The Chicago White Sox are the only team in baseball not to reach 20 wins on the season, currently sitting with a 17-51 record–which includes splitting a four-game series with the Boston Red Sox over the weekend. Those two wins are also the team’s total for the month of June and their first since May 21 when they beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-0. They’d lost 13 straight before winning two in a row, then dropped the finale on Sunday at home.
Right now, the bar to clear for Chicago is the 2003 Detroit Tigers, who went 43-119, good for a .265 winning percentage. The White Sox are currently sitting with a .250, which is a 42-win pace. The good news is a couple of wins puts them over that pace. The bad news is that they’re flirting with infamy. Detroit is the worst team of recent history, but the 1962 New York Mets were slightly worse, going 40-120, which left them with a .250 winning percentage.
But the Sox could actually be a worse team that they are currently if they had hung onto a couple of once-key members of the roster.
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Andrew Benintendi and Martín Maldonado represent Chicago White Sox struggles
The White Sox have brought in Andrew Benintendi and Martín Maldonado the past two off-seasons, and as things sit right now, they’re the two worst players by fWAR among those with at least 100 plate appearances. Maldonado has always been a defense-first backstop with a light hit tool, and when the Houston Astros decided that enough was enough by not re-signing the 37-year-old, that should have been a hint at what was to come.
This season Maldonado is 8-for-110 (.078) with a .130 on-base percentage. That is good for a -31 wRC+, which is quite the departure from the still bad 66 he put up last season in Houston. The backstop’s fWAR sits at -1.6, worst in baseball.
Right there with him is Benintendi, who was placed on the IL with achilles tendinitis at the beginning of the month. He is 37-for-190 (.195) with a .230 OBP and a 45 wRC+ this season. He’s the second-worst player in baseball with a -1.5 fWAR.
The production from these two certainly hasn’t helped in the standings this season, but it could be even worse.
José Abreu and Tim Anderson
Abreu spent the first nine years of his career with the Chicago White Sox before landing a three-year, $58.5 million deal with the Astros. While they successfully avoided Maldonado’s decline, they ended up paying Abreu a lot more money to be just as bad.
The 37-year-old first baseman is 14-for-110 (.127) with a .171 OBP and a wRC+ of 1. He was even optioned to the Florida Complex League, spending most of May there before being recalled to Houston. Since his return he’s 7-for-35, which is a step in the right direction, but it still makes him a .200 hitter. He has been worth -1.5 fWAR this season, tying him for the second-worst player in baseball with Benintendi.
Tim Anderson was the worst hitter in baseball last season among qualified bats, holding a 60 wRC+. That also came in his walk year, so it was a pretty easy decision for the White Sox to look for other options. Anderson signed with the Miami Marlins on a one-year, $5 million deal over the off-season, and things haven’t gotten any better for the 30-year-old.
This season, Anderson is 33-for-169 (.195) with a .227 OBP and a 22 wRC+. That all adds up to -1.1 fWAR. Only eight players in baseball have recorded a full win below replacement level, and these four all have ties to the Chicago White Sox.
In an alternate universe, they could all be with Chicago at the same time.
Related: Ideal Luis Robert Jr. trade scenarios from the Chicago White Sox
The Chicago White Sox replacements
With Abreu in Houston, Andrew Vaughn has taken over at first base and by comparison he’s playing like an All Star candidate. Vaughn is batting .226 with a .283 OBP and an 80 wRC+, which is only 20% below league average. That’s a huge upgrade over the one-time face of the franchise. Granted, Vaughn has still racked up -0.5 fWAR.
The other replacement has come at shortstop with the departure of Anderson, and his replacement just so happens to be a league average shortstop in Paul DeJong. That may actually be selling him short, he’s been pretty solid this year, ranking 13th among shortstops in wRC+ with a 110, ten percent above league average.
DeJong’s 1.0 fWAR (yes, that’s a positive one win above replacement) is nearly twice as high as the second-best total among hitters on the team. That would be Gavin Sheets’ 0.6 fWAR. Garrett Crochet (2.3) and Erick Fedde (1.6) have been the best players on the South Side this season.
While the White Sox have avoided an even worse fate (for now), there have been reports that the White Sox are “open for business” according to Jeff Passan. That could mean Crochet, Fedde, and even Luis Robert Jr. being shipped off in the coming weeks, so enjoy the good times Sox fans.