The 2023 series on team offense continues with the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox finished nineteenth in the majors and nineth in the American League in 2022 with 4.23 runs scored per game.

This season I am using FanGraphs Roster Resource Depth Charts* as the source of default lineups. That Pedro Grifol batting order is plugged into the Lineup Analysis Tool (LAT) using Musings Marcels as the batter projections.   That information produces the following results (Runs per game):

• Best lineup: 4.78
• Probable lineup: 4.71
• Worst lineup: 4.53
• Regressed lineup: 4.41

The White are another low spread team, with little difference between their best and worst batting orders. About the only thing the LAT result suggest is that Elvis Andrus bats eighth. Oscar Colas, who played many years abroad posted excellent OBPs. Flipping him with Andrus eight and nine would not hurt.

Notice that for slots one through six, every player listed in the default lineup appears in their slot at least once in the top 30 lineup. Luis Robert second and Eloy Jimenez fourth are the two slots the White Sox get perfectly right, so they manage to get most of the value of the optimum batting order.

Like so many team projects we’ve seen in this series, the starters lack a depth of power. Robert and Jimenez are very good, Tim Anderson is fine, but there’s not much in the rest of the order. This might be a team that takes advantage of the bigger bases to do a lot of running, upping the run scoring potential of all those singles. If Colas plays up to his potential, we may see the bases clogged, but that’s a good thing. In general, the more batters get on the more they score.

You can follow the data for the series in this Google spreadsheet.

Previous posts in this series:

• Introduction
• Los Angeles Dodgers
• New York Yankees
• Atlanta Braves
• Toronto Blue Jays
• New York Mets
• St. Louis Cardinals
• Philadelphia Phillies
• Houston Astros
• Boston Red Sox
• Milwaukee Brewers
• San Francisco Giants
• Texas Rangers
• San Diego Padres
• Arizona Diamondbacks
• Cleveland Guardians
• Colorado Rockies
• Minnesota Twins
• Seattle Mariners

*This is the best version of this information I’ve seen, with everything you might want to know on one page.