Chester Hajduk's Cup of Coffee

On to Greener Pastures

2006-06-07T19:44:00.000-04:00

There comes a time in every blog's life when it must grow up, face the world, and be what it will be. For Chester's Cup of Coffee, that time has come. No, we're not dissappearing - we're moving. We've been asked by the people who run Most Valuable Network to take over their White Sox site, and we've obliged. From now on, you can find all the same Chester's content at:

whitesox.mostvaluablenetwork.com

Our name is also changing upon arrival at MVN; from here on out our blog will be called "The Bard's Room," in honor of the bar/dining room at Old Comiskey Park where Sox reporters, players, and team personnel met to hang out and talk baseball.

So please come check us out at the new address. Joining MVN should give us a lot more traffic, and ability to do things that we simply can't here at blogspot, so we're hoping it will be a major improvement. You can even sign up there for an RSS feed (top left of the page), to get an email notifying you of new posts.

Thank you for reading - we truly appreciate it. However, there's no reason to stop; see you in The Bard's Room.

Yowzah!

2006-06-07T10:26:00.000-04:00

Wow - what a game. I have to admit that while watching it, I regressed to pre-World Series Championship mode, where I assumed everything that could possibly go wrong would. And given the way the Sox played (poorly, that is), it would have seemed perfectly normal for us to lose 3-1. I was actually shocked by the comeback, both by Cintron's homer (made possible by a chance occurrence) and by the fact that we didn't throw away the lead in the 9th.

My next sentence was going to be about Sox starter Freddy Garcia, but then I struggled with how exactly to structure it. So I'll give you two options, and let you decide:

A) Garcia looked terrible, but somehow settled down enough to throw the minimum definition of a quality start (6 innings, 3 runs).

B) Garcia did throw a quality start, a small miracle given how poorly he pitched - it looked like the bottom third of the Tigers' order was taking batting practice against him.

I'm actually leaning a bit towards A, mostly because Garcia retired eight of the final nine batters he faced (and the one guy who did reach base got there on a bunt single), but B is certainly true as well.

There would have been no need for Cintron's heroics if the Sox had brought home a few of the nine runners they stranded on base. But I do fault Ozzie for a tactical error that had the potential of costing the team a run or two: in the bottom of the 2nd inning, after Jermaine Dye cut the Tigers' lead in half and the Sox put the next two batters on first and second, Guillen had Cintron attempt a sacrifice bunt, trying to move the runners to second and third with one out. However, the bunt failed, with A.J. Pierzynski being thrown out at third.

But why even attempt such a bunt? We can do a cost-benefit analysis using one of my favorite tools - the Expected Runs Matrix. Basically, the Matrix tells us how many runs are scored on average during an inning, given the runners on base and the number of outs. When a situation changes, you can see how many expected runs were gained or lost. This season, teams with runners on first and second and no outs have scored an average of 1.625 runs during that inning. Let's say Cintron's bunt succeeds, and the Sox have runners on second and third and one out: that situation yields an average of 1.438 runs. So by bunting the guy over, the Sox would actually lose some ground; this happens because outs are much more precious than baserunner positions. But what if the bunt fails, as it did last night, and the defensive team gets the lead runner out at third? With runners on first and second and one out, teams score 0.919 runs on average. So if the bunt works, we're in worse shape, and if it fails, then we're definitely in worse shape.

But perhaps using the 2006 data is not helpful, as only a third of a season has been played. Then let's use the data for the three year period before this season, 2003-2005. During that stretch, teams in the initial situation scored, on average, 1.497 runs. With a succesful bunt, that number dropped to 1.438. With a failed bunt, with the lead runner thrown out at third, that number dropped to 0.927. So, the numbers for the three year period aren't as extreme, but the point remains the same: there is a very minor negative impact (-0.059 runs) of succesfully laying down the sacrifice bunt, and a major negative impact (-0.57 runs) of trying to do so but failing (half a run is a lot when teams only score about 4.5 per game).

The move is a little more excusable when you consider that the next batter up after Cintron was Brian Anderson, who has struggled mightily at the plate thus far. However, the bunt attempt was still foolish, and for three additional reasons beyond the statistical one detailed above: 1) playing for one run - which lessens your chance for a big inning by giving away an out - is idiotic in the 2nd inning, especially in a high run-scoring environment like The Cell; 2) playing for one run makes more sense for a team that hits poorly, which the Sox do not (.276/.350/.462 after last night); and 3) the runner on second base was our very slow catcher, thereby improving the chances that the Tigers would throw out the lead runner.

Two more quick things:

The Sox selected University of Texas right-hander Kyle McCulloch with their first pick in the amateur draft yesterday. Selecting a college pitcher fits in well with their recent draft strategy, which you can see here in an interesting study; basically, the Sox favor college players, with a pretty even split between hitters and pitchers. Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus had this to say of McCulloch: "The Longhorns' ace this year, McCulloch was solid nearly every time out, but both his statistics and his stuff lacked any sort of 'wow' factor. It's not that teams stopped liking him, it's more that they found other guys that they liked better. McCulloch has a ton of polish and it's very easy to see him as a solid back-of-the-rotation starter... but not much more."

Lastly, if you watched the game on tv last night, perhaps you caught this gem from Hawk Harrelson: "Fernando Rodney, he of the good changeup Rodneys."

Rough Patch

2006-06-06T11:16:00.000-04:00

After Friday's loss, the Sox had played 54 games, or exactly one-third of the season. You know what that means: another installment of my meaningless line-score game.

The Sox went 3-6 during the "bottom of the third." They were only outscored 43-39, but bear in mind that one of their only wins was an 11-0 drubbing of the Indians, so the run differential was actually much worse. I give the team a little credit due to the fact that the level of competition was high - Oakland, Toronto, Cleveland, and Texas are all good teams. But the Sox played too poorly, and threw away too many winnable games, for me to the give them the score of 2 that the tough schedule implies. Therefore, they get only a 1, by far their worst half-inning of the season so far:

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Opposition	3	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	6
White Sox	6	3	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	10

Please, Relieve the Pain

2006-06-02T14:15:00.000-04:00

Since Jake chose to focus on the positive (the stunning production of the middle of our order) after last night's debacle, I thought I would mention a few things the game made me think about:

1.) We have the worst middle relief of any of the four contenders in our division. And it's not even close.

Setting up Joe Nathan, the Twins have Juan Rincon (2.00 ERA, 1.37 WHIP) and the so far disappointing Jesse Crain (6.94 ERA, 1.80 WHIP), who, based on his stats the last two years, should get it together shortly. Setting up the admittedly mediocre Todd Jones, the Tigers have Fernando Rodney (1.08 ERA, 0.92 WHIP) and Joel Zumaya (2.81 ERA, 1.13 WHIP). Either of these guys is capable of coming in and blowing the opposition away, with a combined 56 K's in 45 IP so far. The same, I fear, will soon be said of the Indians' tandem of Rafael Betancourt (3.21 ERA, 0.86 WHIP) and Fernando Cabrera (6.50 ERA, 1.50 WHIP). Cabrera got off to a bad start this year but he's got 58 K's in 53 career major league innings and, after a stint on the DL, registered a 1.64 ERA in May. Betancourt also served time on the DL this season, but has a solid history as a setup man and has given up nothing in 7 innings since retuning in mid-May. Thus, what looked like a glaring weakness for the Indians a few weeks ago (back when Guillermo Mota was routinely serving up 8th inning bombs), now looks like it could be a strength, just as it was last year for Cleveland.

And who do the Sox have setting up for Bobby Jenks? So far, I would submit the answer is, "nobody." Not one person we can count on to get guys out, much less strike them out (no one besides Jenks averages anything approaching a strikeout per inning, which is really what you need late in games against strong hitting teams like the Indians). Last night, Thornton, McCarthy, Cotts and Nelson were successively unimpressive. We know what's happened to Politte. In my opinion, if the Sox are going to be successful this year, definitely in the post season and maybe even to get there, they are going to need a shutdown eighth inning reliever - and they aren't going to get him out of retirement (like Nelson) or the minors (much as Jeff Farnsworth has impressed so far). Maybe Dustin Hermanson will come back but I doubt it. In the end, Kenny Williams is going to need to trade for somebody like Tom Gordon, Scott Linebrink or (gulp) Bobby Howry. Right now, none of the teams those guys are on would make those trades, but a couple months down the line you never know. The one guy I can think of who might be available in the near future is the Dodgers' Denys Baez (Gagne is back and Baez is close to falling behind Saito and Broxton on LA's depth chart). Maybe LA would be interested in, say, Casey Rogowski?

Anyway, the point is, there are going to be a lot more games like last night until we bring someone in. Until then, we are going to continue having trouble holding leads against the likes of the Indians/Yankees/Red Sox/Blue Jays/Rangers.

2.) Brian Anderson should be starting almost every day in center field.

Maybe you were covering your eyes and cursing and missed it, but right after Ronnie Belliard's 3-run smash last night Aaron Boone hit a long fly ball to center field. Rob Mackowiak made a valiant effort but was nowhere close to catching it. The result: For the second time this series, a ball that would have been caught by Brian Anderson went for a triple, directly costing us a run.

How do I know Brian Anderson would have caught the ball? Well, I don't. However, there is a fair amount of evidence suggesting Brian Anderson is the best defensive center fielder in baseball so far this season. He has a 1,000 fielding percentage (and I don't think it gets much better than that) and is leading the major leagues in range factor, at 3.36, handily ahead of the likes of Andruw Jones (2.95) and Torii Hunter (2.85), and way ahead of the great Aaron Rowand (2.42). Where does Rob Mackowiak clock in? Mackowiak - and it's not his fault, he's not a center fielder - has a range factor of 2.36, which would place him 17th among 23 qualifying center fielders. This is the guy Mr. Defense manager Ozzie Guillen has put in the center of his outfield. Given that, in large part because of the middle-of-the-order hitting Jake documented, we are not having any problems scoring runs right now, I simply don't get the insistence that we need to platoon Anderson because he's hitting .164.

As my dad likes to say, nothing is more underrated than outfield defense. When outfielders make mistakes or don't get to balls, an out turns more often than not directly into a run. With the amount that teams put the ball in play against our pitchers, it's just not worth it to sacrifice defense for a few singles a week.

I hope that after Anderson serves his suspension, Guillen, who may have already talked himself into a corner on this one, will reverse course on the platoon. Now it would be nice tonight if Garland could keep the ball in the park for a few innings (didn't Garland used to be a groundball pitcher?)

Knock On Wood

2006-06-02T10:24:00.000-04:00

I consider myself a very logical guy - rational, skeptical in the scientific sense, even-handed. I subscribe to Scientific American, and have for many years. I'm not religious, and faith is just about the exact opposite of logic and science (although I think it's possible for them to co-exist, such as in the belief that God created evolution). And yet occasionally - very, very occasionally - I am superstitious, and always about something sports-related. So it makes perfect sense to me that after yesterday, when I sung the praises of Neal Cotts and Matt Thornton, they would go out and, with the help of some other guys in the bullpen, blow a very winnable game. I accept responsibility for jinxing them, and will do my best to avoid doing so again in the future.

Having said that, I'm now going to break my promise and laud a couple of Soxx (the double-x means plural, remember), meaning they'll no doubt injure themselves tonight and be out for the year. Great. Anyway:

If I were to ask who the Sox' best two hitters have been over the past 15 years, I think the answers would be pretty clear. Frank Thomas is a lock, and I will not even entertain any arguments to the contrary. He's the best Sock hitter ever, and not by a small margin, so clearly he wins for the much shorter time-frame in question as well. And the second best hitter, with all apologies to Paul Konerko (and a mini apology to Albert Belle's monster 1998), was Magglio Ordonez. It was very easy to forget about Maggs last year, what with him being injured and the Sox winning the World Series and all (note: roughly seven months later, it still feels good to type that), but from 2000 to 2003 (and to a lesser extent in 1999) he was one of the premier right fielders in the game. He was also absurdly consistent; check out these batting lines:

Year	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	RBI	R	H
1999	301	349	510	30	117	100	188
2000	315	371	546	32	126	102	185
2001	305	382	533	31	113	97	181
2002	320	381	597	38	135	116	189
2003	317	380	546	29	99	95	192

With the exception of 1999, when his rate stats showed him to be more on the ascent to stardom than actually there, and 2002, when he was a viable MVP candidate, Maggs hit like a very predictable machine during that span. In my opinion, it's very clear that he and Frank were the cream of the Sox crop.

Both ex-Sox sluggers are experiencing a resurgence these days. Magglio, healthy for the first time since 2003, is hitting .318/.363/.551 with 12 homers and 39 RBI for the (yikes) first-place Tigers. And although Thomas' batting average this season is still just a minute .229, he's been on a hot streak ever since he came to Chicago to play the Sox: in those 11 games, he's hitting .400/.523/.857 with five homers and nine RBI. For the season, his on-base and slugging percentages of .353 and .484 are well above average.

I bring this up because so far this season, the Sox' two best hitters - Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome - are Ordonez' and Thomas' respective replacements. In fact, Dye and Thome haven't just been the Sox' best hitters - they've been the American League's best hitters. After last night's game (in which Dye hit two homers and drove in five runs, and Thome went 1-for-3 with a walk and three RBI), they had the two highest OPSes of anyone not named Albert Poo-Holes. Along with Konerko, they currently form the best 1-2-3 punch in the majors; here are the top trios, ranked by average OPS:

Team	Players	Average OPS
White Sox	Thome-Dye-Konerko	1037
Blue Jays	Rios-Wells-Glaus	1000
Indians	Hafner-Blake-Broussard	993
Cardinals	Pujols-Rolen-Eckstein	987
Yankees	Giambi-Rodriguez-Posada	977
Red Sox	Ramirez-Lowell-Youkilis	957
Rockies	Hawpe-Holliday-Atkins	956
Phillies	Howard-Abreu-Burrell	951
Pirates	Bay-Sanchez-Wilson	931
Mets	Beltran-Wright-Delgado	924
A's	Swisher-Chavez-Thomas	922
Astros	Ensberg-Berkman-Biggio	921
Marlins	Cabrera-Ramirez-Uggla	916
Brewers	Lee-Hall-Fielder	913
Braves	McCann-Jones-Jones	912
Tigers	Shelton-Ordonez-Guillen	910

The Sox' top-heavy offensive formula has made up for some of the deficiencies at the bottom of the batting order (such as Uribe's .208/.243/.333 and Anderson's .164/.271/.291), although it certainly helps to have a number of other guys (Pods, Pierzynski, Mackowiak, Iguchi) with good on-base percentages, and another (Crede) who slugs pretty well.

Road Bump

2006-06-01T11:06:00.000-04:00

Is it safe to say this is a slump? Perhaps just a rut? I don't know. On the one hand, we've lost four out of six games, which is never good. On the other hand, those games were against two good teams: the Blue Jays are on track to win 90 games, and have played a very tough schedule so far, and the Indians, even though they're only at .500 in the standings, have a run differential (285 runs, 224 runs against) that says their record should be more or less just like Toronto's. Furthermore, when you consider the 3-game sweep of the A's that preceded these two series, it doesn't look all that bad. If the Sox can win tonight and salvage a series split, I'll feel ok. If they lose again tonight, well, then perhaps it's time to start worrying.

In other news, Ozzie finally came out and said that Anderson and Mackowiak will platoon in center field. It has become more and more obvious in recent weeks that Anderson no longer held the job exclusively, especially since Mackowiak hit .344/.425/.500 in May. While this makes sense on one end - Macko has hit righties to the tune of .296/.390/.465 this season - I'm not so sure about the other. Anderson has been atrocious against lefties this year (.115/.242/.212), even worse than against righties (.207/.299/.362), and I think perhaps he needs some time at AAA. Sure, you worry about damaging his confidence by sending him down, but I think letting him continue to get manhandled by major league pitchers is potentially much worse.

I like the idea, now being floated around, of having Pablo Ozuna play center field against lefites, as he's torched them at a .382/.432/.676 clip this year in limited action. However, I'm skeptical about his defense; he's barely able to handle left field yet, let alone center. If they went that route, I'd prefer that they sent him to AAA to play center every day for a week or so, to learn the position a bit without risking it in actual Sox games. I get the feeling the team would never do that, though, as Ozzie values Ozuna too much to give him up for a bit (not to mention that I think Ozuna might be out of transaction options). Of course, if Ozuna played center against lefties, then we'd be stuck playing Pods against them too, so perhaps the Sox are right to give Anderson another chance. Brian's actually displayed a fair amout of patience at the plate this year - .124 walks per plate appearance, as compared to the AL average of .085 - so if he can get a few more hits to fall in, he'll at least be servicable.

