Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Team Preview: Chicago White Sox
Baseball is almost here! With an eventful offseason in the books and spring training underway, it’s time to preview all 30 teams in Major League Baseball. With the help of RotoGrinders PlateIQ Premium, DFS ownership trends from Chris Gimino, and our resident Premium MLB guru Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood), we take a look at some information that is definitely interesting and possibly helpful for the upcoming 2019 MLB season.
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Preseason Overview
— Vegas Win Total O/U: 76.5
— World Series Odds: 60/1
— Key Additions: Yonder Alonso, James McCann, Jon Jay
Other Noteworthy Players for DFS: Eloy Jimenez, Ervin Santana (minors deal), Brandon Guyer, James McCann, Leury Garcia
— Outlook: They project as a sub-80 win team, but we don’t care how many real-life wins they get when it comes to DFS. They’ve got five guys who can crush the baseball in Yoan Moncada (90.6 MPH Exit Velocity), Jose Abreu (91.3 MPH Exit Velocity), Daniel Palka (92.3 MPH Exit Velocity), Yonder Alonso (7% Barrel rate), and Welington Castillo (90.4 MPH Exit Velocity). If that’s not enough, sometime in May they can call up top power-hitting prospect Eloy Jimenez to boost their hitting prowess even further. The balance of their lineup has stolen base guys (per PlateIQ stolen base scores) like Tim Anderson and Yolmer Sanchez. This might not be a great real life team, but the DFS upside potential on any given night seems pretty high.
The pitching situation is considerably worse than their offensive upside. Derek Carty’s “THE BAT” projection system has Carlos Rodon pegged for a 9 win season and 4.19 ERA. That is not a strong start to any rotation. Fly baller Reynaldo Lopez has flashes of good work sprinkled on top of a hot garbage pile. Former top prospect Lucas Giolito has transformed his prospect potential into a 6.13 2018 ERA and 27 HR in 32 games. Suffice to say that Ivan Nova, Manny Banuelos, and Ervin Santana are not going to be enough to rescue this pitching staff. It will be a situation to attack in 2019.
— DFS Ownership Trends: The White Sox were just the 25th most popular team to stack in 2018, and they might be an interesting leverage point early in the season if their lineup shows any sign of their power upside. Daniel Palka in particular could be of interest, as 280 hitters were more highly owned on average than he was. The field already knows to stack against their pitchers, as their home park was the 9th most popular. Lucas Giolito was a top 50 pitcher to stack against, and we would need to see rapid signs of transformation for that train to stop in 2019.
Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Notes
— After barely using his slider in 2017, Reynaldo Lopez increased his usage of the pitch last season, up to 17.9 percent of the time. He should probably throw it more. The .221 xwOBA on the pitch ranked 15th among sliders in MLB, tied with Jacob deGrom’s elite offering. As long as he’s a sub-20% strikeout guy (as he’s been in both years on the South Side), he’s a low-upside option in DFS. Give ‘em the slide piece more often, Reynaldo!
— Only five players in MLB have posted 37+ home runs and 40+ steals across the past two seasons: Mookie Betts, Mike Trout, Jose Ramirez, Jose Altuve, and … Tim Anderson. Let’s make no bones about it: Anderson is a flawed player. His career-high walk rate of 5.0 percent last year – more than double the rate he walked in 2017 – placed him 128th of 140 qualified hitters. But in an age where green lights are harder than ever to come by on the base paths, Anderson’s speed and power combo will make him a factor in DFS.