Despite offseason additions and a new coaching staff, the White Sox are still struggling to generate power at the plate.
Even after an ugly start to the 2026 season for the team as a whole, I’ve remained fairly optimistic that the Chicago White Sox lineup would be just fine.
I haven’t been particularly optimistic about where the White Sox are headed this year, but most of my concerns have been tied to the pitching staff more than the offense. For the first week or so, that felt like an accurate read on this team’s strengths and weaknesses.
Lately, though, it’s completely flipped on its head.
With Kyle Teel still on the shelf and outfielders Everson Pereira and Austin Hays also landing on the IL, the current White Sox lineup looks nothing like what was projected during the offseason. The results have been extremely concerning.
Players and teams will inevitably go through hot streaks and slumps, but a more serious issue has emerged with this lineup: they’re still not hitting home runs.
The White Sox brought in Munetaka Murakami, the Japanese single-season home run king. They also signed Austin Hays to a one-year deal to raise the offensive floor of the outfield. Between those additions, other free agent flyers with power upside, and the expected development of young hitters like Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas, and Kyle Teel over a full season, many assumed this lineup would finally have some real slug.
We saw flashes of it in the second half of 2025, and that kind of power is essential in today’s game for a young core trying to take a step forward.
But in nine of their last 10 games, the White Sox haven’t hit a single home run. They have just 10 home runs as a team through 14 games—that’s a pace of 115 over a full 162-game season. That’s 50 fewer than they hit last year and would have been the worst mark in baseball in each of the last three seasons.
Right now, only five teams in baseball have fewer than 10 home runs. The White Sox also own a .301 team slugging percentage, which ranks last in the league.
Losses and slumps are to be expected with this team, but how they look in the process matters. Up to this point, it’s been difficult to find a single player in this lineup who has taken a meaningful step forward in 2026.
It’s incredibly frustrating to watch the offense run into the same recurring issues, especially after an offseason full of additions and a new coaching staff that was supposed to fix exactly this problem.