Lastly, it appears the the lefties in our 'pen have finally found their groove. During May, Neal Cotts had an ERA of 2.53 and a WHIP of 0.84 in 10 and two-thirds innings, while Matt Thornton had an ERA of 3.27 and a 0.91 WHIP in 11 innings. If Jeff Nelson can throw strikes (7 walks in 7 and two-thirds innings this year between Charlotte and Chicago), and Brandon McCarthy can regain some of his early-season form, we'll have a nice righty tandem to compliment the lefties in settting up Jenks. You'll notice I didn't include Cliff Politte in that group; that's because I think this is just going to be a really rough year for him, and that the Sox should send him to AAA to work on some things. In exchange, they could call up Jeff Farnsworth, who has been nasty for the Knights this year: a 2.13 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, and 20 strikeouts against just three walks in 25 and one-third innings.

Medium Ball

2006-05-26T14:07:00.000-04:00

Last season, there were millions of words in the press devoted to a discussion of the Sox' new "small ball" or "smart ball" tactics. Of course, many observers noted at the time that the team was still extremely reliant on the long ball - they ended up hitting over 200 homers on the year - an anti-small ball tactic if there ever was one. At the same time, they did attempt a lot of steals and bunts. So who was right? For a while now I've been planning on dissecting the issue, but then I found that someone at The Hardball Times (a terrifice website, if you've never been) had done just that, and quite well. And as I am a lazy, lazy man, I figured I'd just pass along the article: so here it is. Enjoy!

Post Script - earlier this year I ranted about how much I hate off-days after losses. But yesterday was an off-day after a winning sweep. Now that I can handle.

Creative Title

2006-05-24T14:51:00.000-04:00

With a nice win over Oakland last night, in a game in which our starter clearly didn't have his best stuff, the Sox finished the top of the third inning with a 6-3 record. During that stretch, they lost two games to the lowly Devils Rays, and blew a seemingly sure win against the Cubs; however, they also outscored their opponents 54-35, and twice beat a team - the A's - that they've had a lot of trouble with in recent years. I'll give the Sox a score of 1 for the half-inning (remember, we were "pitching," so low is good), making the updated line score look like this:

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Opposition	3	2	1	-	-	-	-	-	-	6
White Sox	6	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	9

Hurt's So Good

2006-05-23T19:38:00.000-04:00

Great game last night. Great. Exactly what I wanted to happen happened - Big Frank had a great game, and the Sox won.

Thomas has always been my favorite Sock, and probably always will be. A lot of that has to do with the fact that his reign of terror on the AL took place from about the time I was ten until some time during college, formative years to say the least. But part of it also has to do with the fact that he was just an absurdly good hitter during that time. In my mind, he's not just a Hall of Famer, he's an inner circle Hall of Famer.

Don't believe me? Coming into this season, Thomas had the 11th highest career OPS of any player in history, and the 6th highest for a right-handed hitter. Of the five righties above him, three (Jimmie Foxx, Hank Greenberg, and Rogers Hornsby) are already Hall of Famers, and the other two (Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez) should be there some day. And keep in mind, Frank's career OPS has dropped precipitously in the past few years as he's declined; when you consider his peak seasons (1991-1997), he ranks even higher.

I was extremely proud to be a Sox fan last night when the crowd gave the Hurt a standing ovation his first time up. Sox fans get a bad rap due to a couple of admittedly horrible on-field episodes, and I have to admit that I was expecting something along the lines of what Jim Thome got this year in Cleveland, so to see them do the classy thing felt good. Frank launched a homer to left right after the ovation (his first of two on the night), a storybook event which I think he deserved after missing out on the playoffs last year.

Perhaps, as the media so often insinuates, Thomas is a big asshole. Perhaps not. They used to chastise him a bunch for caring so much about his personal statistics, but that never really bothered me. For starters, shouldn't he care about his individual performance? Those stats are how a player bargains his next contract. It's the same thing as a person caring about their grades in school, or a work evaluation by a supervisor. Baseball is Frank's career, after all. And furthermore, why should we care what he was thinking about, as long as he was helping the team win? And until Magglio took over the reigns in the late 90s, no one on the Sox made a bigger contribution in the standings than Frank.

Besides all of the hullaballoo surrounding Thomas' return, it was a very odd game. A squirrel ran around on the field for a few minutes, chased by groundskeepers in what easily could have been footage from a 100-year-old slapstick silent film. And more importantly, the Sox bench pulled out the win with some unlikely heroes.

Barry Zito was damn near unhittable. And I say that in the broadest sense, because Sox hitters actually did a good job of exploiting his one weakness - a propensity to walk batters. But all we could muster against him was a measly sac fly, and it looked like it would be an easy win for the A's. But super-sub Rob Mackowiak finally displayed some power - and clutch power at that - in the 8th inning, and Pablo Ozuna won the game with a bunt in the 10th. Chris Widger, starting in place of Pierzynski with the nasty lefty on the mound, was another contributor off the bench.

I actually wasn't so crazy to see Ozuna lay down that bunt. I mean, of course I was elated about the result, but as a tactic I think it's risky. Players who bunt are thrown out at least 90% of the time; perhaps that number is slightly lower when a player is trying to bunt for a single, but the point still stands - your chances of getting on via a bunt are lower than trying to get on via a full swing. And with two outs and the winning run in scoring position, you pretty much have to lay down the perfect bunt to score. Granted, Ozuna did, so I'm not complaining. But re-do that play 100 times, and most of the time the game goes into the 11th inning.

I thought the behind-the-plate umpiring was very inconsistent last night. Zito was getting a lot of calls that Garland wasn't, and Thome was called out on an absurd strike in the bottom of the 9th.

Lastly, there were two good examples last night of how hit-or-miss Hawk Harrelson's announcing can be. And I'm not talking about his shtick, which consists of about 20 or so expressions used over and over again - that you either like or don't. I'm talking about his baseball insight. His hit last night was when he said that when healthy, Bobby Crosby is one of the most underrated players in baseball. Hawk is absolutely right: just 26 and immensely talented, Crosby is a shortstop who most teams would take in a heartbeat. Hawk's miss was when he called Nick Swisher an "aggresive young man" at the plate. Swisher, another great young talent, has a career OBP 91 points higher than his career batting average; you're not going to find many "aggresive" hitters who walk that much. As if to prove my point, Swisher prompty drew a base on balls mere seconds after Hawk's comment.

City of Shoulders Broad Enough for Two Teams

2006-05-21T23:06:00.000-04:00

It's been awhile since my last post, and for that I apologize heartily. I've just been very busy between work and moving out of my apartment. But rest assured that I have still been following the Sox with my usual vigor, and now I'm ready at last to spew some truthiness in your general direction.

The Sox just concluded a highly-entertaining Red Line series with the Baby Bears, but before I get to that I wanted to note some things from the series with the Devil Rays.

First of all, it was an ugly, ugly series for the Sox. Besides the obviousness of losing two of three to a team that's never won more than 70 games in a season (granted, in only eight years, and playing in a tough division), we just played without our usual polish, making stupid mistakes over and over again. In Tuesday's game, Boone Logan presided over one of the worst innings in the field I've ever seen; in fact, it was so terrible that I'm quite surprised he's still with the big-league team, and hasn't been sent down yet in favor of Javier Lopez. [Revision: Logan was sent down to AAA when Contreras was activated prior to Sunday's game; Agustin Montero remained with the Sox.] During Wednesday's game, the Sox were thrown out trying to steal three times, thereby wasting a number of offensive opportunities. If Garland and the bullpen hadn't pitched so well and kept the game close, this would have been one of those game that Ozzie lost for us with his baserunning idiocy (assuming, of course, that those orders to steal originated with him, which might not be the case). All in all, we played something like a AAA team, and were lucky to come away with even one win.

Also a bit unsettling was Vazquez's return to giving up the longball that he exhibited in Thursday's game. Homers have been his Achilles' heal the past few seasons, but going into that contest he had only surrendered two of them; he doubled that number in just one night, the second homer off the bat of 9th-place hitter Damon Hollins being both his and the Sox' undoing. Let's hope this is not the start of a trend for Vazquez.

In recent years, the Sox have had a righty-dominated lineup, with the likes of Thomas, Konerko, Magglio, and El Caballo providing the pop. And yet, the Sox went 21-34 against lefty starters in 2004. Even last year, with the addition of lefties (and Scrabble-winning names) Podsednik and Pierzynski, the Sox' two best hitters - Konerko and Dye - were righties, and most of the other important pieces (Iguchi, Crede, Uribe, Rowand) were as well. But the team went 19-18 versus lefties.

Once again, this year the Sox find themselves struggling against lefties; they were 5-8 on the season after Thursday's loss. Part of that has to do with the more balanced lineup the team now sports. Our best hitter, Jim Thome, is merely a good hitter against lefties (.264/.391/.415), and Pods, who was very good against them last year (.330/.404/.350), is showing a more traditional platoon split by wielding a wet noodle against southpaws (.178/.275/.200). Additionally, a couple of our righties who traditionally mash against lefties have had down starts to the season; Crede's batting .240/.291/.360 against them, while Uribe's at .213/.255/.255.

Mark Hendrickson, the Devils Rays lefty who beat the Sox on Thursday, has an interesting back-story. He played parts of four seasons in the NBA, and is on a very short list of people who made it in both leagues. The best basketball player on that list, former Pistons and Knicks star Dave DeBusschere, pitched for the Sox for two seasons in the early 60s, and was actually pretty decent. That was well before my time on Earth, and I had no clue until I checked it out the other night.

Two last quick notes from the Devils Rays series: 1) Many of the Rays players wore those new-fangled batting helmets with the etched lines on the side, and I've noticed that a few Sox hitters have started to as well. Are those supposed to be more aerodynamic or something? And 2) Konerko tagged and went to second base on a fly ball to center field on Thursday, easily the best base-running play I've seen by a Sock all season. It reminded me a lot of Jeff Bagwell, who in my opinion is the smartest and most-underrated baserunner I've ever seen.

On to the Cubs series. I'll take two out of three any time - and against any team - although we were so close to the sweep that it was a bit frustrating. The worst part is that, like in the series with the Rays, the Sox were sloppy. After committing four errors in three games down in Tampa, we funked up four more plays versus the Cubs, including two today. And one play that very well could have been scored an error - Uribe's bad relay throw in the 8th - probably cost us the game.

On the good side of the ledger, the Sox got some excellent pitching out of their starters. Buehrle was magnificent on Friday, Garcia was almost as good yesterday, and Contreras pitched very well today until the bullpen blew the game for him. Of course, it takes two to tango, and the Cubs aren't exactly the most formidable lineup around; coming into Sunday's game, they were batting a collective .244/.301/.364. Yikes.

Following last year's script, the Sox got most of their runs in the series via the long ball. Konerko and Iguchi each hit two, while Thome and Pierzynski added one each. I don't have any problem with that whatsoever. What actually worries me is what Ozzie might do when our power experiences an outage. Chances are that he'll pull out the small-ball tactics, wasting precious outs when he should be giving our hitters as many chances as possible to pull out of their funks. Then again, it's possible that the lineup is deep enough this year that at any given time at least one or two guys will be mashing, making drastic tactical changes unnecessary.

Obviously the by-line from the series getting the most press is the brawl on Saturday, and the continuation of shenanigans today. I thought Michael Barrett's actions were ridiculous, and he should be suspended. But at the same time, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Pierzynski did something to provoke him (even beyond his showy slap of home plate), much as he did today with the uber-talented but hot-headed Carlos Zambrano. A.J. will always be a Sox folk hero for his participation in three out-of-the-ordinary plays last October, but his raised arms, pointing to his jaw, and emphatic high-five as he returned to the dugout on Saturday certainly won't hurt his place in south side lore.

As with many Sox fans, the feeling and meaning of playing the Cubs changed dramatically for me after winning the World Series. In fact, my entire attitude towards the Cubs and their fans is different now. I used to, I admit, be something of a Cubs-hater. Not to the extent that my fandom was framed more by a negative reaction to the lovable losers than it was by a positive reaction to the Sox; rooting for the Sox always came first, and rooting against the Cubs always second. But I did use to check the scoreboard every day and hope that the Cubs' futility extended yet another day, and beating our north side rivals in interleague games meant a lot to me.

But winning it all changed that. I just can't bring myself to hate the Cubs any more. Yes, I still loathe the yuppie frat boys and bimbos that treat Wrigley like the world's largest singles bar. But at the same time, I have a lot of empathy for the knowledgeable, informed, obsessive Cubs fans who are really just like me but rooting for another team. I grew up on the north side, and most of my friends are Cubs fans, and good ones at that. Most of them hate the lame bleacher invaders just as much as I do, in fact more so. And those Cubs fans - the ones who really care about the team, and the product on the field, and wins and losses, and personnel decisions and all the rest of the stuff that I obsess about with the Sox - are Chicagoans too. They love the Bulls, and the Bears, and the Fire, and maybe even the Hawks, too (ha). They're good sports fans, and I can't hate that. Remember how it felt before we won the World Series? Well, they're still living with that, and I feel their pain.

So last season really was a very cathartic experience for me, and it translates into a totally different view of the Cubs-Sox series. I really do treat these games as every manager and player quips to the press every year - just another series. Well, more than just another series, but only in that the Sox are playing in a very intense, pressure-filled environment, and seeing how they respond (such as today's fielding miscues) is instructive. But notching some wins, and rebounding from some poor play in Tampa were the most important things to me, and judged by those criteria - and those alone - this weekend's series was a raging success.

The Times Have Changed

2006-05-21T15:17:00.000-04:00

What a week it has been. First, the Sox took the air out of the Twins by taking the final two of a 4-game series. Then the Sox escaped the hell hole where the Devil Rays, or is it the Rays, play by salvaging 1 game of a 3-game set. Then they returned home to take two in a row as of noon today.

The last two home games have seen a number of important events. Of the greatest importance is that the Sox won both of the games. Next in importance is that Buehrle pitched a complete game, yielding only 2 hits. Then came Saturday's shutout, with Fred Garcia going 8 and Matt Thornton closing it out. The Sox maintained rallies on Friday with singles and doubles. No, I didn't forget Thome's home run, but while home runs are nice, it's sustained rallies that involve batters throughout the lineup that makes my blood race. Yesterday all of the runs, but one, scored on Iguchi home runs. Oh yeah, there was a brawl. I am not a boxing judge, but given that the White Sox won the game 7-0, I'm giving the nod to the White Sox.

There is another fact that I haven't mentioned, and have refrained from doing so intentionally. The Sox were playing the Cubs. I am, and always have been, a White Sox fan. When I was around 10 years old I came to the conclusion that the mood of those around me was better when either of the Chicago clubs won, so since then I have been a Chicago fan. I have nothing against the Cubs, and as I have told my Cub friends, I hope they go 156-6, so long as the 6 are losses to the White Sox. I live and die, however, by how the White Sox play.

When I was a little boy the White Sox and Cubs used to engage in a City Series. The City Series was 2 games played in Chicago at the end of the exhibition season. These games did NOT count in the standings, but it was the only chance for the 2 teams to play, so as absurd as it may have been, these games would define bragging rights for Cubs and Sox fans for the year. These games were discontinued, though some years later a mid-summer exhibition game took place for several years, the proceeds for which were earmarked for charity. I understand that for decades prior to my birth, the Sox and the Cubs played a series that took place concurrently with the World Series.

These games may not have had meaning in the standings, or in the official record book, but they had a real importance for Cubs and White Sox fans alike. Since neither team had won a World Series, and in my lifetime, prior to 2005 only the 1959 White Sox even got as far as the World Series, there was nothing truly legitimate that the fans of either team could use to taunt the fans of the other team. Thus, these games did come to have meaning, if only in the mind of the Cugs and White Sox fans.

The advent of interleague play added a legitimacy to the importance of the games, and raised the stakes in the intra-city feud. Ultimately, the only thing the outcome of the games each year proved was which team won more games than the other, except for those years when the series was split, but the White Sox/Cub rivalry is not about logic and so the interleague playing season affords a chance for the fans of each team two chances in three to claim superiority, at best, or equality at worst.

Something happened last year though, a fact not lost upon the fans of either team. The White Sox not only made it to the World Series, but won it as well. As a result, the battle of the franchises has been retired, with the White Sox on top. The battle may be revived, but not by the Cubs winning 4 or more of 6 in interleague play. Nothing less than a Cubs victory in the World Series makes the debate between White Sox fans and Cubs fan anything more than a boring reminder of times passed.

