The vibe across the White Sox clubhouse and within the supervisor’s workplace is identical.
Enough dropping. It’s time to win in 2020.
“What would I like to be talking about a year from now? That we’re fighting for a position in the postseason,” supervisor Rick Renteria mentioned Friday. “That’s going to be my message.”
General supervisor Rick Hahn’s end-of-season message to media in the meantime, whereas trumpeting steps taken by younger core items Lucas Giolito, Yoan Moncada, Tim Anderson and Eloy Jimenez and seeing “more compelling baseball” in 12 months three of the rebuild, wasn’t able to declare 2019 because the 12 months to win.
“How quickly we get to the most important stage — winning — it’s premature to say right now,” Hahn mentioned. “We have to wait to see what the rest of this roster looks like and then over the course of the early part of the season, see how the young players continue to grow before we can start saying, ‘This team’s ready to win a championship.’ But we’re moving to that next stage.”
Fans fed up with with the fourth longest postseason drought in baseball — the Sox’ 2008 postseason appearanace is their just one since they received the World Series in 2005 — ought to know Hahn plans to spruce up the roster by way of free company and trades within the offseason, however he has nothing to achieve by declaring 2020 is the 12 months.
“In terms of general expectations for wins and losses or playoff competitiveness, let’s wait until we get to Glendale [Ariz. spring training] and see what changes, what augmentations we’ve been able to make over the course of this offseason before deciding exactly how close we are to where we want to be,” he mentioned.
A proper fielder, designated hitter and one or two beginning pitchers prime the precedence listing. Giolito, Dylan Cease and Reynaldo Lopez appear to have spots within the rotation, Hahn indicated, with Michael Kopech (sooner) and Carlos Rodon (later), recovering from Tommy John surgical procedures and returning. They will bolster it, however search for Hahn so as to add not less than one starter, though most likely not the largest free agent pitcher, Gerrit Cole.
Jose Abreu, whose contract expires after the season which ends Sunday, figures to return for a seventh season, and extra.
“With Jose, we’ve heard his thought that even if we don’t re-sign him he’s going to re-sign himself,” Hahn mentioned. “We’ve heard [chairman] Jerry’s [Reinsdorf] ideas about [how Abreu will] at all times put on a White Sox uniform.
“I don’t assume they’ll be instructing this in negotiation courses in faculty any time quickly how this one is unfolding. But my takeaway from all that’s that there’s a powerful want on either side to determine a strategy to maintain Jose in a White Sox uniform past this 12 months.”
Prized heart discipline prospect Luis Robert and second baseman Nick Madrigal, the fourth general choose within the 2018 draft, are anticipated to play repeatedly for a lot of the season with Robert getting began earlier than Madrigal.”
“We can say that similar to Eloy a year ago, that we expect Luis Robert to be playing center field for most if not all of the 2020 season,” Hahn mentioned. “Nick Madrigal playing second base? Probably most of the 2020 season. But let’s wait and see how he comes to camp and what this offseason holds.”
The Sox misplaced 95 and 100 video games within the first two years of the rebuild and take a 70-88 report right into a doubleheader in opposition to the Tigers Saturday after having two video games washed out Friday.
It’s time to show a nook. Just how onerous stays to be seen.
“We’ve paid our dues for the last three years,” Hahn mentioned. “These things tend to take longer than three years, so we are not out of the woods yet. But we are ready for that next stage when we get much closer to competitiveness to start ramping up here in the next weeks and months into next season.”