Chicago White Sox: Where Tim Anderson needs to improve in 2020

Tim Anderson won his first American League batting title for the Chicago White Sox in 2019 but needs to improve in this area to be an MVP candidate.

Back in 2017, Tim Anderson was coming off his rookie year with the Chicago White Sox. The former first-round pick from East Central Community College was highly-touted coming out of the 2013 MLB draft and posted a 0.257/0.276/0.402 line with 17 home runs and 56 RBI in 2017. His OPS+ dropped 19 points from his rookie season and was striking out at a 27 percent clip while taking just 13 walks in 606 plate appearances.

Flash forward to 2018 and the numbers were a little better – 0.240/0.281/0.406 line with 20 home runs and 64 RBI – but he was still striking out at 25 percent clip. His OPS+ and walks were up a few notches but overall not great. Not long into the 2019 season, Tim Anderson indicated that he’s hoping to change the game that’s recently tried to take the fun out of it.

"“I kind of feel like today’s Jackie Robinson. That’s huge to say. But it’s cool, man, because he changed the game, and I feel like I’m getting to a point to where I need to change the game.” – SI"

And a lot of fun he would have as the 26-year-old went on to lead the American League in hitting with a robust 0.335 average to go along with 18 home runs and 56 RBI in 123 games. He took just 15 walks in 518 plate appearances, which just might be who he is. Some of the best players in baseball have a very low walk rate but it is often ignored because they get on base in other ways. Jose Altuve is a great example, whose career-high in walks came in 2018 at a 9.2 percent clip, and his career average is just a lowly 6.6 percent.

That’s all fine but if Anderson wants to enter the same conversation as a Jose Altuve, he drastically needs to improve his defense. He played 122 of his 123 games at shortstop but had just a 0.951 fielding percentage to go along with 26 errors, which was easily the worst in baseball. 9 of his errors were directly related to runners scoring and was tied with Detroit’s Jordy Mercer in that category.

The left side of the infield is a tough place to play. In a heavy right-handed league, Anderson is going to be subjected to more errors than his counterparts on the right side. That being said, he’s currently a liability in the field which is holding him back from seeing his name into that elite category. The league average fielding percentage for the shortstop position is 0.970 and Anderson is nowhere close to that.

Interestingly enough, Yoan Moncada‘s fielding percentage at third base was better than the league average for third baseman despite being a lousy 0.962. Given that the league average was 0.982 a year ago, this tells me that it was a down year in general for third baseman.

There’s no doubt that Anderson’s bat is there. The numbers prove it. I would expect that infield coach Joe McEwing and Anderson have identified his defense as a need for improvement and are actively working on it this offseason. The best is yet to come from Tim Anderson, folks.