So, Sox fans, enjoy the 2 game winning streak and the excellent pitching. Enjoy the teamwork displayed when one of the Sox was assaulted by one of the other team. Enjoy, if you must, that the Cubs are the team the Sox are beating, but remember Sox fans, no matter what happens this weekend, or when the teams meet again, no matter the result of the games, the White Sox are, and will remain, the defending world champions and the kings of Chicago baseball..

Updates

2006-05-15T16:55:00.000-04:00

Current Sox Update: Nice win today to get the split in the series. For starters (hardy har har), Freddy pitched very well, giving up just seven hits and a walk in six and two-thirds innings. His fastball was up in the 93-94 mph range, which was an excellent sign. Plus, his off-speed breaking pitches had a lot of late bite to them. He looked very good (and sweaty, as usual). The only thing Garcia could have done better was hold runners; the Twins stole four bases, and all of them off the pitcher.

Pods put on another clinic with the bat, going 3-for-4 with a walk, two runs scored, two RBI, a double, a stolen base, and his first regular-season home run since 2004. That's a mouthful. He also played some nice defense, sliding into shallow left twice - first, the ball fell in for a hit, which he smothered to hold the runner; the second time, he caught it to end the game.

Crede also had a good day, going 3-for-4 with a homer, a sac fly, and a dazzling defensive play diving to his right. Chris Widger got the start behind the plate, which I thought a little odd; it seemed perhaps a better fit for him to play tomorrow against the Ray's nasty lefty Scott Kazmir (who was heisted from the Mets a few years back), with Pierzynski going today against the young and talented righty Scott Baker. But Ozzie apparently knew what he was doing, as Widger went 3-for-5 with two runs, three RBI, and his first homer of the season.

Ex-Sox Update: In the Marlins' 8-2 win over the Pirates yesterday, ex-Soxx (the double-X means plural, at least according to the logic I just made up) Joe Borchard and Miguel Olivo were responsible for much of the damage on offense. Olivo went 2-for-5 with a double and two RBI, and Borchard went 2-for-4 with a solo homer. Since being acquired by the Marlins earlier this month, Joe has hit decently: .256/.326/.410 with two homers and six RBI.

Future Sox Update: Top Sox prospect Ryan Sweeney recently went on the disabled list with "hamstring tightness." That doesn't sound terrible, but I'm still a bit worried. Sweeney hit very well during spring training, and was hitting .297/.368/.426 and playing center field for AAA Charlotte before getting injured. Other top prospect Josh Fields is on an absolute tear at AAA. The third baseman has homered in four straight games, and went 5-for-5 yesterday (including two bombs) to raise his hitting line to .361/.440/.694 with eight homers. Veteran reliever Jeff Nelson pitched a scoreless inning for the Knights yesterday; he's yet to give up a run, albeit in only two and one-third innings.

Random Update: After yesterday's game, the Sox had officially finished the "second inning" (see this post if you don't know what that means). During the bottom half of the second, they went 5-4, and scored exactly as many runs (48) as their opponents. That's a dead-even score of 3 if I've ever seen one, so now the updated line score looks like this:

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Opposition	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	5
White Sox	6	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	9

At Long Last

2006-05-15T10:51:00.000-04:00

*Phew* Yes, it was only a three-game losing streak, but it felt like John McCain would be president before the Sox won another game.

The first loss, on Wednesday, I could stomach. A 22-year-old kid (who am I calling kid? I'm barely older than he) makes his major league debut against a team that went to the ALCS last year; what are we supposed to expect? If there was a game we were supposed to lose so far this season, it was that one. The amazing thing is, after getting down big, the Sox actually made it a game (until the 9th inning that is, when the Angels blew it wide open). All in all, I didn't feel terrible about this loss.

Then came the rain-out. Nothing anyone could do about that. Frustrating, yes, as I was eager for the Sox to get back in the win column, but all we could do is wait for Friday and the non-weather of the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome.

Friday's game was ugly. And yet I wasn't all that upset by it, and for two reasons. First, Johan Santana was on the mound for the Twins. Some early-season troubles aside, he is by far (by far) the best pitcher in the majors (and therefore on the planet), and the chances of beating him are extremely slim. When I see Santana slated to pitch against the Sox, I usually just chalk up an L and look towards the next day.

And secondly, we had Jon Garland going for us on Friday. Garland is, in my opinion, easily the worst of our five regular starters. That's not to say he's a bad pitcher, because he's not. It actually says more about the strength of the rotation than anything else. But consider: Mark Buehrle has shown that his finesse act is the real deal, with a career ERA of 3.63 (entering this season) in over 1200 innings; Freddy Garcia has always been an above-average pitcher, and occasionally a terrific one (see his 2001 season); Javier Vazquez was one of the half-dozen best pitchers in all of baseball during his days with the Expos, and is showing much of that form again; and Jose Contreras has been the best in the game since last year's All-Star break (and had quite a storied international amateur career before this one). That leaves Garland pretty far behind the pack. Yes, he was good last year, but in the end I think it will prove to be his best season, and I think we can expect more of the 2002-04 version of Garland in the future. That's not to say he's not valuable; any team would take a guy who can consistenly throw 200 league-average innings. But Garland's best pitch - his sinker - never turned out to have the bite of Brandon Webb's, or, before him, Kevin Brown's, and therefore he never turned into an ace (as of yet).

Anyway, that's just a long way of saying that when Garland takes the mound, I think we stand a better chance of losing than with any of our other starters. So Garland + Santana on Friday = easy loss.

Saturday's loss was much more frustrating, as the offense staked Vazquez to a 4-0 lead that he promptly blew. Granted, there was a blown call and a number of ejections in the mix, but Javy simply didn't pitch through the muck, and the Sox lost the game. Pods had a nice game, going 2-for-5 with a triple.

We really needed last night's game, one that was nationally-televised with the Dr. Jeckyl (Jon Miller) and Mr. Hyde (Joe Morgan) broadcast team (with a healthy dose of Peter Gammons thrown in) on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball. It was an incredibly odd game, with Buehrle achieving something not done in more than 100 years - giving up 7 runs in the first inning and winning the game - and the Sox turning a triple play.

This was definitely the type of game the Sox would have lost a few years ago. Ozzie's teams really do seem to keep fighting no matter the score, although that's more based on anecdotal evidence than anything else (maybe there is statistical evidence of it, but I don't have it). The two errors that led to the big first inning for the Twins didn't seem to faze the team, which was good. They didn't faze me either, because they were made by two of the best fielders on our team - Buehrle and Juan Uribe - and are probably more of a fluke than indicative of a larger problem. Lastly, I could just imagine the Sox hitting into that triple play at the Metrodome during the 2003 or 2004 seasons; that's exactly the type of bone-headed bad-bunt-bad-baserunning play the Sox used to make, and the Twins used to capitalize on. It's amazing to me that we can now be on the other side of things.

Pods played very well again, going 3-for-5 with a triple, 2 RBI, and a stolen base. Over the last seven days he's hitting .467/.600/.733. It was also great to see Pierzynski get his first homer of the year; he's never been a particularly high slugging hitter, but his ability to hit bombs is a worthwhile trait. It also seems like he's going to hit for a better average this year, perhaps closer to his career rate of .289 when all is said and done; Pierzynksi doesn't walk often, but his OBP should be higher than last year, which I would much rather have than the 18 dingers and low-OBP he managed in '05. Brian Anderson also made a tremendous catch in center, proving that he's still providing value in the field even if he's not managing to provide much with the bat (although even that statement is now suspect; he's hitting .308/.400/.538 over the past seven days).

Harumph

2006-05-12T09:27:00.000-04:00

Grrr. A rain-out following a loss is just as bad as an off-day following a loss. Actually, it might be worse, because my hopes had gotten up at the chance of redemption yesterday, only to have them squashed by Mother Nature.

I don't think we saw the real Charlie Haeger on Wednesday, because his MLB-debut jitters had him throwing the knuckler a good 5-10 mph faster than normal. That resulted in not much fluttering, and many a ball. I would suspect that the next time he pitches in the bigs, he'll be throwing his more typical speed, and should have better results. Still, McCarthy pitched excellently in relief, and I'm glad they'll be going with him on Monday versus the Twinkies.

Speaking of the Twins, if you've never been to bat-girl.com, you simply must check it out. Easily the best, and funniest, fan site I've come across. The author bashes the Sox (whom she calls the Bitch Sox) a good deal, but it's hilarious, well-written, and worth your time.

Looking for Attention

2006-05-10T20:23:00.000-04:00

I learned something yesterday. I was watching the 5:00 p.m. version of Sports Center, as opposed to the 5:00 a.m. version of Sports Center, which is exactly the same as the 4:00 a.m. version. Mike Greenberg’s lead story was about “the greatest rivalry in sports.” What, you might ask, is the greatest rivalry in sports? Sit down. It’s the Yankees v. Red Sox.

I had always thought that maybe it was the White Sox v. Cubs, or Notre Dame v. USC, perhaps Duke v. North Carolina, the Dodgers v. the Giants, the Montreal Canadians v. the Toronto Maple Leafs, Alabama v. Auburn, Hearns v. Leonard, Florida v. Florida State, Ali v. Frasier, or for that matter, the government of the United States v. Ali. For those of you who weren’t alive at the time of the U.S. v. Ali fight, after being down on points in the early rounds, Ali scored a clean knockout against the oddly-named Department of Justice.

So, why do the Yankees and the Red Sox get all the attention, while the best team in baseball, the White Sox, are mentioned primarily in the screen crawl beneath the “highlights” of Alex Rodriguez making one of his 2 errors last night? Money.

Bristol, CT, the home of ESPN, is almost equidistant from Boston and New York with roughly equivalent 2-hour drive times to the two cities. People sent to cover the Yankees or the Red Sox don’t have to stay overnight, eliminating ESPN’s need to reimburse out-of-pocket expenses incurred for lodging and meals. They probably provide company cars, so they save the need to reimburse its people at $0.445/mile, the current acceptable reimbursement rate under Federal Income Tax law. Compare gas and depreciation to corporate air fares, prime hotel rates and meals and there is no way that any teams farther than an afternoon drive from Bristol are going to be involved in a rivalry worth it to ESPN to cover in depth.

What do the White Sox have to do to gain the attention of the national media, be it television or print? Throw a World Series? Guess what! It’s already been done! Last year the White Sox got more attention than they do now because all the pundits were giving the over/under on when the White Sox would crash and burn. The story last year was how the Sox would set a record for blowing the biggest lead. This year, who would listen to it?

Maybe the White Sox v. Angels isn’t the kind of rivalry that would have inspired Grantland Rice, even if the Angels had been in existence when Rice was alive. On the other hand, this series is a replay of last year’s American League Championship Series. I guess reporting on a team that has its 4th starter go 8 innings, yielding just 5 hits, and backed up with sterling defensive plays and an offense that bats 12 men in an inning to score 6 to make the outcome inevitable, just isn’t worth the attention, read cost, of the great ESPN.

I suppose I could live with this state of affairs, since as far as the White Sox are concerned, they never did get attention from the national media. What makes the situation so painful this year is that there really is no acceptable set of broadcasters calling the games. John Rooney was driven from Chicago. Maybe one day Ed Farmer and Chris Singleton will develop rapport, but until that happens I can't listen to more than a handful of pitches at a time. Then again, maybe Hawk Harrelson will come up with a phrase that he hasn't used to death over the years, but I doubt it. As Darrin Jackson might say, "No doubt."

Walk in the Park

2006-05-10T17:36:00.000-04:00

Last night's win was one of the easiest you'll ever see. I'll admit I was worried when Garcia gave up that first inning run, and thought we would be in for a long night, but he settled down and pitched a hell of a game (albeit against a terrible offensive Angels team). We got offensive contributions from everywhere in the lineup, and it was quite a one-sided game.

Obviously Thome contributed a great deal (three hits including a homer that gave us the lead for good), and Dye's and Crede's homers were great too (Dye's in particular being a nice sign that he's healthy), but the best sign of the night, in my opinion, was Pods' performance. He reached base all five times he was up, walking four times(!) and legging out an infield single. He also displayed his defensive chops, robbing Tim Salmon of a homer in the seventh inning. In just one game, Pods raised his OBP 27 points, from a below-average (especially for a leadoff hitter) .317 to an above-average .344. If he can nudge his batting average up towards the .290 from last year, or even to his career mark of .278, even the moderate walk-rate he's sporting this season (one every 10.58 plate appearances, down from his career average of 11.73) will make his OBP an extremely valuable asset at the top of the order.

Mind Games

2006-05-09T14:14:00.000-04:00

I have a silly game I like to play during the baseball season, and I think we're far enough along to introduce it for 2006. Basically, I split the entire 162-game schedule into a 9-inning game. There are actually 18 half-innings in a baseball game, and luck would have it that 162 divides by 18, yielding a result of 9. So I treat the full season as 18 9-game segments, each one representing a theoretical (and admittedly, meaningless) "half-inning."

After the Sox have played 9 games (and 18, 27, 36, etc.), I judge their performance during that stretch and give them a score. This gets plotted onto a traditional inning-by-inning line score, yielding a total score. Of course, because two teams are involved on a line score, every other tally that I give the Sox has to be couched in negative (run-prevention) terms, rather than positive (run-creation) terms.

I have a system for this. The Sox get a score ranging from zero to six for each half-inning. When the Sox are "in the field" (the top of each inning), the best possible score is zero, meaning they shut the "opposition" out. The worst score is 6, meaning they played terribly and the "opposition" gets 6 runs. When the Sox are "at bat" (the bottom of each inning), the scoring system is exactly reversed. Numbers between zero and 6 represent a gradient: a 1 while batting (or a 5 while fielding), means the Sox played very poorly, but not so terribly to merit a 0 (or 6). A score of 3, whether fielding or hitting, is the exact middle point. (Of course, when looking at 9 games, it's impossible that the Sox should play .500 ball; a score of 3 could result from going 4-5 but outscoring their opponents during that stretch, or from going 5-4 but blowing a 9th inning lead to a terrible team.)

Confused? Well, it's actually much simpler just to see, so let's try it out for this year. In the top of the first (the first 9 games of the year, through April 13), the Sox went 5-4. However, they only outscored their opponents 50-47, and lost two games to the Kansas City Royals, baseball's worst team. Therefore, they get a break-even score of 3, which gets credited to the opposition's line:

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Opposition	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3
White Sox	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

In the following 9 games (through April 23), the Sox were absolutely dominant. They went 8-1, and outscored their foes 57-26. That's just about as good as a stretch of 9 games can be (short of 9-0, of course), so the Sox get a score of 6, credited to their own line:

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Opposition	3	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	3
White Sox	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	6

So after one "inning," the Sox were leading 6 to 3. In the top of the second (games 19 through 27), the Sox went 6-3, outscoring their opponents 48-42. That stretch included a nice three-game sweep of the Angels, but also a series lost to the Mariners. Therefore, I'm giving them a score of 2. (Remember, the Sox are trying to prevent runs during the top of each inning, so a 2 is actually a good score.) Then the line score looks like this:

Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Total
Opposition	3	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	5
White Sox	6	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	6

Therefore, after one and a half innings the Sox were "winning" 6 to 5. That may seem unfair to a team that was then 19-8, but this system isn't perfect, nor is it intended for anything but to amuse myself (and perhaps you). It should also be noted that the "final score" will not in any way resemble a baseball score, because in my system a score of 3 is perfectly average, whereas in actual baseball the vast majority of half-innings result in no runs; I figured it would be better to have a final score with large numbers rather than deal with negative or partial ones for individual innings.

So far the Sox have played well during the "bottom of the second," winning three games while losing just one (which, it must be said, they should have won - that game will hurt their "score"). Unless they crash and burn in the next five games, they'll almost certainly extend their "lead." From here on out during the regular season, I'll update the score after every 9 games (or when I remember). It's admittedly a silly exercise, but I think it's fun.

* * *

Some disturbing news out of our best pitcher (so far), Jose Contreras: he's hurting, and may need some time on the DL. Will Carroll of Baseball Prospectus is (in my opinion) the best source for injury info, so I'll let him comment on the problem:

"Jose Contreras has been so good this season that few saw a health problem coming. The White Sox aren’t confirming Chicago radio reports that Contreras is heading to the DL with a hip problem. The Cuban pitcher had no problems prior to Sunday, when he reportedly injured himself while playing catch. Early descriptions of the injury–-sharp pain in the lower back and hip-–point to a lower back disc problem. The White Sox are likely to keep Brandon McCarthy in the pen and call up knuckleballer Charlie Haeger. Old BPR [Baseball Prospectus Radio] co-host Scott McCauley got a look at Haeger in Triple-A Charlotte this week and raved, so the Sox have that going for them. The team will make a DL decision on Contreras on Tuesday so that they can have someone in place for his scheduled Wednesday start."

