The Plan Shifts in Chicago

 With less than a week before the start of the season, things have taken a bit of a snag for the White Sox. 

First of all, Eloy Jimenez is injured, and will be out for a few months. Either you can chalk this up to the overworking theory of 2021 Spring Training that's dooming a lot of people, or this is genuinely something that happened besides the fact. Bottom line, one of the big pieces of this team that was hitting really well out of camp is now out for the first third of the season. So now either Adam Engel is gonna get a lot more time in right or Leury Garcia is gonna be phased back into an outfield position. Both ideas are fine, but maybe not to the caliber of Jimenez, especially considering his 2020 season.

Similarly, Luis Robert isn't hitting. He's played 16 games, which means he's been given several opportunities to hit, but has only mustered 11 hits, including 4 RBIs. He's also struck out 16 times. For a guy who is supposed to be the hero once again, this isn't a great camp showing. It may not translate immediately to how his season is going to go, but if he's already striking out this many times, it may not be a good sign. Like, we already know the big strikeout-guy Jimenez is gonna be out for a bit, it's not like Robert needs to take over.

And there's little things abound as well. There's the catching thing, where Grandal still may not be ready for Opening Day and the Sox might need to bring Jonathan Lucroy with them, but now him and Zack Collins are fighting for the backup position, and it's not clear what's gonna happen there. You also have to factor in some early spring woes from Jose Abreu and Dallas Keuchel.

But really, a lot of this is an attempt to make the Chicago White Sox look more human in a year where, until now, they looked unstoppable. This is a team that could still go very far into the playoffs, and now these little foibles are enough to get teams to underestimate them again. Oh, Jimenez is hurt, Abreu isn't his 2020 self, maybe we can beat them? Wrong. There's still a lot of punch left in this team, especially with Giolito and Adam Eaton having excellent springs. I do think they'll go far into it this year, even if Jimenez takes a bit to come back. They have the team that can withstand things like that.

Coming Tomorrow- Former low-average power hitter for LA, current low-average power hitter in Chicago, replacing a fan-favorite low-average power hitter who used to play in Chicago.