SouthSideSox deep dive/profile on Brooks Baldwin

[WestEddy]

Brett has kept the lights on at SouthSideSox since Jim Margalus vacated a few years ago. SBNation keeps jerking the money and rules around that causes periods of the site being a guy sitting in an empty store front reading his phone. Malachi Hayes proposes a series to look at unexpected cogs of the next competitive window. This is the first in a series. 

** I may also use this string to post the odd player profiles from SoxMachine, the Times and Trib and so forth.  **

The phenomenon known as Brooks Baldwin:

Fringe to Foundational? A short series | South Side Sox

Quote

Still, there’s still a much wider range of outcomes with Baldwin than many of us are giving him credit for. Defensive metrics have panned his work pretty much across the board, but he’s plenty fleet of foot, ranking in the 82nd percentile for Baseball Savant’s sprint speed metric. It also thinks he has a solid enough arm, one that will play all across the diamond even if it’s nothing special. Contrasted with someone like Lenyn Sosa, whose lack of lateral speed and overall athleticism put a hard cap on his defensive ceiling, Baldwin still has room for improvement. This is not the guy who has the tools of a negative defender.

 

[WestEddy]

Barry M. Bloom does a short  piece about Braden Montgomery's goal:

White Sox' Braden Montgomery confident he'll find Fame - Chicago Sun-Times

[WestEddy]

SoxMachine profile on Tanner McDougal

White Sox prospect Tanner McDougal has been waiting on this for a while - Sox Machine

[chitownsportsfan]

On 3/2/2026 at 7:15 AM, WestEddy said:

Brett has kept the lights on at SouthSideSox since Jim Margalus vacated a few years ago. SBNation keeps jerking the money and rules around that causes periods of the site being a guy sitting in an empty store front reading his phone. Malachi Hayes proposes a series to look at unexpected cogs of the next competitive window. This is the first in a series. 

** I may also use this string to post the odd player profiles from SoxMachine, the Times and Trib and so forth.  **

The phenomenon known as Brooks Baldwin:

Fringe to Foundational? A short series | South Side Sox

 

I mean I'm high on Baldwin as anybody but 50% of the time he's just a utility guy, 20% of the time he's a solid regular, 10% of the time he becomes a borderline star and 10% of the time he washes out of MLB in a few years due to injuries or whatever. The conclusion of the article doesn't really follow the premise, which is that he's an interesting youngish player -- not a foundational piece. Even if he turns into a 3 WAR player, borderline all-star, we still need about 20 more WAR around him to get to 90 or so projected wins. He'd just be a nice cog best case.

It was stupid we didn't give him more ABs last year and jerked him around the field. Just park him in LF and let Beni start the year on the IL.

[WestEddy]

24 minutes ago, chitownsportsfan said:

I mean I'm high on Baldwin as anybody but 50% of the time he's just a utility guy, 20% of the time he's a solid regular, 10% of the time he becomes a borderline star and 10% of the time he washes out of MLB in a few years due to injuries or whatever. The conclusion of the article doesn't really follow the premise, which is that he's an interesting youngish player -- not a foundational piece. Even if he turns into a 3 WAR player, borderline all-star, we still need about 20 more WAR around him to get to 90 or so projected wins. He'd just be a nice cog best case.

It was stupid we didn't give him more ABs last year and jerked him around the field. Just park him in LF and let Beni start the year on the IL.

I think the point of the series is not to highlight the obvious core pieces (Monty, Teel, etc), but the role players who could provide value around the stars. The successful teams need a bunch of 2-WAR guys just to fill the holes.

[Jake]

When we called up Baldwin, it seemed like he would be a pretty common archetype: solid glove man who might hit for enough average to stay useful in light of low power and non-elite D. Your standard grindy utility guy. Turns out he was something different in ways good and bad. He's got some sneaky power on the left side which opens up some more upside. But his defense everywhere is suspect. Sox thrust him into an outfield role so it wasn't surprising to see him look bad out there. Sox only did that, though, because of a reasonable loss of trust in his infield defense. He has also shown a propensity for mental lapses on defense too, which is not what you expect from those later-round-college-grindy-utility types.

I think it makes sense that the Sox have asked him to focus on the outfield. Despite the bad overall defensive play out there, he has some individual catches that were pretty high difficulty which goes to show what he might be able to do. His issues are on the easier plays — at least the ones that are easier for a real outfielder. Loses balls in the sun and lights, struggles going back, loses his bearings near the walls. Per Statcast, he had -5 outs above average as an outfielder last year. On non-routine plays, it was -2, meaning the larger portion of his problems came on the easiest plays. I think I've seen 3 of his plays in the spring so far. One he made easily, another was a routine catch but he nearly botched it before making a last-second stab at it, and another that wasn't a 100% easy catch but which he misplayed probably due partly to the sun. So from that very limited sample I will say I'm not super confident that he has figured out the defensive side of things.

At the plate, I'm not too sure what to expect. His bat speed is much faster as a lefty hitter which contributes to a prominent L/R split for him at the dish. That's where the sneaky pop comes from. At the same time, he has a pretty terrible approach up there. Something I dug up last season after watching him hit: despite an overall chase rate of 37% which is poor but not off the spectrum, once he gets to two strikes he chases 50% of pitches outside the zone with a just-as-astronomical 50% whiff rate. So he's passive waiting for a cookie until he gets to two strikes and then he's waving at anything. He struggles to hit fastballs in particular and chases them upstairs. Some real bust potential there but there's a lot of ways hitters can bust and at least he can say he might run into 20ish homers if things go right. Of course, he's still young, so maybe he can make improvements. Sometimes these guys give you some productive seasons and sometimes they're selling insurance before they turn 30 (sometimes both).