Schilling-type foot injuries aside, the two most serious kinds of ailments that pitchers can face are ones affecting their throwing arms or backs, so hearing that this may be a disc problem is alarming. Still, the Sox have a very good medical and training staff, and the pitching depth to weather the storm. Obviously McCarthy would be the best long-term option, but he's not stretched out right now for starting; luckily, he realizes that fact, and is fine with it. So if Contreras does indeed end up on the DL, the Sox will probably go with Haeger, who I mentioned last post. ESPN's Rob Neyer actually wrote a piece on him today, entitled "Haeger appears to be the real thing," which I'll copy in full for you because you need an ESPN Insider subscription to read it:

"With the news that Charlie Haeger is probably going to start for the White Sox on Wednesday night in place of the injured Jose Contreras, I went scurrying to the record books. And what I discovered is that Haeger is apparently something of a prodigy. Here are the last four pitchers to debut in the majors as knuckleballers:

Pitcher	Debut	Age
Tim Wakefield	1992	25
Steve Sparks	1995	29
Dennis Springer	1995	30
Jared Fernandez	2001	29

"Haeger is only 22, which is all the more amazing when you learn that when he was 19, he didn't play professional baseball. A 25th-round draft pick in 2001, Haeger "retired" after two seasons in the lowest minors -- and went to college (and played golf). But as the Baseball America 2006 Prospect Handbook notes, "Haeger didn't give up on baseball completely. He worked on a knuckleball that had been suggested by minor league pitching coach Chris Sinacori and decided to give pitching another shot. Haeger rejoined the White Sox as a knuckleball specialist in 2004 and broke through with 14 wins last year."

"Eight of those wins came in Single-A, six in Double-A. His ERAs were decent enough at both levels, but the most impressive number: four home runs allowed in 168 innings. And this season in Triple-A, Haeger hasn't allowed a homer in 40 innings while posting a 0.45 ERA. It's been a meteoric rise for any sort of pitcher, let alone a knuckleballer. To find another who reached the majors so early, you have to go back to 1970, when Charlie Hough debuted at 22 years, 8 months, and 7 seven days. Eddie Fisher, who enjoyed a long, solid career, debuted in 1959 when he was roughly 22 years and 10 months old.

"Haeger's slightly younger than both of them. If he does pitch for the White Sox on Wednesday, he'll be 22 years, 7 months, and 21 days old on the occasion of his major league debut. I suppose that some other knuckleball pitcher was younger & but I haven't been able to find him yet.

"So is Haeger the next Tim Wakefield, or perhaps even the next Phil Niekro? Probably not. The knuckleball is notoriously capricious, and I believe that it's harder than ever to thrive as a practitioner (because so many bad knuckleballs become good home runs, and also because umpires still don't call the high strike). Also, I'm a little gun-shy. A few years ago, I touted Red Sox knuckleballer Charlie Zink, but he hit a wall and is just now beginning to re-establish himself as a decent prospect. But Haeger apparently is the real thing. Baseball America rated him as the White Sox's No. 14 prospect last winter, and I'm sure they haven't rated a knuckleballer so high in quite some time."

Obviously the most important thing is for Contreras to get healthy, both because he's been so good since last year's All-Star break, and because we don't really have another starter with as good "stuff." But if he's not going to be available, either for the short-term or long-term (and the latter is always a possibility with back troubles), it's good to know that the Sox have good options in McCarthy and Haeger.

Running with the Bull(pen)s

2006-05-05T09:50:00.000-04:00

In my high school yearbook, every senior received a "Most likely" entry. These weren't the more traditional voted-on categories of "Most likely to succeed," or "Most likely to strip her way through college," but rather (rarely) good-natured chidings of each senior's foibles. My entry was "Most likely to never admit he's wrong," and I have enough self-knowledge to know that I deserved it: I am a stubborn, stubborn guy. That said, let me take this opportunity to go on the record, for posterity's sake, and say: Jon was absolutely right about Pablo Ozuna and Joe Borchard, and I was one-thousand percent wrong.

Even if Borchard were to go on to hit 40 homers with the Marlins this season (he won't), I'd stick by that admission. There was just no place for him on a roster that can barely find enough plate appearances for a much better hitter, Ross Gload. And furthermore, Ozuna's skills - speed and versatility - are much more useful at the end of a roster than Borchard's. Not to mention that Ozuna has been terrific so far; if he can keep even a semblance of this up, I think Ozzie should start him against lefties, thereby giving Pods a rest and keeping his legs (and oft-injured groin) fresh.

* * *

The title of this post alludes to the chaotic situation in which our bullpen finds itself one month into the season. On any given day, it's almost impossible to know what to expect out of individual relievers. It's the team's only visible weakness, and downright scary to any Sox fan with a serious interest in keeping his/her sanity during the late innings. As Jon wrote yesterday, Ozzie's openmindedness when it comes to pitcher usage has mitigated the problem a bit, but it's still serious. It's possible (and hopeful) that a few of the relievers will establish themselves as (at least semi-)dependable, but the team also has some options should they choose to look elsewhere.

One possible option is Jeff Nelson, whom the Sox signed to a minor league contract Tuesday. He's old (39), and hasn't been all that effective since the first half of 2003, but I still think this is a terrific low-cost, low-risk signing. First of all, given modern training regiments and medical care, more and more players (especially pitchers) are able to perform into their 40s, so perhaps Nelson can cheat the inevitable for another season or two. And secondly, he was one of the more dominant right-handed relievers in all of baseball for the better part of a decade. He possesses (or at least possessed) a nasty slider that right-handed hitters find (found?) nearly untouchable, resulting in a consistently high strikeout rate throughout his career - a valuable asset in the bullpen. I can vividly remember Nelson squashing many a rally by the righty-dominated Sox teams of the late 90s and early aughts during his days with the Mariners and Yankees. If he can even approach his old form (and the signs are decent, seeing as he gave up just one hit and no runs in 5 and two-thirds innings this spring training with the Cardinals, striking out seven), he could be a valuable part of the Sox 'pen. If he can't - well, it will only cost us the price of a minor-league contract.

Furthermore, adding Nelson (or another righty) would allow the Sox to de-sinister their bullpen. Of the current six relievers, three are lefties. I don't remember ever seeing anything like that. It may not be a problem, but seeing as our closer is one of the righties, sooner or later Ozzie is going to be forced to send Logan, Thornton, or Cotts out to face a righty masher. I think 4-2 would be a more preferable split than 3-3.

If the Sox brass feel that having so many lefties isn't a real problem, they could also opt to call up Javier Lopez. Almost two weeks ago I mentioned that Lopez was off to a terrific start. Since then he gave up his first run of the season, but has still been dominant: in 14 innings at AAA Charlotte he has an ERA of 0.64, a WHIP of 1.00, has given up no homers, and has struck out 11 batters against walking just two.

There are actually two other decent options at Charlotte, both righties. One is Jeff Farnsworth, who has been almost as good as Lopez: an ERA of 1.98, a WHIP of 0.95, 14 strikeouts and just three walks in 13 and two-thirds innings. The second is knuckleballer Charles Haeger. On the one hand, he has a couple of things working against him: he didn't pitch well during spring training against quasi-major league hitters (ERA of 11.90 in just over 11 innings); the slow pitching motion of knucklers rarely translates well to pitching out of the stretch, which relievers must (he's currently starting); and so far this season at Charlotte he's shown the typical Achilles' heal of a knuckleballer, issuing 4.5 free passes per 9 innings. On the other hand, even with the walks Haeger's been great this year - an ERA of 0.45, a WHIP of 1.13, and only 25 hits and no homers surrendered in 40 innings. And he could be a valuable and versatile member of the Sox' bullpen, providing multi-inning mop-up duty on short rest, or giving opposing hitters a drastically different look after their eyes have become accustomed to the speed of Contreras, Vazquez, and others on the staff.

Beyond AAA, there's even an option at AA Birmingham. All five Baron starters are off to great starts, but the high walk rates of Tyler Lumsden, Ray Liotta, Corwin Malone, and Ryan Rodriguez make me think they're not ready to make the jump to the majors. Top prospect Lance Broadway, however, has been lights-out: in six starts covering 35 and two-thirds innings, he has an ERA of 2.02, a WHIP of 1.07, has given up just one home run, and has struck out 30 while walking seven. Granted, those stats were compiled while pitching half his games at the pitcher heaven that is Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, so take them with a streets and sanitation truck full of salt. Broadway is also projected to be a starter in the majors, but the Sox could choose to ease him into the role, as they did with Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland.

In any case, what's clear is that the Sox have some options. In an ideal world the six relievers currently on the team would get their collective act together, and we wouldn't need to worry about replacements. But chances are at least one or two guys will consistently falter and need some time at AAA; let's hope that in that case Kenny Williams and Ozzie are willing to give one of the above pitchers a chance.

Why Eddie Shoudn't Pitch Everyday

2006-05-04T10:49:00.000-04:00

Over on South Side Sox (a lesser Sox blog) today, there's some carping, in the wake of the eighth inning meltdown last night, about how Ozzie Guillen uses his bullpen. "With the exception of Jenks, who he has bizarrely used in a couple of less-than-three-out save opportunities, nobody has a defined role," the blogger complains. "Part of the success of last year's bullpen was how quickly everyone settled into their given role." This year, the blogger chides, Guillen simply hasn't established stable roles for his relievers.

I find this an odd complaint - my takeway from last night's game had nothing to do with Ozzie's handling of the bullpen, which, considering how badly almost everyone in our pen has thrown this year, has been nothing short of remarkable (I can only recall one game, before last night, in which our pen surrendered a lead), but with the other manager's handling of his bullpen, which stood in stark contrast to how Ozzie does things, and cost his team the game.

To wit: Eddie Guardado, Seattle "closer," entered the game with 8 runs allowed in 8.2 innings pitched. He had already blown two saves this year, one against the Sox. His numbers include 13 hits, 7 walks and one home run to Brian Anderson. Guardado has been even worse than his stats: only once this year has he recorded a 1-2-3 inning. In 10 outings after last night, he has been scored upon 6 times!

So, what does Bob Melvin do with a 1-run lead in the 9th? He calls on Everyday Eddie. Now, this would be one thing if he had no other options (as, for instance, would be the case if Jenks started faltering for the Sox right now). However, Bob Melvin is privileged to have two absolutely dominant right-handers in his bullpen right now. Rafael Soriano (2.30 ERA, 18K/15.2 IP), to be fair, had already been used. J.J. Putz (2.30 ERA, 22K/15.2), on the other hand, had been brought in with two outs in the eighth, when he quickly dispatched of Paul Konerko for his 22nd strikeout of the year. Putz, in contrast to Guardado, has pitched in 15 games this year and been scored upon...once! He also hadn't pitched in 3 days.

I submit to you that had Ozzie Guillen been managing the Mariners last night Putz would have finished the game and the Mariners would have held on to their lead. Guardado, on the other hand, would have stayed locked away in the bullpen until he could be used in a couple blowouts and get his confidence or stuff back (or not - in which case he would get shipped off, ala Shingo Takatsu). Instead, a manager likely obsessed with fitting his relievers into proper "roles" brought in his "closer" and allowed him to lose yet another game for his team, which is sinking like an anchor towards the cellar in the American League West.

When the Sox hired Guillen two years ago, I was skeptical about his ability to handle a pitching staff. It has turned out that his lack of conventional wisdom has made him an excellent manager of pitching. He has occasionally made errors (he stuck with damaso Marte in pressure situations for too long last year), but for the most part Guillen has operated on a simple premise: a reliever who is struggling is not going to be allowed to blow a game for him if he can help it. The blogger who speaks of last year's role stability perhaps forgets that Takatsu gave way to Hermanson who gave way to Jenks at closer. Hermanson gave way to Politte as setup man. Marte eventually gave way to Cotts as left-handed late inning specialist. That said, it's easy to fit guys in roles when everyone's pitching well, as was the case for much of last year. The situation this year has been much more challenging. Guillen has had to manage through horrific stretches by Politte, Logan, Cotts and now McCarthy. Who was he supposed to use last night instead of Thornton (who pitched well) and Politte (who pitched okay, but did give up the lead)? McCarthy? Logan? He used Jenks admirably, I thought, to keep the game tied in the ninth and tenth and give the Sox a chance to win. And they won, again. It's actually remarkable we've won as often as we have, given how bad our bullpen currently is.

By the way, I count two games Pablo Ozuna's won in the last week. Jake, how did Borchard make out with Seattle?

End of the Road

2006-05-02T17:00:00.000-04:00

Road trip, that is. Now that the Sox have finished off their eight game road trip (going a respectable 5-3), they finally head home for the rest of the week, where they'll get a bit of a respite: Seattle for two games (although the Mariners did just win two of three from the Sox), and then the Peasants...I mean, Royals...for three games.

After Mark Buehrle's last start, I wrote that his absurdly low BABIP was coming back to bite him in the ass. Today's start made that one look downright lucky - of the twenty-seven balls hit into play against him today, thirteen fell in for hits, for an ugly BABIP of .481. That number only gets marginally better (.462) when you remove Travis Hafner's homer. I don't actually think Buehrle pitched all that poorly today. He wasn't getting the calls over the outside half of the plate (and Sabathia was), forcing him to throw down the middle. And, not surprisingly, he got hit. A lot. But Buehrle's not a strikeout pitcher, and actually wants batters to put wood on the ball. And today, when they did, Buehrle was unlucky. On another day, perhaps only 25% of those balls fall in for hits, and suddenly you have a game.

Then again, you're not going to win many games when you only score one run. In truth, the Sox offense wasn't that terrible today, sporting a line of .289/.357/.316. But two things did them in: 1) that slugging percentage - the result of only one extra-base hit - isn't going to drive in many runs, and 2) they stranded eight runners in scoring position with two outs. They were able to put together some decent rallies, but simply couldn't seal the deal. That just happens some days (especially when resting three - and essentially four, with Jermaine Dye's mid-game injury aggravation - regulars), so I wouldn't read too much into it. I'd rather be happy that their OBP on the day was a nice .357, and move on.

The only aspect of the offense that really bothered me was Ozzie's decision to have Pablo Ozuna attempt to steal second with one out in the top of the fifth, and down 3-0. It was raining at that point, so there was the looming possibility that the game would be called very soon. So why play for one run when you need three, and fast? Hindsight is, of course, 20/20, but the ensuing rally (single, walk, single, single) would have looked a lot nicer with Ozuna on base and one less out. Victor Martinez was 0-for-86 million in throwing out runners on the season, so he's not a bad guy to take a chance against. But down by three runs, with the infield track quite soggy, and with the game about to become official and the rain pelting down, it's just not the smart play. It's possible Ozzie didn't call for the steal, and that Ozuna did it on his own. But in that case, Ozzie should have put the red light on and forced Ozuna to stay put. Then again, I don't think our skipper even knows what a red light is, so I'm probably wishing for the impossible. Grumble, grumble.

Lastly, there's been a good lesson in small sample sizes during the past few weeks. In the first weeks of the season, Brandon McCarthy and Bobby Jenks were the only two reliable relievers in the 'pen. Since then, things have shifted considerably. In his last three outings, covering one and two-thirds total innings, McCarthy has gotten rocked: seven hits, three walks, and seven earned runs. Conversely, since April 19 Neal Cotts has pitched five and two thirds innings, giving up just four hits, two walks, and one earned run. And since an ugly outing on April 22, Boone Logan has been excellent: in six innings, he's given up just three hits, two walks, and one earned run. He was particularly impressive during today's game, striking out five Indians (including Victor Martinez, Grady Sizemore, and Jhonny Peralta, and three straight in the eighth inning) in just two and one-third innings. Granted, things could swing the other way quite easily, so we should be wary of the fickle nature of data derived from small sample sizes. This doesn't mean that Logan is our new bullpen stopper, nor that McCarthy should be relegated to mop-up duty.

Spring-a-ling-a-ding-dong

2006-04-30T02:15:00.000-04:00

Ahhh, that's more like it. After an off-day Thursday that felt like an eternity, the Sox have won two straight from The Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (literally "The The Angels Angels of Anaheim," or, if you prefer, "Los Los Angeles Angeles de Anaheim"), first behind some some nice two-out hitting on Friday night, and then behind a dominant outing by Jose Contreras tonight (this post may say Sunday, but I'm writing this late-night on Saturday).

