Randal Grichuk keeps turning the White Sox’s bench into a weapon, and Tuesday night in Kansas City was the latest reminder.
He went 4-for-5 against the Royals, and the only thing that really softened the performance was how close he came to a cycle. In the seventh inning, Grichuk sent a slicing drive toward center field that looked like it might drop, but Kyle Isbel got to it with a diving attempt and knocked it down, holding Grichuk to his second double of the night.
"I was just hoping it got down and saw him leaving his feet; figured he was either going to catch it or could've booted it a little bit," Grichuk told repoters after the game. "Unfortunately he trapped it, so I'll take a double."
That kind of night has become familiar whenever Grichuk faces a left-hander. He’s now hitting .306/.333/.608 across 97 games and 234 plate appearances, and nearly two-thirds of those trips have come against southpaws.
If you spread that production over 502 plate appearances, the baseline needed to qualify for the batting title, it works out to 45 doubles, 30 homers, 88 RBIs and 3.6 WAR. The only problem is that there simply aren’t enough left-handed pitchers around to feed that kind of usage.
The White Sox have made the arrangement work by putting him in the right spots and not trying to force more than he should carry. That’s part of what makes this season stand out.
In previous eras, a player producing in concentrated bursts off the bench often got pushed into a bigger role, even if it wasn’t the best fit. This time, Will Venable has kept Grichuk in a clear complement role alongside Andrew Benintendi at DH and Sam Antonacci in left field.
That usage has made it fair to ask where Grichuk fits in White Sox history. The answer, by the numbers, is pretty high.
Warren Newson came to mind as a 1990s comparison, after posting three on-base percentages above .400 while mostly facing right-handers. His rookie year was his biggest body of work in that role, when he hit .295/.419/.424 over 160 plate appearances, with only eight of those against lefties.
But even that came with a 137 OPS+, well below Grichuk’s current 155.
The Stathead search gets even more interesting when the comparison is narrowed to White Sox hitters who have posted a 155 OPS+ over 234 plate appearances. That list only includes starters. Some played full seasons, others were cut short by injuries, but none were part-timers when healthy.
To find a player in Grichuk’s neighborhood, you have to look back quite a bit farther. Ron Hassey hit .353/.437/.500 for a 151 OPS+ over 174 plate appearances in 1986 while backing up Carlton Fisk, with most of those starts coming against right-handed pitchers.
If you want someone who actually topped Grichuk’s production, Buddy Bradford is the name, hitting .333/.414/.510 for a 162 OPS+ in 1974, all against lefties. But that came in just 112 plate appearances.
A little more leniency in the OPS+ standard brings up Alejandro De Aza, who hit .329/.400/.520 for a 145 OPS+ over 171 plate appearances in 2011, with 150 of those against right-handed pitching. He fell short in playing time, though he still finished with 2.5 WAR thanks to his work in center field. Farther back, the closest match in terms of role, usage and output is Earl Torgeson, who in 1958 hit .266/.415/.468 for a 145 OPS+ over 236 plate appearances as the left-handed half of a first base platoon.
Grichuk’s case is unusual enough on its own, but it also says something about the White Sox. They’ve resisted the temptation to squeeze every last inning out of him, and that restraint has let the production stay loud. He arrived in May on a $1.25 million contract after the Yankees let him go, and he has been exactly the kind of surprise a smart team hopes to stumble into.
He could have taken on more playing time, probably at Braden Montgomery’s expense, and his right-on-right game-winning homer off St. Louis’ Riley O'Brien showed what that might look like. But his career has tended to swing between not enough and too much, and he’s played for six organizations over the last four years without delivering two straight seasons that matched each other.
For now, the sweet spot seems obvious. If it looks like Grichuk should be playing more, he’s probably playing just enough.
The postseason could change that equation if October demands the nine best bats in the lineup, but that’s a problem for later. For the moment, the White Sox have something rare: a bench player producing like this, and a manager willing to use him that way.
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