Lance Lynn Has Strong Reaction To White Sox Low Projections

The general public has been pretty down on the White Sox this winter. Rick Hahn received an F for his offseason moves from both The Athletic and ESPN.

The PECOTA standings have the White Sox finishing third in the American League Central with 79 wins. According to PECOTA, the White Sox's chances of winning the division are at just 7.4 percent, while their odds of making the playoffs are at 17.8 percent. This comes just one year after they had the South Siders winning 95 games and taking the division by nine games over the Twins.

Meanwhile, the Zips projections painted an even grimmer picture. ZiPS projected standings have the White Sox going 74-88 and finishing third in the divison behind the Cleveland Guardians and Minnesota Twins. The ZiPS projected standings had the White Sox closer to the Detroit Tigers (71 projected wins) and Kansas City Royals (70 projected wins) than they do the heavy hitters in the division.Their chances of winning the division are 11.1 percent, while their chances of making the playoffs are slightly higher at 15.5%. Their odds of winning the World Series are virtually zero coming in at 0.3 percent.

One player on the roster has heard all the outside noise, and he isn't buying it. During an interview with Chuck Garfein on the White Sox Talk Podcast, Lynn was asked about what he thought of the computer projections.

"Someone told me that we were projected to be under .500," Lynn responded. "That's pretty good because we were .500 last year with a shitty team, so I like our chances to be better than their projections this year."

"In my third year, they haven't been correct in any of them so far," Lynn added. "So hopefully, we make sure they're not correct again but definitely on the way higher side of whatever they had."

The 35-year-old right-hander has a point. Since 2015 PECOTA has only been within five wins of the White Sox's actual win total three times. Unfortunately, the White Sox have recorded fewer wins than PECOTA's projected total five times during that stretch, with nine fewer wins in 2017, 10 fewer in 2018, and 14 fewer last season.

This offseason, the White Sox lost their best hitter, Jose Abreu, and signed Mike Clevenger, who has since been accused of domestic violence. Many fans are frustrated with how the organization has operated over the past decade. Their anger is starting to boil over. Lynn had a message for fans who were skeptical about the team's chances this season.

"Even some of our writers have given us F's in the offseason grades and things like that, so when it's all said and done, our job is with whatever team we have to figure out how to be the best possible team we can," Lynn explained.

"We have talent. Right now, we have health. We need to figure out how to put those together to make sure we're the best team possible. We're pretty much a similar team to what we came into Spring Training with last year, and we were supposed to win the division. So to say, 'hey, this team is going to be worse than last year,' obviously, your going drastically one way or the other. So let's just see what product we bring to the table. Let the new coaching staff get in here and see what they're about and what they can bring to help each individual become the best player they can, and then we'll go from there."

Nobody can deny that the White Sox have talent. While their depth may be lacking, they still have three pitchers in the rotation that have finished inside the top ten of the Cy Young voting in the last three years. Lance Lynn was a finalist in 2022, while Dylan Cease was the runner up last season. The lineup has the 2019 batting champion in Tim Anderson, an All-Star and Gold Glove winner in Andrew Benintendi, a Silver Slugger winner in Eloy Jimenez, and another Gold Glove winner in Luis Robert.

Yasmani Grandal and Yoan Moncada are both hungry to have a bounce-back season, while Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets are looking to build off their early big-league success. The addition of Elvis Andrus also provides more stability at second base. This team still has plenty of question marks. But now they have a chip on their shoulder.

The last time they were considered underdogs entering a season was in 2021, when they went out and won 93 games and the divison. In the words of Lance Lynn, let's see what product they can bring to the table.