Friday's game was (semi-) significant in that it marked just the fourth time the Sox have come from behind to win a game this season. That sounds like a negative stat, but of course it's not when the team record is 16-7 (15-7 through Friday). It really speaks to two things: 1) that the lineup is doing a lot of damage, especially during the early innings; and 2) that the starting pitchers have been great, or just great enough to preserve an early lead given their run support. It's nice to see, though, that even when the Sox get down early they have it in them to fight back. I'm not normally big on "character" evaluation, but this seems to be a trait of Ozzie's teams, and something perhaps missing from the late-nineties/early-aughts Sox teams.

The early-season trend of getting ahead in the first few innings got me to thinking about the various effects a lead has on a team. First, for the hitters, I think the main benefit is building up the pitch count of the opposing starter, both because it allows them (as a team) to see more pitches (and therefore get a better read on them for individual at-bats), and because it forces the opposition to go to their middle relief sooner, which tends to be the weakest part of a pitching staff.

For pitchers, however, the change is a little more complicated. Pitchers often say it is easier to pitch with a lead, and hitters like to boast about providing early leads for their starters. But why exactly is it beneficial to pitch with a lead? The most commonly-sited reason is that having a lead allows pitchers to "attack" hitters, pounding the strike zone. I think this is a reasonable explanation. My guess (and I have absolutely no data to back this up) is that pitchers pitching with leads see (on average) their batting averages-against rise, their walk rates drop, and their slugging averages-against drop. A pitcher who is only (or mostly) concentrating on throwing strikes is going to give up some hits, just by the virtue of the fact that pitches in the strike zone are much more likely to be connected on for hits. On the other hand, this would clearly reduce the number of walks.

The last part of the guess - that opposing batter's slugging percentages would drop - is much shakier, but is built on this logic: First of all, when a pitcher is throwing balls, or is even a little wild, a hitter can sit back and wait for a strike, and then drive it with authority when it arrives. Therefore, when a pitcher is throwing mostly strikes, the hitter must be aware of more nuanced pitches on the corners, and isn't as likely to take a solid swing at a meaty offering. And secondly, a pitcher with a lead, while choosing to aim mostly for the strike zone, would ironically also be less afraid of walking a batter than a pitcher who's team is losing or tied (because they have a larger margin for error). Therefore, the pitcher would be more likely to use his stuff-heavy strikeout pitches (assuming he has one or more), such as a slider or split-finger fastball, pitches that often end up as balls when they're not swung at, but rarely end up as doubles or homers when they are. (This in turn could lead to more walks, thereby negating my guess that walk rates would fall; I don't know.)

There's also the psychological aspect of playing with a lead, and that goes for both hitters and pitchers. But that's a very difficult thing to quantify and qualify, and I won't try to go inside the players' heads to do so. I realize that pitch choices and such (such as those mentioned in the above paragraph) also have to do with what goes on inside the players' minds, but I really think those types of things are much more knowable than how much confidence a player gains from playing with a lead.

* * *

I got to see some live baseball yesterday, as I attended the Pawtucket Red Sox (Boston AAA) game against the Durham Bulls (Tampa Bay AAA). The PawSox (as they're known) blew a ninth-inning lead and eventually lost the game in the tenth, but the outcome of minor league games is usually of less consequence for me than any gleanings about individual players I can pick up. I was sad that I didn't get to see Delmon Young play, but he was suspended for throwing his bat at an ump earlier in the series. Still, there were a pretty decent number of highly-regarded prospects playing the game: Durham's B.J. Upton and Edwin Jackson, and Pawtucket's Dustin Pedroia and Craig Hansen.

When Jackson was in the Dodgers' minor league system he was widely-considered one of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball. However, some control issues began to surface, and he was never able to establish himself in the majors. He's still quite young, though, so the Devil Rays were smart to trade for him, as they're a young team who sorely needs to hit the starting pitcher jackpot in order to compete. Both elements of his game were on display Friday. He struck out four PawSox batters (and made a few of them look silly doing so), and was able to induce some outs on bad swings. At the same time, he walked five batters in just six and one-third innings. Overall, though, he was very effective.

Jackson even had a no-hitter going until the sixth inning. I was really hoping he could do it, as I've never seen a no-hitter live (and probably never will). However, his chances were ended by fellow prospect Upton. Upton plays shortstop, but is widely considered to be a terrible fielder (and his record backs it up) and most pundits think the Rays should move him to the outfield. He's a good enough hitter (.293/.408/.402 with 13 stolen bases so far this season, for example) that he'd maintain much of his value even when moving to an easier postion (especially if that position was center field), but so far Tampa has insisted upon leaving him at short. In any case, the first hit of the game against Jackson came on a low line-drive to short that Upton failed to make the play on. It could very easily have been ruled an error, as it's a play that the vast majority of shortstops make, but it wasn't, and you could see Jackson's frustration at losing the no-hitter. In Upton's defense, the first thing he did after the third out was run up to Jackson and say something to him, so maybe he's a classy guy. Also, although he didn't hit all that well (1-for-5), he still managed to drive in two of Durham's three runs, and displayed absurd athleticism while easily stealing a base. Chances are he's going to be a very good major leaguer, especially if the Rays move him from short as soon as possible.

Pedroia also played shortstop on Friday, but is usually considered to be Boston's second baseman of the future. He's small (5'8"), and doesn't hit for much power, but he does hit for average and draws a good number of walks. Plus he was twice named the National Defensive Player of the Year while in college at Arizona State, so it's possible he could contribute a bunch in the field as well. The Red Sox acquired Mark Loretta this offseason to play second, but if Loretta continues to struggle Pedroia could find himself hitting in the formidable Boston lineup before the year is out. He didn't really stand out during Friday's game, but did look decent both in the field and at the plate.

Lastly, Hansen came in to pitch for the PawSox in the seventh inning. Once Papelbon finds his way into the Red Sox rotation (where he belongs in the long term), Hansen is in line for the Boston closer job. His outing was actually very similar to that of Jackson, in that he was dominant at times (striking out two in just two and one-third innings) but also showed some control problems (two walks) and had a few balls hit hard against him. Still, it was easy to see why scouts are so high on him; he threw hard, and with a lot of movement on his pitches. He was also in line for the win before fellow members of the Pawtucket bullpen blew the lead in the top of the ninth inning.

All in all, a nice trip the ballpark, especially since I discovered that they sell Blue Moons with organge slices there. Yum.

Meh

2006-04-27T16:23:00.000-04:00

Days like today are my least favorite in the entire baseball season: off days following a loss. Not counting the All-Star break, there are usually less than twenty off-days during the season (I think seventeen this year, but I may have miscounted). That's one of the great virtues of the baseball schedule - games, games, and more games! - but I'm especially thankful for it because it spares me from dealing with days like today very often (unlike, say, the basketball season, where I have to agonize through at least a day or two off after every single Bulls loss).

And let me tell you: I hate, hate, hate days like today. When Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses, he only left out professional sports because it was in the days before cable TV and the internet. I really do use the White Sox like a drug; when I'm lying in bed at night, and am worrying about all the things I need to do the next day, I like to think about the team, or the last game, or good minor league prospects, and it takes my mind off my troubles. It really works like a charm. But when the Sox lose a game (especially one they should win, like last night's - Jarrod Washburn? Ugh.), the drug follows suit and loses its effect. Which isn't so terrible when I know that the next day the Sox will get a chance to right the ship and hang a W in the standings.

But today? Nope, no such chance. First I had to suffer through last night, when the drug wouldn't work. And then all day today I had nothing to look forward to (the Bulls-Heat game should be entertaining, but it's just not the same). And then again tonight I'll have to go to sleep with no happy thoughts (unless the Bulls pull off the upset). Stupid off-days. As long as it didn't affect their chances of going to the playoffs (and of course it would), I would almost prefer that the Sox won five games less over the course of the season, but went 17-0 during games before off-days. (For the record, they're at 3-2 so far.)

I don't really feel like writing much about yesterday's game. I will mention, however, that Buehrle's low BABIP and low strikeout rate (both mentioned in the last post) came back to bite him in the ass a bit. First of all, he struck no one out, which is just plain poor, especially against a weak team like the Mariners. And secondly, opposing batters hit .259 (7-for-27) on balls hit into play against him; while that number is still on the "lucky" side of average, it's much higher than what Buehrle's opponents had been averaging (.190), and probably a sign of what's to come.

[Post script - After putting up this post, it was recommended to me that I define the term "meh." Luckily, that same person provided a definition, which I think it just about right: "equal parts frustration and anger with a dash of boredom." Then another fine soul took a stab at it, with great vim and vigor:

[Meh =
[indifference 60%
[boredom 20%
[frustration 10%
[anger 5%
[disgust 5%

[Yep - that's meh alright.]

Luck Be a Lady

2006-04-23T19:23:00.000-04:00

Two quick things before I get to the meat and potatoes:

1) I am very pleased to see Ozzie talking about limiting pitch counts for Sox starters. There's a big debate in the baseball world over whether teams should utilize strict pitch counts or use other measures (such as pitch speed, fatigue signs, etc.) to determine when to take a starter out. I actually think both sides are right. But in this case, with every Sox starter having pitched 200+ innings last year, four of them pitching through October, and two of them pitching in the World Baseball Classic, sticking to some early-season pitch limits isn't the worst idea. I don't doubt that the people who get paid full-time by the Sox to think about these things are already taking this into consideration, but it's still reassuring to hear Ozzie say it.

2) I think it's time to demote Boone Logan to AAA Charlotte, and for a couple reasons. First of all, he's pitched poorly in (very) limited action - despite what his shiny ERA may tell you - giving up three hits and four walks in less than four innings. Secondly, this is the first time in his career he's had to face advanced, major league hitters, and he'd be better served gaining experience while throwing more innings with the Knights. And lastly, if the Sox have a major weakness, it's their bullpen. So far, only McCarthy and Jenks have shown themselves to be dependable. For now, that's been ok, because the starters have been great (especially recently), and the offense has built up large leads. But eventually we're going to need good third, fourth, and fifth options out of the 'pen. Luckily, besides the hope that Thornton, Cotts, and/or Politte will step up, we have a good option at AAA: Javier Lopez. He pitched decently during spring training, and so far this season with Charlotte has surrendured only six hits and two walks in nine innings, while allowing zero runs and striking out eight. I think it's time to call him up, and send Logan down.

On to the main subject of this post: Sox starting pitchers and luck. If I asked you right now who's been the best Sox starter so far, not including today's game (because stats don't include that game yet), you'd either say Mark Buehrle or Jose Contreras, right? Well, yes, on the surface, that's true. However, there is evidence that in fact Javier Vazquez has been the best of the bunch so far, and that Buehrle and Contreras have been quite lucky. And if we considered who's been the worst so far, it would obviously come down to Freddy Garcia and Jon Garland. However, there is evidence that Garland has been extremely unlucky, so that his underlying performance has actually been better than that of Garcia, or at least close.

But what evidence? Well, there are two main categories of luck when it comes to pitchers. I will call them:

Sequential Luck and Locational Luck

The first, Sequential Luck, has to do with the order that hits and walks (and to a lesser degree, sacrifice flys, double plays, etc.) come in. For example, imagine two pitchers, A and B. Both throw a nine inning complete game, give up nine hits (all doubles), walk no batters, throw no wild pitches, and have flawless defense played behind them. And yet Pitcher A has an ERA of o.oo on the day, while Pitcher B has an ERA of 8.00 on the day. Why? Because Pitcher A gave up one double in every inning, and stranded the baserunner in every instance, while Pitcher B gave up all nine doubles in one inning, resulting in eight runs.

Now, you could argue that the difference in ERA is entirely Pitcher B's fault, because he wasn't able to settle down after giving up a double (or nine), as Pitcher A was able to do in every inning. And that's a valid point. (For the same reason I prefer to look at a pitcher's RA, or Runs Against, rather than his ERA; good pitchers pitch through the mistakes of their defense.) But at the same time, a good deal of the difference between Pitchers A and B has to do with luck. What if instead of nine doubles, Pitcher B only gives up two, but they happen to be in the same inning. His ERA for the day (1.00) would still be higher than that of Pitcher A (0.00), but his WHIP would be far lower (0.22 as compared to 1.00). Now let's say those trends continued for an entire season, Pitcher A giving up far more hits than Pitcher B, but Pitcher B's ERA being higher because of the order the hits came in. Any team with half a brain would rather invest in Pitcher B than Pitcher A, because his underlying performance was better, even if the results were not. In short, Pitcher B would be extremely unlucky.

There's a good way to measure Sequential Luck, called Component ERA (usually listed as ERC). A pitcher's ERC is what his ERA should be, given the number of hits and walks he gives up. Basically, ERC is WHIP calibrated to the ERA scale. Then you can compare a pitcher's ERC to his ERA: if the ERC is higher, he was lucky; if the ERA is higher, he was unlucky. It's also very easy to render a new stat - ERC% - which shows just how lucky or unlucky a given pitcher was. An ERC% is the number that you'd have to multiply a pitcher's ERA by to get his ERC. For example, the luckiest starting pitcher so far this season is Detroit's Mike Maroth. His ERA is 0.49, but his ERC is 2.96. His ERC% is therefore 6.04, meaning that his ERA is six times better than it "should" be given his peripheral stats. That's pretty much off the charts in terms of luck; the second luckiest pitcher so far, Brett Myers, only has an ERC% of 1.65. (It should be noted that Maroth's peripheral stats indicate that he should still have a very low ERA - 2.96; a high ERC% doesn't mean you've been a bad pitcher, only a lucky one. That same reasoning also works in reverse.)

On the other end of things, the starting pitcher with the lowest ERC% so far this season is Javier Vazquez. Wait a second - don't we know that guy? Yep, Vazquez's Sequential Luck has been absurdly terrible early this season, with an ERC% of 0.47. While his ERA is still an impressive 3.86, the number of hits and walks he's given up indicate that his ERA "should" be 1.83, more than two full runs lower. In fact, four out of the five Sox starters have been unlucky in this regard so far, with only Contreras (1.11 before today's game) registering an ERC% above the break-even score of 1.00.

Locational Luck should actually be termed Defensive/Locational Luck, because it has two distinct aspects to it, but I'd rather go with the simple name. Locational Luck measures what happens to a ball after it's been hit into play. Many studies have shown that, with the possible exception of knuckle-ballers, pitchers have very little control over what happens to non-home run balls hit into play. In fact, whether a ball hit into play falls in for a hit appears to be mostly a matter of luck, varying greatly from year to year even when all other performance metrics for a pitcher remain the same. And this shouldn't really surprise any observant baseball fan, because we've all seen the screaming line drive hit directly at the left fielder for an out, or the weak ground ball that sneaks past the second baseman for a hit. Baseball truly is a game of inches.

The easiest way to measure this is via a stat called (by Baseball Prospectus) Batting Average on Balls In Play (BABIP), also known (at ESPN) as Balls In Play Average (BIPA). League average for BABIP is usually around .300 (so far this season in the AL it's .303). Therefore, a pitcher with a BABIP of .250 is getting somewhat lucky, whereas a pitcher with a BABIP of .350 is experiencing just the opposite.

However, defense does play a role in BABIP. A team with a good or great defense will tend to lower their pitchers' BABIPs, making an adjustment necessary when comparing pitchers on different teams. However, for today we're just comparing Sox starting pitchers, who each pitch in front of a (nearly) identical defense, so that won't matter. Still, it's worth keeping in mind when considering BABIP; team defense is the second aspect of Locational Luck that I referred to two paragraphs above.

As with ERC, it is possible to translate BABIP into a stat that mirrors ERA; in this case, the new stat is the Defense Independent Pitching Statistic (DIPS), created by the brilliant Voros McCracken. And like ERC and ERC%, DIPS can become DIPS%, giving an easy indication of Locational Luck. Mike Maroth is also the early leader in Locational Luck, with a ridiculous DIPS% of 8.93. And the starting pitcher with the worst Locational Luck is Jon Garland, at 0.49. Wait, that guy sounds familiar too. Garland's BABIP is an atrocious .433 (ESPN has his BIPA at .400; I don't know why there's a difference, as I think it's the exact same stat, but it doesn't really matter for our purposes), meaning he's been giving up a hit more than 40% of the time a batter hits the ball in play against him. As for the DIPS% of the other Sox starters, Garcia and Vazquez are near the league average, but Contreras (2.53) and Buehrle (2.28) are two of the luckiest pitchers in baseball so far.

