White Sox Roster Decisions Raise Questions About Outfield Depth

Among the biggest storylines in Spring Training was who would get the highly contested final bench spots on the White Sox roster. We now have our answer.

After reassigning Keynan Middleton, Sebastian Rivero, Erik Gonzalez, Zack Remillard, Billy Hamilton, Adam Haseley, and Jake Marisnick to Minor League Camp, the final roster is beginning to take shape. According to a report earlier in the week from Daryl Van Schouwen, Leury Garcia will not make the team’s Opening Day roster. This means the bench will be made up of Seby Zavala, Gavin Sheets, Hanser Alberto, and Romy Gonzalez. This group brings up an entire new list of questions as to whether the front office made the right move.

No True Fourth Outfielder

Gonzalez being included on this list comes as the biggest surprise. As it stands, the White Sox are not carrying a true fourth outfielder.

Gavin Sheets can play right field, but first base is his more natural position. According to Baseball Savant, his Outs Above Average in right field was -5, placing him in the bottom 13 percentile in the MLB. His Outfielde Jump was in the bottom three percentile, while his sprint speed landed him in the 34th percentile. You can call him an outfielder all you’d like, but the stats don’t lie. He is not one. Sheets provides value with his left-handed power.

Albero has played five games in the outfield but sets up to be the team’s new utility infielder. This makes Romy Gonzalez seem redundant because, like Alberto, he can play the outfield, but his limited experience makes him less than an ideal candidate. He has played just four games in the outfield at the MLB level.

Eloy Jimenez also figures to see some time in the outfield. Still, the whole point of letting Jose Abreu walk was to move Vaughn to first base and free up the designated hitter spot so the team could protect the injury-prone Jimenez from any more unfortunate injuries in the outfield. The more time he is not playing outfield, the better.

Versatily Over Offense

Jake Burger, arguably the best bat of the bunch, was left off the Opening Day roster. The deciding factor is that Romy’s glove would be more beneficial than Burger’s bat.

For his MLB career at second base, Gonzalez owns a .979 fielding percentage with two errors in 95 chances. The advanced analytics are kind to the infielder. His speed placed him in the 81st percentile of all MLB players, while his arm strength placed him in the 60th percentile.

He is not a Gold-Glove caliber fielder by any means. His defensive metrics grade out as a replacement-level player. During his brief MLB career, he has an OAA of 1, while his defensive runs saved at second base is -1. On the other hand, Burger can only play third and first base and is a below-average defender. Early in the season, the defense tends to be more valuable than a big bat when it is cold and windy in April.

The White Sox were high on Gonzalez entering Spring Training. He was in line to be the team’s starting second baseman. Rick Hahn opened camp by raving about how good he had looked over the offseason. The addition of Alvis Andrus thwarted any chances of that happening. But soon after signing Andrus, Hahn stated he wanted to see Gonzalez fall into a Ben Zobrist-type role.

The White Sox value his versatility. But they already have that in Hanser Alberto. Alberto hit .439 with a pair of homers and a 1.257 OPS in his first 41-at bats in Cactus League play. He is also a veteran who has received rave reviews from former teammates about his clubhouse presence.

Alberto’s emergence made Leury Garcia expendable after ten seasons. Garcia’s play had taken a dip in recent years. It was time to move on.

But Garcia is a better outfielder than the pair. There is no reason to be carrying two utility infielders, but if you are going in that direction, I would think you would want the guy who is also an outfielder.

They could have kept Billy Hamilton or Jake Marisnick as a defensive specialist in the outfield. Both provided little production at the plate, but to this point in his young career, neither had Gonzalez.

In his 42 MLB games, he owns a .241/.261/.350 slash line. In 32 games in 2022, he slashed .238/.257/.352 (25-for-105) with seven extra-base hits (including two home runs and a triple) and 11 RBIs.

Gonzalez’s Recent Power Surge

This is a narrative that Gonzalez is trying to change. He has been on a tear in camp as of late, hitting a team-high six home runs in Spring Training. The 6’1 infielder is batting .250 with 12 RBIs and owns a .961 OPS. Those are pretty respectable numbers. The recent power surge has all come within the last seven games. He had homered in three consecutive games from March 21st-March 24th. He then went yard in back-to-back games against the Cubs on March 27th and 28th. Gonzalez racked up ten hits during that stretch.

His speed provides another valuable element to his game. Pedro Grifol has made it clear that his White Sox team will be aggressive on the base paths. However, Gonzalez was rarely able to use that speed in 2022 because he didn’t get on base much. He slashed .238/.257/.352 with the White Sox in 2022.

In 33 games at Triple-A Charlotte, he hit .198/.281/.339 with four home runs and just ten RBIs. His base stealing also took a hit. He was caught stealing on his only attempt in the MLB and went five for seven in Charlotte.

If Gonzalez can tap into the upside the White Sox see in him, then the final roster decision is justified. If not, it’s going to lead to a lot of questions as to why the White Sox opted not to go with a better bat in Burger or another outfielder in Garcia, Hamilton, or Marisnick to start the season.

The silver lining in the whole thing is that it takes more than 26 guys to win a World Series. So while being named to the Opening Day roster is a huge honor, Gonzalez will need to pull his weight to stick around. Fingers crossed, he can do just that.