CHICAGO -- The White Sox entered Saturday’s doubleheader against the Tigers ranked 13th in the American League with 178 home runs.

They joined the Royals and Tigers as the only AL squads not to surpass 200, while the top four teams in the category -- the Yankees, Twins, Astros and A’s -- all are playoff bound. But White Sox manager Rick Renteria isn’t necessarily looking for a pure power increase in regard to offseason offensive changes.

“It depends on the makeup of your club,” Renteria said. “If you have a club that slugs, they just happen to slug. If you have a club that can do a lot of different things, and they can pitch and catch the ball, you have a chance also to be there.

“I love the homer as much everybody else does and if we get a lot of them, fantastic. But I also want the balance and want to have the ability to do the other things as well. I don’t think it’s a surprise that the teams that have slugged are there. They’re putting a lot of runs on the board, and it stands to reason the more points you score, the greater chance you have, for sure.”

Renteria pointed to the Rays, who are one of the AL Wild Cards, as a successful team not completely based on power. The Rays rank 11th in the AL with 215 homers. The White Sox also will benefit from the growth of their own young players, with a healthy Eloy Jiménez figuring to top his present total of 30 homers next season, as an example.

Cease’s season is a success

General manager Rick Hahn didn’t base his positive judgement of Dylan Cease’s rookie campaign on the raw numbers alone. Cease was scratched from his final start Thursday with a left hamstring strain suffered during warmups, leaving him with a 5.79 ERA over 14 starts (73 innings) to go with 81 strikeouts, 35 walks and 14 homers.

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“I'm not too hung up on the won-loss record, or that his ERA wound up in the low-to-mid-5s,” said Hahn of Cease. “I'm looking more at the progress he made in between starts ... his preparation, the improvement with some of the fastball command, some of the things he did on the side with Coop [White Sox pitching coach Don Cooper] and Has [bullpen coach Curt Hasler] to put himself in the position to take full advantage of a very impressive arsenal.

“He's still young. He's still going to have some growing pains next year at the big league level, but certainly pleased with what he did this year and again, another guy who heads into this offseason who should feel like he belongs here, and that he has the ability to be better.”

Cease’s 73 big league frames and 68 1/3 innings for Triple-A Charlotte left him with a new single-season high of 141 1/3 in 2019. His previous high of 124 came last season.

Giolito’s offseason to be a little different

Lucas Giolito's breakout campaign was shut down on Sept. 16 due to a mild right lat straight. Giolito said at the time he would have tried to pitch through the soreness if the White Sox were in the playoff picture, and his thought process hasn’t changed two weeks later.

“I feel great,” Giolito said. “I feel fine.”

After extensively refocusing his game both physically and mentally last offseason, Giolito’s upcoming offseason process will be slightly less cumbersome following an effort that produced a 14-9 record, 3.41 ERA and 228 strikeouts over 176 2/3 innings.

“My offseason is not looking exactly the same as the last one because the last one, I kind of got started early reworking everything, whereas now that baseline is there,” Giolito said. “Be able to take some time, let this heal up a little bit more and then get back to work.”

He said it

“Just go out and put your at-bats together, do what you do, and we’ll proceed as needed.” -- Renteria, on the final three-game plan for Tim Anderson and his pursuit of the AL batting title