Here are the full numbers for the five Sox starters, through Saturday's game:

Name	ERA	ERC	ERC%	DIPS	DIPS%	BABIP	K/9
Buehrle	1.93	1.77	0.92	4.39	2.28	0.190	3.86
Contreras	1.61	1.79	1.11	4.07	2.53	0.200	4.71
Garcia	6.23	5.51	0.88	5.16	0.83	0.293	5.40
Garland	9.18	8.61	0.94	4.48	0.49	0.433	5.94
Vazquez	3.86	1.83	0.47	2.71	0.70	0.259	7.71

I've highlighted a few of the more out-of-line numbers. As you can see, two of our starters - Vazquez and Garland - have been quite unlucky. Vazquez has probably been our best starter so far. His DIPS score is far better than the others, and his ERC is only a shade behind Buehrle and Contreras. Garland's BABIP is just about guaranteed to drop, which should significantly lower his ERA.

On the other end of things, both Buehrle and Contreras have been quite lucky, and both in terms of BABIP. You'll notice I also listed each pitcher's strikeouts per nine innings. That's because DIPS% is less significant for a strikeout pitcher, and more significant for a contact pitcher. For instance, you'll notice that Vazquez's DIPS% is 0.70, even though his BABIP is a lucky .259; that's because he strikes out 7.71 batters per nine innings, meaning that he remains in control of more batters and does not leave their outcome to luck. I fully expect Contreras' K/9 rate to rise significantly (his career mark is 7.59), meaning that even though his BABIP will rise, it won't affect his DIPS, or his ERA, all that much. On the other hand, Buehrle has the lowest K/9 rate on the team, and his career rate of 5.37 is lower than everyone but Garland's; when his BABIP regresses to the mean, it's going to mean a lot more runs given up. That doesn't mean he's suddenly going to become a bad pitcher. Rather, it just means we can't expect him to finish the season with an ERA under 2.00.

Of course, it's still very early in the season, rendering much of this meaningless. Regardless, I think it's worth introducing these stats now, so that we can revisit them later when more data has piled up.

The Chicago Way

2006-04-23T18:45:00.000-04:00

What is a baseball fan to do? Your team is playing well. They’ve just won their 8th in a row. The starters have not only made quality starts in each win, each starter has actually won the game. They just swept an arch rival. But, it’s April, APRIL. It’s not the time to get excited, or is it?

Having been a White Sox fan my entire conscious life (Paul Richards was the manager and Frank Lane the General Manager) I learned that, in fact, there was no correct time to get excited. The most you could hope for was a couple of moments of happiness. These moments were not something upon which to build, only to grasp, and then let go quickly, unless you wanted to get your heart ripped out. Something changed that view of reality, something called the 2005 season.

Last season taught me that defeat was not an inevitability. So, while it’s April, I am going to enjoy what I saw today, and maybe even get a little excited.

The White Sox just swept the Minnesota Twins! Through last year, the White Sox record against the Twins in this millennium was 41-52. (If anyone checks my math, the millennium began in 2001, not 2000!) I didn’t see the infamous collision between Torii Hunter and Jamie Burke in July, 2004, so I will make no comment, but even without having seen the collision I have no problem rooting especially hard against the Twins.

As sweet as the sweep is, there was something about the way the White Sox won today. The Twins broke on top with a run in the top of the first inning. The Sox took a 3-1 lead, with a run in the third and two in the fourth. Then came the sixth inning. When it was over, movie dialogue began running through my head. The movie is The Untouchables. The dialog is delivered by Sean Connery to Kevin Costner, aka, Eliot Ness. Connery reveals the secret for winning in Chicago:

You wanna know how you do it? Here's how, they pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago way….

Joe Mauer lead off the top of the sixth by pulling a knife, hitting a homerun, and sending a relatively safe 2 run lead to the hospital by cutting it in half. In the bottom of the sixth, the Sox pulled their guns to send the Twins to the morgue. First, Juan Uribe homered, his second of the game, with two on, making the score 6-1. The next batter, Brian Anderson, took a shot of his own and sent one over the fence in center field. Final score? 7-3.

It’s April. I can still celebrate, warily, but celebrate nonetheless. Not only did the White Sox win, but they did it the Chicago way.

Finally!

2006-04-22T10:45:00.000-04:00

I've been waiting all season for something to happen, and last night was the night. No, it wasn't the fact that the White Sox are now tied for the best record in baseball and have the best record in the American League all by themselves. It wasn't even that the last 6 White Sox starters have won their games. As sweet as beating Johan Santana is, even that wasn't it. Don't get me wrong, these are good things, for early in the season, excellent things. All of these things were great, but they don't hold a candle to....

Yesterday afternoonn DISH Network installed our new HD/DVR and a new satellite dish to make it work right. Being the old timer that I am, HD television was not an immediate need. Buying it was a balance between its cost and the amount of programming available on it. When DISH recently announced a deal on HD to current DISH subscribers, I jumped at it, ending 3 years of delayed gratification. Demand for the receiver/recorder was so great that the earliest that installation could be scheduled was a full 3 weeks after I placed the order. The technicians arrived around 3:30 and didn't finish the installation until just before 7:00. It was close, but they left before the Twins game started.

Comcast does the White Sox home games in HD. I don't know if away games are in HD. I believe that WGN also broadcasts the home games in HD, though they do not do so for away games. I won't even guess about 26. The cool thing about Comcast is that they rebroadcast the games beginning at 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. Those broadcasts are still in HD and are more fun to watch because you know the Sox won, so rallies or late-inning homeruns by the visitors don't annoy you AND you get to watch it all in HD. Avoiding annoyances is good for my pacemaker.

So, now that I've seen the game in HD, can I still watch it in standard definition? Sure! SD won't have a picture that is quite as sharp, the grass won't be as green, the colors in the uniforms will not be as vibrant or deep, and the whole experience will not be enhanced just that much }{, but I can still rough it in SD. Of course, Hawk and DJ still call the games, but whether or not they are on their game, they seem better in HD.

Now that I have it, I still have some experimenting to do. For example, if a game on MLB Pass is broadcast locally in HD, will it still come to me in HD? I told MY wife that I have research to do today and, fortunately, she didn't ask me what I will be researching.

Take heart my White Sox brethren, the ups and downs of the baseball season still await to unfold. In a 100-yard dash, the Sox stumbling start would have cost them the race, but the major league season is a super marathon. So, let the winning streaks get longer, let the losing streaks - and there will be losing streaks - be as short as possible. The one thing that I know is that barring power failures, or electrical storms that interfere with the satellite signal, I'll be able to watch it all (home games anyway) in HD. Oh, and how 'bout them White Sox starters?

Context, Context, Context

2006-04-19T16:43:00.000-04:00

When Kobe Bryant scored 324,948.3 points in one basketball game earlier this year, it was against the Toronto Raptors, a terrible team whose best player (Chris Bosh) plays a different position from Kobe and therefore wasn't guarding him. Could he have done the same thing against the Spurs, with Bruce Bowen hounding him all game, or against the Pacers/Kings, with Ron Artest shadowing his every move? Probably not, although if he had, the accomplishment would be worth a whole lot more. Such is context.

And it is with context in mind that we have to consider the three-game sweep the Sox just completed. The Royals are - hands down, without competition - the worst team in the major leagues. Does that mean that wins against them aren't worth anything? Of course not. The playoffs are a crapshoot, so just making them is the most important way to win a championship. And what you need to make the playoffs are wins, whether you get them against the 1927 Yankees or the 2003 Tigers. Furthermore, one of the hallmarks of a good team is taking care of business against teams that they're "supposed" to beat, so beating teams like the Royals is important.

But does the fact that the Royals are so terrible make wins against them less significant? Well, yes. A win is a win is a win, but a win against KC doesn't tell you as much about the underlying performance of the Sox as would a win against the Indians, Red Sox, A's, or Yankees. It's possible to go out and throw seven shutout innings against the Royals, or go 3-for-4 with two doubles against them, and still not be a very good player. (Granted, flukes occur against good teams too, but they're rarer.)

So what does this mean for the Sox right now? Well, yesterday Jon Garland broke out of a season-long (or season-short, really) funk, dominating the Royals for six and 1/3 innings while walking no one and giving up only six hits. That doesn't mean he's automatically going to go out and repeat 2005 from here on out. He might, but doing the same thing against a better team will most likely take an even better outing. The most important repercussion of Garland's outing (besides the Sox win, of course) is that it probably won him his confidence back.

Similarly, today Javier Vazquez was nearly unhittable (literally - his no-hitter was broken up in the seventh inning on a cheap, cheap, cheap hit, an unintentional checked-swing bunt by Doug Mientkxzckwykck), but because of the opponent it doesn't signify all that much. You could make a decent argument that holding the Yankees to two runs on five hits over eight innings is actually a better pitching performance than giving up two hits and shutting out the Royals over eight innings, as Vazquez did today. To me, the most important things to take away from Javy's outing are: 1) that he rebounded well from a terrible start last Friday, and 2) that he didn't give up any homers at The Cell.

I hope this doesn't read as a downer on the Sox' performance, because it's not meant to be. I just think we should all keep in mind context when we evaluate both team and individual performance. The Mets began this season 8-1, but seven of those victories came against the Nationals and the Marlins, two of the worst teams in the National League. And conversely, the fact that the Twins are 6-7 after playing the Blue Jays, Indians, A's, Yankees, and Angels probably means that they're a better team than the standings indicate. On the other hand, the Sox limited the Royals to only one run over three games; dominant wins over a bad team connote more than merely squeaking by.

One last note: Pods went 2-for-3 with a double and a walk today, finally raising his batting average over the Mendoza line. That, in and of itself, is great. However, two of his times on base he was thrown out trying to steal second. It's only a matter of time before Pods' perpetual green-light from Ozzie starts to really hurt the team.

On A Roll (with Lettuce, Tomato, and Dijon Mustard)

2006-04-18T12:04:00.000-04:00

It's been a few days since I last posted, and in that time the Sox went 3-0 (so maybe I should just stop posting altogether?). But they were three very different wins - one archetypal, one ugly, and one nearly perfect.

First came Saturday's 4-2 win over the Blue Jays. Credit for the win goes to two old Sox standbys - Mark Buehrle and Paul Konerko. Buehrle did exactly what I hoped he would do, providing excellent starting pitching to break a streak of ugly starts for the Sox. He gave up just five hits and two walks in eight innings, his only blemish a two-run homer to Alex Rios in the first inning. Classic Buehrle once again. And Paulie provided all the Sox' clout, bashing two two-run homers.

But what everyone was talking about after the game was Tadahito Iguchi's play in the ninth inning. With one out and a runner on first, Iguchi charged in on Bengie Molina's high chopper, and somehow threw to first to get the out as he crashed onto the ground near the pitcher's mound. It was obviously a spectacular play, but in my opinion a foolish one. 99 times out of 100 the fielder throws that ball past the first basemen for an error. Ozzie basically said the same thing, that as soon as he saw Iguchi throw the ball he thought "We got second and third with one out." In a two run game, letting the opposing team have two runners in scoring position with two decent (although not great) hitters - Shea Hillenbrand and Lyle Overbay - coming up to bat is a great way to blow a lead. Luckily, Iguchi's throw was catchable, and my guess is that he'll end up with at least an ESPY nomination for it. But it just as easily could have been a disastrous play. If I had my druthers (and I almost never do), Iguchi would put that ball in his pocket and let the Jays have runners on first and second with one out, especially since the speed of their runners (Glaus, Molina, Hillenbrand, and Overbay are probably the worst 2000-meter relay team of all time) could perhaps have led to a double-play.

Still, it worked out, so who am I to complain?

Sunday's finale against the Blue Jays was ugly. The Sox scored some early runs, thanks to homers by Jermaine Dye and Jim Thome. But with rain pouring down on the field, Freddy Garcia came unhinged in the fourth inning and almost blew the game. First of all, I'm not even sure he should have still been in the game, given the third inning rain delay and his early season troubles getting (and staying) loose. In my mind, Ozzie left him in because Garcia's a good friend of his, and he wants him to break Wilson Alvarez' record for most wins by a Venezuelan pitcher as soon as possible. That became abundantly clear to me after Freddy stayed in the game in the fourth inning even after retiring only one of the first seven batters, giving up two singles, four walks, and three runs (two via bases-loaded walks). I suppose Ozzie was right, because Garcia got the next batter (Hillenbrand) to fly out, and then induced a ground ball from Molina that should have ended the inning. But Iguchi botched the play (in stark contract to the day before), thereby allowing another run to score and extending the game.

Here's where things got interesting. Garcia, frustrated by Iguchi's error and the fact that it had the potential to cost him a win (not to mention keeping him in the downpour for a few more minutes), raised his hand in an obvious display of disgust. He recovered to strike out Eric Hinske to end the inning (and the game, which was called after the ensuing rain delay), but Ozzie chewed him out after the game for showing up his teammate. Apparently he also brokered some sort of apology (in what language, I wonder?) to Iguchi from Garcia. Terrific move by Ozzie. First of all, Freddy needed to realize that Ozzie was doing him a favor, and potentially risking losing the lead, by leaving him in the game. He was lucky to be there in the first place. And secondly, and much more importantly, it is never ok to show up your teammate like he did, especially when 1) the fielding conditions were so terrible, and 2) it was his own damn fault the Sox were in a bind. A very un-classy move by Garcia; thankfully Ozzie was on the case and set things right.

Also, I think the Sox were lucky the game was called. I got the feeling that if they had played the full nine innings, or even another one or two, the Sox would have blown their lead. It was just one of those days.

Yesterday's 9-0 drubbing of the Royals was about as perfect of a game as you could ask for. The Sox put up an early five-spot on homers from Konerko and Joe Crede, and Jose Contreras was absurdly dominant. In seven innings he gave up just one hit (a double that was stranded) and one walk (that was erased on a caught stealing), striking out six. And the bullpen followed suit, providing perfect innings from Boone Logan and Cliff Politte. The Sox tacked on a few more runs, and the outcome of the game was never really in question.

In general, the Sox' high run-scoring ways have continued. Over those three games, they've averaged 8.55 runs scored per nine innings. In particular, Konerko has been on an absolute tear, and not just for three games: over the past seven, he's hitting .538/.586/1.269 with four doubles and five homers. It's such an asset to have two great hitters in the middle of the lineup, because it's rare for both of them to be cold at the same time (and it's not exactly like Thome's been off lately).

In other good news, Pods has finally showed up, hitting .417/.417/.500 over the three games in question. I'd like to see him take some more walks (zero in that span), but getting any hits at all should help his confidence, and will mean a lot more RBI opportunities for the middle of the lineup.

Football?

2006-04-15T11:21:00.000-04:00

Why didn't anyone tell me the Bears were playing an exhibition game against the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL? First of all, that would have been interesting to see. And secondly, I wouldn't have been surprised at all by Toronto's 13-7 win over Chicago.

But I was under the mistaken impression that this was baseball, and that the White Sox were playing the Blue Jays. Silly me.

Okay, enough of that. In the past two days, the Sox have reverted to their pre-2005 ways, mashing the ball on offense and hoping that the pitching staff could hold it together enough to get a win. On Thursday, it worked. On Friday, it didn't.

It's really frustrating to waste offensive performances of this caliber. The Sox hit .342/.444/.579 as a team last night. Pablo Ozuna (3-for-5 with a 2-RBI double) hit well out of the leadoff spot, Konerko and Dye homered, Crede had four hits, Alex Cintron was 2-for-5, and even Thome got on base 40% of the time on a night he went hitless. The team scored seven runs, which should be enough to win most nights. But even if you discount Dye's homer (because it came in the 9th after the outcome of the game was pretty much decided), the Sox held a 5-2 lead after three (and four) innings, and couldn't hold onto it. Ugh.

After giving up Hillenbrand's homer in the 2nd, I was concerned that Vazquez's tendency to give up the long ball was going to bite him in the ass playing at The Cell, but then he settled down for a few innings, retiring eight of the next nine batters he faced. After which he promptly fell apart entirely, giving up five runs in the 5th. It was an ugly inning to say the least. Yes, he didn't give up any homers, which I'm still convinced will be his Achilles' heel this year; on the other hand, Javy only retired two of the nine batters he faced during the inning, and one of those two outs brought home a run for the Jays. He only got out of the inning thanks to a nice throw by Jermaine Dye from right, which nailed Lyle Overbay at the plate. I don't want to judge too quickly, so I'm willing to give Vazquez a mulligan for this game, especially since he pitched very well his first time out. His next start will be Wednesday at home, which should give us another look at how he performs in such a high run-scoring environment (although we should keep in mind that he'll be facing the Royals, so who knows how much that data is worth...).

