Chicago White Sox Free Agency: Andrew Benintendi’s Impact

While the move makes the White Sox better, it falls well short of the type of move they seemingly need to make themselves legitimate World Series contenders. The White Sox have been limited in their budget by Jerry Reinsdorf this offseason, as reported by Rick Hahn at the winter meetings. This is where some get confused. If the Sox budget was and is indeed limited, the contract doesn"t make sense. Fifteen million dollars per year for five years for a slightly above-average outfielder in Andrew Benintendi seems like a steep price to pay for a team with many more holes on their roster. Let"s break it down.

Andrew Benintendi As A Hitter

With a quick glance at Andrew Benintendi"s numbers, you can see Benintendi is at or above league average for most statistical categories. For his career, Benintendi has a slash line of .279/.351/.431. While nothing about this slash line jumps out at readers, it is stabilizing for the White Sox. The White Sox for two full years have admittedly been looking to balance their lineup with more left-handed bats. While a left-handed power bat has been the topic of most discussions amongst White Sox fans, this is not the direction the Sox ultimately went.

Benintendi"s 2022 season was interesting, to say the least. While Benintendi hit a career-low 5 home runs, his batting average was a career-high .305. The Sox will probably not get a lot of pop from their new signee, but he will put the ball in play and that could prove fruitful for the Southsiders in 2023. If Benintendi can carry his weight in left field and stay healthy in 2023, he could have a bounce-back year in the power department. A bounce-back year could carry anywhere from 12 to 20 home runs for the White Sox in 2023. If they can get any power from him and a stabilizing left-handed bat in their order, it will be money well spent. A reunion with Pedro Grifol could provide a level of home comfort for Benintendi who was with the Kansas City Royals in 2021 and part of 2022 as was Grifol.

Outfielder Joey Gallo was water cooler talk among Sox fans for quite some time following the winter meetings. In the few days leading up to the signing, rumors flew about Gallo and the Sox after David Kaplan tweeted that a deal with a left fielder was imminent for the White Sox. When the deal with Benintendi was announced, Sox fans were happy for the most part but shocked as well. Most expected Gallo but if you were constantly refreshing your MLB news feed the Gallo deal with the Twins went down almost simultaneously with the Benintendi deal.

While Gallo is a power left-handed bat, his batting average and OBP are horrendous at .199 and .325 respectively. While Gallo strikes out at an alarming rate and has openly admitted to not liking the fan response to his struggles in New York he does have much higher power potential. Thank goodness Gallo is headed to Minnesota where he will likely kill Sox pitching in 2023.

Fielding

Andrew Benintendi has been an average to above-average defender his entire career. Benintendi won a Gold Glove in 2021 in Kansas City and was an All-Star in 2022. While he doesn"t wow you with incredible plays night in and night out, he will make the plays he should make. While he does not have a huge arm, he will hit the cutoff man and is serviceable at probably every outfield position. Benintendi solidifies the position for the White Sox and will provide consistency for the Sox going forward. Benintendi has no injury history playing in 120 plus games in five of seven professional seasons including the shortened 60-game season in 2020. General health and availability will likely be the largest key for the White Sox entire lineup in 2023 and Benintendi should be a mainstay in the lineup for the Sox. A consistent, solid fielding left fielder who gets on base is a great remedy for the Sox to one of their holes in the outfield and they can effectively cross that off their proverbial to-do list for the 2022 off-season.

Lineup

While the White Sox have openly admitted to needing to solve Right Field for what seems like decades now, they seem to feel like they have an answer in prospect Oscar Colas. With the general consensus being Colas will get the nod on opening day in Right Field for the White Sox and the signing of Andrew Benintendi, the projected starting outfield for the Sox finally seems to be in place. Their opening day starting lineup may look something like this.

Next Move

While signing Andrew Benintendi is a great move for the White Sox, if they want to compete in 2023, they have more work to do. They still need to fill the second base position and they may turn to the trade market to do so. While trading pieces for major league-ready talent is sometimes tough to do, many trade scenarios have been floating around Twitter for the Sox and we will not be diving into any of them specifically in this article. What is worth noting is the Sox seemingly have very few trade pieces with real value in their farm system or on the major-league roster. The most floated name from the major league roster is Liam Hendriks. While trading Hendriks would hurt, Reynaldo Lopez seems to have an interest in closing games and may be capable of doing so.

If the White Sox intend to compete for more than an AL Central crown in 2023, they cannot be done by adding talent and supplementing their roster with quality baseball players. The White Sox cannot sit on their hands and hope to have bounce-back seasons from every core player on this roster. That would be ignorant and unrealistic from the Sox front office. Five years for 75 million dollars is not enough to compete in today"s market. What should the White Sox do next? Let us know in the comments!

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