal unless they eat most of their salary or attach Vaughn or Montgomery (which would be foolish with either player), but they can fix most of their roster with a bold offseason.
Unfortunately, it’s JR, who’s going to again delude himself into thinking that AV is a great OF if given a chance, the BP is where all the money needs to be spent, and the defense and nearly-all-righty lineup are team strengths. Then he’ll find an unemployed friend who can tell the difference between a baseball and a turnip and override Hahn’s choice for manager.
Will be interesting which way they go. Agree that there was a better way to utilize all 4 of those players but management failed. I also don’t have too much faith in the who this front office will bring in next. The main argument to play Eloy at DH is not his defense but his injury proneness. If he continues to play LF, we will need to be “OK” with him missing time.
Peto is still one of the best players on the team. His defense is still outstanding and his clutch hitting is valuable. He should share first base with Vaugn Eloy is DH .Sheets is a trade piece. New manager must be under 60 with demonstrated hunger to win.
You have to move on from Sheets, Colas made it to AAA and is a lefty bat. We have to live with Vaughn in left, but maybe we could protect him more with Robert and Colas in the OF. Eloy needs to be primary DH.
Good article. I would keep Abreu and rotate him with Vaughn every once in a while. Make Sheets a bench player, and Eloy in left or else trade Eloy and find a right fielder with lefty power, and possibly consider trading Anderson, putting Andrus there until Montgomery fully develops at shortstop