The pitching concerns, however, do not end with Vazquez. The Sox scored seven runs, the same number that our starter surrendured in six innings; so if the bullpen had been able to throw three shutout innings, theoretically the game may have been tied. Of course, if the Blue Jays were up by only two entering the bottom of the ninth, we probably would have been facing B.J. Ryan, and not Brian Tallet (who?), so it's most likely a silly argument. But still, the larger point stands: the bullpen was terrible. Terrible.

Actually, it wasn't the entire bullpen - it was Cliff Politte and Neal Cotts. I don't want to sound like a broken record, nor like an "I told you so" baby, but ever since the birth of this blog I've been saying that the two of them are due for a serious regression this year. One game is a ridiculously small sample size, but between the two of them last night they had an ERA of 20.25 while giving up an absurd hitting line of .563/.563/1.250. Um, at least they didn't walk anyone, right? Yeah, that's regression for ya.

Buehrle's going for the Sox today. Last time out he ended a four-game losing streak. This time, let's hope he can end a two-game streak of atrocious pitching.

OCD: It's Not a Pretty Thing!

2006-04-13T17:46:00.000-04:00

[Editor's note: Thine eyes do not deceive you - Chester's has a new contributor! Introducing "Pushin' 60," who has been a Sox fan longer than I've been alive (and it's not particularly close). He'll be regaling us from time to time (read: whenever he wants to) with his wit and observations (and perhaps even witty observations). Also, in regards to his first point, about the misdating of posts, I've noticed it too; in addition, the time-stamp on posts is almost always wrong. I have no clue why; help? Anyway, enjoy!]

Am I the only one who realizes that the post entitled "Au Contraire(s)" is dated April 11, but discusses a game not played until April 12? If you are thinking to yourself now, "who cares?", believe me, I wish I didn't notice these things.

I just got done watching the Sox efficiently dispatch the Tigers for a 3-game sweep. The score? 13-9. Hits? Sox 17, Tigers 21. The winning pitcher? Jon Garland, in a 5-inning performance that I might have been able to make, and I have a bum shoulder, and have had since Nixon's first term (the full term).

There is something about April games. Lots of runs are scored! Every year this is the time people talk about the juiced baseball, as opposed to the juiced baseball players. The juiced ball controversy tends to dry up pretty quickly. Maybe there are a lot of runs in April because the games are played mostly in the day. Maybe it's because there are lots of off-days built in to allow for freezing weather in the North and they wind up keeping the hitters fresh. Maybe it's because pitchers who are bound for other locations, be they in the Majors or the Minors, haven't received their marching orders yet, or are too strong, as a result of the off-days, and throw too hard for the ball to move like it will when the arms begin to get tired. (My OCD does not extend to providing actual stastical support for my theory about runs scored in April.)

I mention April runs because I could easily point out that despite the fact that the Sox won, they won't win a lot of 13-9 games this year, so don't revel too much. It's not the Sox fault that it's April. The important point is that they have begun to do what they need to do to win. Pretty or not, that's all they really do need to do.

So, if I don't think April games are all that useful for picking up trends, other than playing winning ball or losing ball (not to minimize that particular trend), were there any trends to identify today? I hope so. Matt Thornton came into the game in the bottom of the 9th to close a 13-9 game. He gave up 3 hits. One of them was a replay of Maggs Ordonez' bloop hit that fell in front of Brain Anderson yesterday. Today's was hit by Chris Shelton and fell in front of Jermaine Dye, who froze just long enough not to get to the ball. Following a real single, just out of Alex Cintron's reach, by Craig Monroe, Omar Infante topped a ball that didn't make it to third base, and wouldn't have even if some mystical force had been able to tip the Comerica Park field 45 degrees. At the end of the play, the bases were loaded.

Thornton could have been rattled by then, and with the tying run coming to bat in the form of Curtis Granderson, Ozzie easily could have made a move. Ozzie left Thornton in the game and as Thornton had been doing all inning, simply threw hard, threw around the plate, and finally threw strike 3 to end the game.

I'm hoping Thornton's performance is a trend, but one hopefully coupled with normal White Sox defensive play in the future.

Au Contraire(s)

2006-04-11T13:35:00.000-04:00

Not much to say about today's win except: 1) It's great to see that even when he's not overpowering, Jose Contreras can be a dominating pitcher; 2) When he's healthy, Jim Thome is still one of the ten best hitters on the planet; and 3) Bobby Jenks scares the crap out of me when he's pitching in tight games.

Okay, clearly I can't just leave it at that. Contreras was great, showing signs that his second half of '05 was no fluke. He only struck out two batters in eight innings, which I'd like to see him improve on; as good as the Sox' defense is, it's always preferable to not risk the perilous pitfalls of fielding. But that's nitpicking. He was great, and deserves the vast majority of the credit for the win.

As long as Thome's healthy, the Sox will have a very good shot at making the playoffs. Yes, they're going to need to ward off the Indians all year, and may have to "settle" for the wild card (wow - we are spoiled), but we are a much, much better offensive team with Thome in the lineup. (Actually, we're roughly the same team as last year's during the stretch when Big Frank was healthy enough to play.) Throw in the excellent starting pitching and defense we've come to expect, and this team could win anywhere from 85 to 95 games. Or more. Or less. Who knows.

I think I'm about ready to start the official "Make Brandon McCarthy Our Closer Campaign 2006 (c)." Okay, not yet. But only a few more outings like the one Jenks had today, and I'm going to start making buttons and planning a whistlestop tour. Jenks' stuff is sickeningly filthy, but when he can't find the plate he's forced to throw fastballs right down the middle. And honestly, just about any major leaguer can hit a fastball - even a 98 MPH fastball - if he knows it's coming and will be in the strikezone. And, as a good deal of a hitter's "power" actually comes from the speed of the pitch he's hitting (because of the energy involved - consult your local physics nerd), a 98 MPH fastball can turn into a 98 MPH home run very easily. Hence, Chris Shelton's 9th inning bomb today. (Not that I'm trying to take anything away from Shelton; you can check back to my March 5th entry entitled "In the Central of It All" to see that my respect for him predates his current early season tear.) If Jenks can't find some control, and soon, I think he should be relegated to either AAA or the 6th inning until he does. Because otherwise he's going to start blowing games left and right.

To finish, I'll leave you with something very funny I read yesterday. Every week during the season Baseball Prospectus publishes a "Hit List," which ranks and comments on all thirty teams. Yesterday the first in-season Hit List came out, and it had the Sox at 22nd (rated when they were 2-4). Frankly, I didn't think that was out of line at all, given their early season play; but apparently a lot of people did react angrily to the pre-season rankings, which had the Sox at 14th. So to preempt further complaints, the author (the excellent Jay Jaffe) provided a place to click to write him an angry email. When I clicked on it (curious as I was), a hilarious Microsoft Outlook box popped up, with this email pre-written in it:

"To: thehitlistidiot@baseballprospectus.com

"From: Another Irate Reader

"Dear Jerkass: Add me to the list of readers who think your Hit List has totally jumped the shark. The 2005 White Sox proved themselves to be Clutch Gods, and Ozzie Guillen practices santeria, so a return to the World Series is practically guaranteed, unlike what your stupid PECOTA system says. Pull your head out of a book and watch a ballgame some time, you moron; I suggest tuning in to hear Hawk Harrelson tell it like it is, because he's a genius. In closing, get bent. Sincerely -- [Insert Name Here]"

Brilliant!

DR. STRANGEPUDGE, or HOW I LEARNED TO STOP EXPECTING WINNING SEASONS AND EMBRACE THE TIGERS

2006-04-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

[Editor's note: I thought we could mix things up a bit today. The following was not written by me, nor by Jon, nor even by a White Sox fan at all; rather, it is by my good friend Josh, a self-avowed Detroit Tigers fan. Perhaps you yell, "Traitor! How dare ye let the enemy within the castle walls?!" But c'mon, people: are you really threatened by a Tigers fan? Given that we're in the middle of a three-game series with the Tigers, and that we're going to play them about 3 million times this season, I thought it would be interesting to get some thoughts from the perspective of the opponent. Plus, I think Josh's writing is well worth the price of admission...which is, of course, free. Anyway, here's hoping we can continue to coax some commentary out of him as both this series and this season continue. Enjoy!]

There's nothing particularly impressive about being a baseball fan. While we may take ourselves more seriously, claim that our records are more sacred, and declare our place in Americana right next to apple pie and your mom, it's not really that fantastic. Yes, there is the grind of 162 games to consider. And, sure, there is a certain amount of patience required that your average roller derby fan probably couldn't demonstrate. But for the most part, being a baseball fan requires no special skill or tremendous talent; you don't even have to be cleared by your doctor to do it.

But being a baseball fan and being a Tigers fan are two different things.

1984. 1987. 1993.

The last time they won a World Series. The last time they made the playoffs. The last time they finished over .500.

There is a special kind of suffering here. Red Sox fans have a team to hate (the Yankees), a pretty damn funny embodiment of their kind (Jimmy Fallon) and an inferiority complex 1918 times the size of Pawtucket. Plus, they continually came close before eventually breaking through. That's the good life. Cubs fans enjoy the suffering and by the fourth inning at Wrigley, they've told everyone why. They'd rather lose with flair - and flaired tendons in their arms - than actually win a Series. Sadly, these revelations always involve a mention of Harry Caray mangling the pronunciation of Jose Vizcaino's name. White Sox fans have the nobility of not being Cubs fans to hang their hats on...oh, and I think they have a shiny new trophy too.

Then there's me. I'm the lonely Tigers fan. Hooked on a winning team as a young'un, I've never quite managed to drop the habit. I came of baseball age just in time to watch them get beaten down 4-1 in the ALCS in 1987. Pat Sheridan had the only game-winning RBI for the Tigers in the that series. Pat Sheridan.

I saw Kirk Gibson and Jack Morris reach World Series glory for other teams, but that didn't count. Both those bastards turned me down for autographs in the Detroit Airport back before teams flew charter and I've never forgiven them. Plus, they had awful facial hair.

Nope, my true allegiance was and is to Alan Trammell. The clean-shaven shortstop who had a flair for the dramatic home run and actually seemed to care about each game. He epitomized the winning Tigers of the late 80's, the declining Tigers of the early 90's, and the barely recognizable to the point of irrelevance Tigers of the late 90's (What? You think any self-respecting Tigers fan will acknowledge the Juan Gonzalez era?). Even his managing of a 119-loss team told me that my fanaticism was being rewarded. Surely, he would lead us back to the promised land.

Alas, the white horse Trammell rode in on was diagnosed with polio and shot dead before Jonas Salk could come along. Such are the travails of a Tigers fan, watching my childhood hero get canned after an inferior pitching staff and injuries to key players destroyed his hopes of leading the Tigers back to respectability.

But such is life for a Tigers fan. I pissed and moaned all winter after Trammell was fired and I bitch every time Jim Leyland tries to take the cigarette out of his mouth long enough to call for a squeeze with Dmitri Young on third base, but at the end of the day I still love them. I'm still addicted to them. I still spend enough time on ESPN Gamecast to prove an insanity plea in any future criminal case that is brought against me.

Am I drinking the Kool-Aid provided by a 5-0 start? Of course not. I've been burned too many times before. But does a part of me still envision what that 82nd win of the season would feel like? All the time. Do I still fall asleep in a bad mood when Mike Maroth gives up 4 runs in 5 innings and the Tigers waste the start by managing only a double and two walks against the Royals? Absolutely. And does a part of me that I don't like to acknowledge hold out hope that this could in fact be the year that they break through, go from worst to first, and win their first World Series since I was playing Lite-Bright and fantasizing about She-Ra, Princess of Power?

You promise not to tell anyone, right?

Okay. You've got me. I admit it.

Textbook

2006-04-10T16:23:00.000-04:00

Very solid win today, 5-3 over the Stripes in Detroit (that should be pronounced Dee-twah, with a little bit of French phlegm thrown in for effect; for more info on said city, check this out). After a disastrous first start, Freddy Garcia came back to give up three runs in six innings (the very definition of a quality start). His career numbers on the road and during the day are excellent; throw in the pitching-friendly context of Comerica, and today's effort was not exactly surprising. It was, however, something of a relief.

The Sox were back to their homering ways again, blasting three in the game that accounted for all of their runs. And for the first time all season someone other than Jim Thome managed to connect, Crede and Konerko contributing one each. But Thome himself launched another, giving him four longballs and eight walks in only 30 plate appearances; the similarities between him and Frank Thomas go well beyond the spellings of their last names. Frankly (pun very much intended), Thome is a stud at the plate.

Even though he gave up four runs in seven innings, Jeremy Bonderman looked very solid for the Tigers. He struck out eight, and made a couple of guys look silly while doing so. He's only 23, and could very well show up in the Cy Young voting at some point in the next few years (who knows - even this one).

Besides his home run, Crede had a walk and a couple of excellent plays in the field. I think he'll win a Gold Glove this year, at least in part because of the national exposure he got during the playoffs last season. It's dumb that it takes something like that to give someone his due, but then again the Gold Gloves are given out fairly arbitrarily anyway.

On the other side of things, Pods made an error in left, and had another suspect play that was somehow ruled a single. He also went 0-for-4, dropping his average to .038. He's drawn one walk so far. It's way too early to write him off, but I'm very worried about Pods this season. His groin problem is the type of chronic nagging injury that stays with a player for a long time, and cuts into his speed - his most valuable asset on both offense and defense. I'm worried that he may end up stuck in limbo this year: too healthy to be on the DL, but not productive enough to deserve a starting spot. Unfortunately, Ozzie will probably continue to play him as long as he's on the active roster, thanks to last year's sheen. But if he doesn't have at least a .360 OBP out of the leadoff hole, and contribute above-average defense in left, he's nothing more than a glorified 4th (or even 5th) outfielder.

Some excellent bullpen news: McCarthy was lights-out again for two innings, and Jenks had his first 1-2-3 inning of the year. As long as Jenks keeps his control problems under wraps, and Cotts and Politte manage to have average years (average middle relief years, that is; last year was not average for either of them), the bullpen should be ok.

Tomorrow's a mid-series off day. They schedule these in after the home openers for cities in northern climes, in case the first game gets rained out. How much you wanna bet that it's beautiful in Detroit tomorrow, and Wednesday's game gets washed away?

Mmm....Tastes Like Stopper

2006-04-09T21:50:00.000-04:00

Ahh, that's more like it. I had almost forgotten, but that's why we love Mark Buehrle. His outing today was classic Buehrle - quick, efficient, not overpowering, but great. Eight innings, only six hits (and not an extra-base one among them), only one walk, no runs. And he only threw 88 pitches, so he easily could have completed the game, although I don't fault Guillen for getting Jenks some late-inning work in a close game.

The offense wasn't spectacular, but then again it didn't need to be. More importantly, Jermaine Dye was back, and looked pretty good, making a couple of nice defensive plays, legging out a double, and walking twice. We are a far weaker team with Mackowiak playing every day, so let's hope Dye's leg injury isn't anything long-term.

And whether the Sox players and coaches will admit it or not, this was a very important win. First of all, no one wanted to be swept by Kansas City, so the psychological lift of showing that we can beat a team we're supposed to beat is big. And secondly, we just plain needed a win to hang around in the standings. I know that sounds ridiculous, and I admit that it's early to give much credence to win-loss records, but even with today's win we're three games out of first, and trailing not one but three teams. I'm not particularly worried about the Royals, but the Tigers actually have a pretty good team. Actually, a great team if Justin Verlander's dominant start on Saturday is any indication of the type of pitching they're going to get this year. And if you've been reading Chester's Cup of Coffee, you should know how highly I think of the Indians; their 5-1 start doesn't surprise me one bit. There's just about no chance that the Sox go 28-10 (14-5 each) against those two teams this year as they did in '05, resulting in more than a quarter of their wins; therefore, they need as many wins against the Kansas Citys, Seattles, Baltimores, and Tampa Bays of the world if they're going to make it back to the playoffs. Today we can credit Mark Buehrle for getting us one.

Royal Disaster

2006-04-09T12:28:00.000-04:00

Kansas City? Christ. Two winnable games, two losses.

It's so early in the season, so I don't want to hit the panic button yet. But the worst part about these two losses is that they're games that good teams almost always win.

First, Friday's game. A 6-0 lead against one of the worst teams in all of baseball - that's money in the bank, right? Wrong. Granted, that lead was achieved in the third inning on the road, meaning that the Royals had seven innings to make up the deficit. And it's true that the Royals are better this year (although better is of course a relative turn). And the wind played a role in the 4th when Pablo Ozuna broke back on a ball that landed in front of him, resulting in a double. But you know what: those are just excuses. There's just no way that the Sox should lose this game.

