Why the White Sox are ready to take the next step: Top prospects arrive

Share

The White Sox are heading into the shortened 2020 season with the same expectations they had back when they thought they’d be playing a 162-game schedule: to leap out of rebuilding mode and into contention mode.

The reason the team is in that position in the first place is because the prospects White Sox fans spent years hearing about finally made their way to the South Side. Yoán Moncada, Lucas Giolito, Eloy Jiménez and Dylan Cease are major leaguers, and the young core broke out in a big way in 2019. But their big league arrivals were not the last, and the White Sox will welcome more highly touted prospects in 2020, making that leap into contention mode seem all the more possible.

Luis Robert will be a fixture in the White Sox lineup from Day 1 of the 2020 season after signing a big-money deal in the offseason that cleared away any potential service-time concerns. One of the highest rated prospects in baseball, Robert’s a true five-tool threat who has been the talk of “Summer Camp” at Guaranteed Rate Field. It’s easy to go tumbling into the hype machine when you see him cover a ton of ground in center field, hook doubles inside the foul line, steal bases, throw home and put on batting-practice shows where the ball explodes off his bat.

Click to download the MyTeams App for the latest White Sox news and analysis.

Oh, and he hit that home run while falling down.

Who knows if it will all carry over once the pitchers he’s facing are wearing different jerseys than his. But Robert’s been as advertised in the ramp-up to his much anticipated rookie season.

“He’s got all the tools,” White Sox starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel said Wednesday. “When somebody signs a pretty good deal before they even get to the big leagues, then you know they’ve got a real shot to be special. ... I’m not big on nicknames. I don’t know if he came up with the ‘La Pantera,' but I started calling him that myself just because the guy is a freak. He could be something special for years to come.”

“I’m smiling from ear to ear. We are as an organization because we are going to have an opportunity to see this for a long period of time,” White Sox bench coach Joe McEwing said last week. “He’s a special talent. … He’s an individual who you pay to go watch play. … You can come to the ballpark and understand he has a chance to do something special every day in every asset of his game, whether it’s running, playing defense, throwing, hitting, and he’s a pretty special talent.”

And though Robert has some potentially steep challenges ahead of him, he’s not short on confidence.

It wouldn’t be at all insulting to wonder if he would need to go through the same struggles that greeted Moncada and Jiménez upon their arrivals on the South Side. Moncada struggled throughout his 217-strikeout 2018 season, his first full campaign in the majors. Jiménez spent a good deal of time at the start of last season struggling before making the necessary adjustments and blasting balls out of The Rate on a regular basis before catching absolute fire in September.

The shortened, 60-game season means Robert won’t have the luxury of time should he need to make similar adjustments when he faces big league pitching for the first time. But as should probably be expected from these uber-confident White Sox youngsters at this point, he’s not too worried about it.

“If for whatever reason I don’t start the season as hot as I know I can, I will do my best to make the adjustments as fast as I can,” Robert said through team interpreter Billy Russo. “But of course that’s not my mindset right now. I’m pretty sure I’m going to be able to start the season pretty hot and display all my talent.”

RELATED: White Sox rookie Luis Robert confident in 'pretty hot' start to his '20 season

While it’s a certainty Robert will be part of a remade White Sox lineup this season — the only question, perhaps, is how much impact he can have on it, individually — there could be another important addition to that group in second baseman Nick Madrigal.

Madrigal’s done his own fair bit of impressing during “Summer Camp,” albeit with a much different style. He’s a high-contact hitter who sprays base hits around the field; the guy struck out just 17 times in the minors last year. He also has a strong glove at second base and some speed, to boot. He might not be pegged as a future superstar like Robert, but he’s a highly rated prospect in his own right who the White Sox used a top-four draft pick on two summers ago.

The question is whether he’ll make the team’s Opening Day roster. It’s probably not a stretch to suggest he’s the organization’s best second baseman, even though the White Sox said he had things he needed to show them before getting a promotion back in the pre-pandemic part of 2020. Well, there is no minor league season now.

But Madrigal doesn’t have the clear path Robert’s contract gave the center fielder. Service-time rules are still a thing in 2020, and though the White Sox have never said that service-time considerations are part of their decision-making process when it comes to calling up young players, the realities of baseball being what they are, the team could gain an extra year of team control if Madrigal doesn’t debut until roughly a week into the season.

And so that’s the most logical outcome, even in a season where every game matters and a slow start could have a team playing from behind in a two-month pennant race. The White Sox first week of games features seemingly critical ones against the division-rival Minnesota Twins and Cleveland Indians.

Rick Hahn said last year that Madrigal would be the team’s second baseman for the bulk of the 2020 season, and that will likely still be the case — even if there might be an interesting, if not super realistic, argument to be made that the White Sox could keep him away from the majors entirely this season and call him up a little bit into the 2021 campaign, helping to extend their contention window even further into the future. After all, wouldn’t Madrigal’s services be more helpful over a 162-game season in which the White Sox could be in an even better position to compete for a championship than in this weird 60-game season where anything could happen?

Regardless, he looks like a good young player, and the White Sox think so, too. When he’s part of the big league roster, he’ll be another reason the team is primed for success.

“I see a big difference from spring training to ‘Summer Camp.’ He’s in a better place,” White Sox third base coach Nick Capra said of Madrigal on Wednesday. “More focused, it seems like he’s more relaxed. Seems like he’s coming out with more confidence every day. We’re seeing the things we knew we had when we drafted him.

“It’s a really good sign from three months ago till now. He’s in a lot better place, and if you ask him, I think he’ll tell you the same thing. You can see it in his eyes and his face, he’s getting back to being the baseball player we knew he could be.”

This season could see more rookie debuts for talented White Sox prospects, too. Dane Dunning and Jimmy Lambert throwing their first pitches as big leaguers seems more realistic than Andrew Vaughn or Garrett Crochet, the team’s last two first-round picks, reaching the major leagues. But Hahn’s rebuilding effort has made it so young players are still making their way to the bigs, even though everyone's already talking playoffs heading into 2020, and they could serve as the reinforcements of the future.

For now, all eyes will be on Robert and, in all likelihood, Madrigal. And those two should provide an even bigger boost to a remade lineup, part of the reason the White Sox are thinking about snapping the franchise’s decade-plus playoff drought.


SUBSCRIBE TO THE WHITE SOX TALK PODCAST FOR FREE.

Contact Us