MLB Season Preview: Chicago White Sox

The White Sox might fancy themselves contenders, but judging by their actions--trading away Carlos Quentin and Sergio Santos, saying goodbye to Mark Buehrle and Ozzie Guillen, and making no significant free agent additions--it sure looks like they're rebuilding.

Adam Dunn's 2011 can be summed up in four letters: fail.

Offense: Thank goodness for Paul Konerko. There's no telling how bad Chicago's lineup would look without his consistent .300-30-100 seasons. Sure, Alexei Ramirez has become a fine player at shortstop, but the rest of the offense is either overpaid and over-the-hill, or inexperienced and unproven. Adam Dunn's historically-bad 2011 (.161 BA, 11 HRs) came out of nowhere; you have to think the slugger who hit at least 38 homers every year from 2004 to 2010 will bounce back. Alex Rios has become a black hole. Nearly everyone else being counted on for regular playing time has little-to-no big league success.

Jake Peavy is pretty much a shell of his
former Cy Young-winning self.

Pitching: Clearly, the White Sox won't be counting on their lineup to win games. So it's a good thing the pitching is solid. John Danks and Gavin Floyd aren't aces, but they've handled big workloads consistently for the past few years. Philip Humber, once upon a time a centerpiece of the Johan Santana trade, finally broke out last season (3.75 ERA) after years of being labelled a bust. There's a lot of potential in 2010 1st-round pick Chris Sale as he moves from the bullpen to the rotation. Anything the Sox get out of Jake Peavy is gravy at this point, though. The bullpen is excellent too, even with Sergio Santos gone. Matt Thornton is one of the game's elite left-handed relievers, rookie Addison Reed is the closer of the future, and Jesse Crain's strikeout rate rose for the fourth straight season, all the way to 9.6 per nine innings.

Chris Sale's name rarely appears in print without
accompanying adjectives like "wiry" and "rail-thin."

Breakout Candidates: A few of the young bats could break out: Alejandro de Aza (.329 BA in 54 games last year) will be hitting leadoff and Dayan Viciedo is looking to recapture the potential he showed in his 2010 debut. But Chris Sale is the name to watch. He reached the big leagues just months after being drafted 13th overall two years ago; now he's headed to the rotation after a successful bullpen stint. We know he can get major league hitters out (111 K's in 94.1 career innings) and he has the repertoire to succeed as a starter.

3 Key Questions: Will anyone besides Konerko be a league-average hitter? Can the pitching overcome the offensive woes? And does GM Kenny Williams deserve to be fired for paying Dunn, Rios, and Peavy a combined $43 million in 2012?

Best Case Scenario: Dunn and Rios return to form, the Sale conversion is successful, Peavy stays relatively healthy, the young position players hit, and new manager Robin Ventura gets all the credit for guiding the Sox to a second-place finish.

Worst Case Scenario: Dunn and Rios are cooked, Konerko's age (36) finally catches up to him, Sale and Humber regress, Peavy contributes nothing, and Ventura gets blamed for a last-place finish.

Predicted Finish: The lineup is a poor combination of old veterans and untested rookies, and the pitching isn't good enough to overcome that. This looks like a fourth-place team.