Ozzie probably should have pulled Garland when he got into trouble in the 4th. I don't fault him for not taking him out that inning, though, because of the fluky double (the Ozuna play) and the fact that our bullpen is far shakier this year (more on that later), making it better worth the gamble to leave a starter in. But after the Royals cut the lead to 6-5 in the 4th, Garland shouldn't have come out to start the 5th, and he definitely shouldn't have pitched in the 6th. Garland had lost the plate (two walks and a wild pitch in the 4th and 5th), and when he did find the plate KC was having no trouble taking batting practice on him (even excluding the wind-aided double, they had three doubles, two singles, and a sac fly in those innings). It was one thing to surrender most of a big lead (the 4th), worse to let them tie the game (the 5th), and worse yet to let the Royals pull ahead (the 6th). At the latest, Ozzie should have realized at some point in the 5th inning (say, after Sweeney's double?) that Garland was done, and taken him out.

The only good thing Matt Thornton did was save Guillen from having to use other relievers. One the one hand, his final line wasn't as bad as it looked, because three of his four walks were intentional and the Sox committed an error while he was on the mound. On the other hand, he let his one inherited runner score, let the Royals extend their lead (ERA of 6.75 on the day), and Thornton himself is the one who committed the error.

At least the offense produced. They pounded out 14 hits (sadly all singles save three doubles) and walked four times for a terrific OBP of .429. And most importantly, they jumped out to a big lead. Unfortunately, the pitching staff couldn't hold it, the exact opposite of the all-defense (including pitching), no-offense 2005 team.

Yesterday's game was just as bad, and much more frustrating. Once again the offense was good (.343 OBP and six more walks, a great sign for the Sox), and although it couldn't stake the pitchers to a big lead, it did come through when it counted: a nice 8th inning rally (highlighted by a long RBI double by Thome) gave the Sox a 3-2 lead with only six Royals outs to go. And for only the second time all season, the Sox got a good outing out of their starter. In fact, they got a great start: Vazquez gave up two runs, and only five hits and one walk, in seven innings, while striking out seven.

A good team will hang around even on a day when it's having trouble scoring runs - Vazquez took care of that. And a good team will get its act together in time to take a lead against a bad team - a bunch of Sox hitters took care of that in the 8th. But a good team will also close out the win - and that's where Cliff Politte failed miserably.

In post-game comments, Politte mentioned that Grudzielanek's leadoff single was just a lucky squib, and that Sweeney's ensuing bomb to the left-field seats was hit off a nasty slider (By the way, can we all agree that someone from the Sox must have hurt Sweeney's family at some point in the past? Because the guy is just amazing against us, and has been for years.). But those are just excuses. Of course, even good teams will surrender late-inning leads from time to time. But chalking it up to a once-in-a-while fluke merely masks over what should be of great concern to us: our bullpen is subpar, and possibly terrible.

Consider this: when you take Brandon McCarthy (our only really good bullpen option at this point) out of the equation, the rest of our bullpen's stats look like this (through Saturday, and minus Thornton's three intentional walks, to be fair): 0-2 record, 4.91 ERA, 1.77 WHIP, and three home runs in 14 and 2/3 innings. Granted, it's early in the season, and that's a small sample size, but at this point the only thing the bullpen (minus McCarthy) has going for it is its ability to strike guys out: .88 per inning. Unless at least two or three guys step up and start performing well, one of two things is going to happen: 1) Our bullpen will surrender a lot of leads/allow opposing teams to extend their leads, or 2) Guillen is going to overwork our starters in an attempt to avoid the bullpen. Either way, it will be a recipe for disaster.

Mismanaged

2006-04-05T18:30:00.000-04:00

[Editor's note: Turns out Joe Crede had the flu for this game, making some (but not all!) of my comments below irrelevant. It takes a little (but just a little!) of the blame off of Ozzie.]

Ugh. What a frustrating loss.

Ozzie blew this game. I hate to say it - because ultimately the players are the ones who perform well or don't - but it's true. A number of times, he failed to utilize his players in the best way possible. Some examples:

1) Why the hell did Boone Logan pitch to Hafner in the 8th with a one-run lead? For starters, McCarthy had dominated once again in the 7th. But if Ozzie wanted to go lefty-lefty, why not use Cotts? Or at least Thornton (who may already be better than Cotts, and is certainly better than Logan)? Boone pitched yesterday, and although the box score won't show it, he didn't pitch well. This a guy who has never pitched above single-A; he should be learning the ropes against lefty scrubs, not against one of the half-dozen best hitters in all of baseball (look it up - it's true). I'm all for trial by fire, but this was ridiculous. It must have felt like batting practice to Hafner, who launched a homer to right to tie the game. Terrible choice by Ozzie.

2) Bottom of the eighth. Tie game (thanks to mistake #1). First and third, one out. All you need is a fly ball to take the lead and hand the ball to Jenks. Ozuna's up, and that's the first problem. I know Ozzie likes to get his subs involved so they're prepared, and that's all well and good. But this is the third game of the season, and I see no reason (short of injury) not to start Crede, especially with a lefty starter on the mound for Cleveland. So instead of having Crede already in the game, and Ozuna on the bench to pinch run, it's Ozuna in the lineup. Perhaps this is a good time to pinch-hit Crede to get the fly ball? Ozzie doesn't think so, instead turning to Alex Cintron. Cintron certainly has more pop than Ozuna, and he plays third base (meaning you're going to use one less player), so in and of itself it's a good move. But why not go with Ross Gload versus the righty Betancourt? If anyone sitting on the bench at that time is going to get the fly ball, it's him. But Ozzie goes with Cintron, who strikes out.

3) The next batter up is Brian Anderson, who needs a hit to take the lead. Once again, getting the rookie some experience is great and all, but a base hit most likely wins the game. Ross Gload should have batted for Anderson, who grounds out to end the inning and the threat. In the 9th, you would put Gload in right and move Mackowiak over to center. But Ozzie failed to make the move.

4) Why did Neal Cotts come out to pitch the 11th? He had already pitched an inning and a third, and had pitched two innings the day before; he rarely ever pitched more than an inning last year, so this was just asking for trouble. Furthermore, after the number 9 hitter (and a formidable one in Casey Blake) he was facing the top of the order. It didn't surprise me at all when it only took the Indians three batters to score a run.

Of course, some of these mistakes (#s 2 and 3) were predicated on the fact that Guillen was managing with less than his full arsenal. Jermaine Dye left the game early with a leg injury (of which there is very little info so far), meaning that Mackowiak wasn't a late-inning option because he was already in the lineup. Still, Ozzie neglected to use Crede and Gload when he had the chance, and went with the wrong pitchers at the wrong times. Granted, if he had made the moves I suggested, the Sox may still have lost; but all he can do is make the best moves and hope it works out, which he didn't.

On the other hand, the Sox blew chance after chance after chance to win the game, and not all of that is Ozzie's fault. Both Konerko and Pierzynski had a chance to win the game in the 9th, and Konerko and Mackowiak both struck out with the tying run on second in the 11th. Paulie also had a chance to extend the Sox' lead in the 7th, but failed. His 1-for-5 day with a walk was actually much worse than that; if he doesn't start to hit, opposing teams will keep pitching around Thome to get to him, as the Indians did twice today.

Dye's injury is a major concern, much bigger than losing this game. If he has to go on the DL, my guess is that the Sox call up Jerry Owens, but I'd rather they go with Ryan Sweeney.

Bobby Jenks relieved Cotts with two outs in the 11th, and promptly displayed some serious control issues, walking Kelly Shoppach (!) and then going 3-0 on Ben Broussard before inducing him to ground out. Given the way they've been throwing the ball, I would bet that McCarthy is the Sox' closer before the eend of the month, and Jenks is either relegated to middle relief or AAA Charlotte.

Remember what I wrote about Jason Michaels two posts ago? Well, he terrorized us today, going 4-for-5 with a double, a walk, a run scored, and an RBI. Casey Blake only went 1-for-5, but played tremendous defense in right field. And Grady Sizemore did his typical thing, going 3-for-5 with a double and a sacrifice (that led to the winning run) and robbing Uribe of what would have been a lead-off double (and possibly the winning run) in the bottom of the 10th. Together they make quite a formidable outfield trio for the Indians, one that may even get better as soon as they call up prospect Brad Snyder.

Amidst all the gloom, there were two bright spots for the Sox. First, Jose Contreras calmed down after a very shaky first inning to throw the ball pretty well, giving up only two runs in six innings. And secondly, the Sox were much better at the plate as a team than their eight hits show; they walked six times and were hit by pitches three times (which is a skill - just ask Craig Biggio), making their OBP for the day a healthy .354.

Still, a very frustrating loss. And it was a one-run loss. We can't possibly expect to have the same type of luck in tight games as we did last year (especially with a far weaker bullpen), and today's game was a good example of that.

Freddy Got Fingered

2006-04-04T21:40:00.000-04:00

Oh well - it was only a matter of time before we lost a game. Including the playoffs, that was a nine game winning streak. Given the strength of the Indians, there was no way we were gonna sweep them - we may not even win the series.

Unlike the first game of the series, Sox pitchers issued five walks, while Sox hitters drew only one. And the Indians had five extra-base hits to the Sox' two. They just plain beat us.

Good points? Well, Ozzie played Cintron and Mackowiak, to give the Sox five lefties (virtually unheard of in recent years), and both responded with a hit. Still, I would rather he let Iguchi and Anderson play again, as both were coming off good games and could use some momentum - the former due to his bad spring, and the latter because he's a rookie. Thome mashed again, with another tape-measure home run to right. Including spring training, that's 10 dingers in 9 games. As long as he's healthy (how many times do you think I'll write that this year? and at what point in the season can I stop?), he's easily our best hitter, and not by a little.

The real train-wreck of the day was Freddy Garcia's performance. Apparently both his velocity was down and his pitches were up in the strike zone, and it showed. "I couldn't really get it going," said Freddy. "I wasn't even sweating." You know something must be wrong when Garcia doesn't sweat, because he typically resembles a mid-competition bodybuilder with a glandular problem during his starts. I really hope it was just a one day thing, but it might not be. We have to remember that Sox starters (including Vazquez) pitched a ton of innings last year. Including the playoffs, the five pitched a grand total of 1198 and 1/3 innings last year, or an average of 239 and 2/3 each. Throw in the fact that Garcia and Vazquez pitched in the World Baseball Classic, and I would be extremely surprised if we got through this season without a major injury to at least one our starters. I know it was only his first start, but this could be the first sign of serious fatigue for Garcia's arm. Luckily, if Garcia and/or another starter needs an extended rest, we've got McCarthy on hand. Credit Kenny Williams for not trading away any of them away, and realizing that last year's championship run may affect the team negatively this year.

Tribal Rain Dance

2006-04-04T18:18:00.000-04:00

I meant to write my eye-witness report from opening night at U.S. Cellular Field as soon as I got back, but got caught up with various things. Anyway, here we go:

Wow. WOW! I must say, I've never gotten to experience a Chicago sports environment like that first-hand. I was never fortunate enough to attend to a Bulls playoff game during their prime (as least I don't remember going), and have never been to a White Sox playoff game (had a ticket last year to a game they never played). So this was something else. Packed house. Loud, raucous fans. Just tremendously exciting.

Our seats were in the left-center field bleachers, which actually ended up being the perfect place to view the commemorative videos and the unveiling of the championship banner(s). First there was a performance by some guy named Josh Kelley, who was actually half-decent; imagine a cross between Jack Johnson (ugh) and John Mayer (ugher), but with a better singing voice, more interesting melodies, and some piano thrown in for good measure. His rendition of the national anthem (at the end of which two F-18 Hornets streaked over the stadium very low, very fast, and very loud) was probably the highlight, with some nice backup harmonies provided by his band. Anyway, no one was paying any attention to him; rather, the crowd was cheering every Sox player or coach who wandered anywhere near the field.

Seeing the banners unveiled was a great moment. I must admit, my knees actually turned to jelly when it happened. People were just so damn happy. It was like one big party with 40,000 people invited (and 38,000+ attending - who the hell didn't come?).

The crowd settled down a bit once the game began. I'm glad to report that my prediction of the game proved very, very wrong. Here are some random insights from the portion of the game I saw in-person:

Buehrle didn't seem himself. He was falling behind hitters, and therefore had to throw a lot of fastballs down the middle of the plate, resulting in ropes like Victor Martinez's double and long-flys like Eduardo Perez's (!) home run. Of all the Sox' (six) starters, Buehrle has by far the worst "stuff," meaning he has to rely on location and changing speeds more than anyone else. When he's not hitting the corners, or getting the calls, he frankly turns into an average pitcher, because his pitches won't get anyone out on their own. So far in his career he's shown himself to be extremely consistent, but he's definitely a candidate for a major step backwards if he doesn't bring pinpoint control or continue to get help from the umps.

An excellent sign: the defense looked remarkably sharp. In the first few innings, Crede, Uribe, and Iguchi all made fairly difficult plays with ease. And Brian Anderson had two very nice throws from center field. There's no way he has the range of Aaron Rowand, but if Sunday night was any indication he could make up for a little of that with his arm (just a little, because getting to batted balls is far more important than holding or throwing out runners). I don't want to judge too early, but I haven't seen an outfield cannon like that on the Sox in a long, long time.

Speaking of Anderson, he also looked very good at the plate. His double to left was very well hit, his two-run single later in the game showed him to have a nice stroke, and he even stole a base (admittedly with no throw). He did make a boneheaded play later on, getting doubled off first. I'm guessing he didn't know how many outs there were, but he's a rookie, so that's almost (but not quite) excusable. We could be looking at .280/.340/.470 from a rookie center fielder with a nice arm: cha-ching!

There were some other nice signs for Sox hitters. Juan Uribe walked twice, good for any hitter but terrific for him. If he's being more selective he'll be a much better hitter, adding some on-base skills to his good power. Iguchi also looked good at the plate, prompting a sigh of relief after his miserable spring (when he tinkered with his stance, to terrible results). His single was right up the middle, indicating his timing of the pitch was perfect. And his sac-fly after the rain delay was a rocket to left-center that would have been a double on most nights, and only wasn't thanks to a terrific (and daring, given the wet grass) play by Jason Michaels. (Michaels, by the way, was a steal for the Indians. He's a legitimate .400+ OBP guy, and showed off some serious defensive chops on Sunday - in addition to the play on Iguchi, he somehow almost hauled in Anderson's double. He makes them even better, which is just about the last thing I wanted to write.)

When the rain came, it came hard. We waited for a little more than an hour (the minimum requisite time before calling a game), but then decided to head home. It was a tough call, but I had an early flight the next morning, and my dad had work, and the rain wasn't letting up at all. We figured if they did restart, we could watch the rest of the game at home, and give ourselves an extra hour of sleep given the commuting time.

When they did restart, I was pretty shocked. I mean, who the hell restarts a game after a 3-hour rain delay, with a mid-series off-day scheduled for the following day? It was strange. Part of me wishes we had stayed at the game, but I was tired enough as it was, so we probably made the right call.

After the delay, Brandon McCarthy looked excellent. Joe Morgan kept talking about how his delivery changes when he throws his curve, but if that's true (and once I looked for it, I noticed it too) it didn't affect the results. I predict that he'll get about eight spot starts this year (many more if injuries become serious), and do well in them. There are also some whisperings out there that he could become the Sox' closer should Jenks (and Cotts and Politte and Thornton) falter. I just hope that if that happens they make him a starter again as soon as possible; a good starter is worth far, far more than a good closer.

Speaking of the other relievers, they were something of a mixed bag on Sunday. Politte looked terrible; as I've predicted before, expect massive regression to the mean for both him and Cotts. Cliff was hit very hard, including three straight rockets (two foul, one double) off the bat of Casey Blake. The boxscore only shows him giving up one run, but Politte was far worse than that.

On the other hand, Thornton looked pretty good. He was hit semi-hard in the 9th inning, and let the count go to 3-2 after being up 0-2 on Aaron Boone, but those are small squabbles. He fell behind to Travis Hafner, only to come back and ace him with some nasty stuff. Will Carroll from Baseball Prospectus wrote: "Early returns on Matt Thornton - and I mean early, as in I watched him pitch at about 2 a.m. local time on Monday morning - look great. His mechanics looked smoother than I'd ever seen. Given the amount of time Don Cooper had with him, it's even more impressive. The question with Thornton has never been stuff, but consistency, so take one late-night performance with a grain of salt."

If you missed it, Thome's homer was a monster shot. It was one of his classic golf-swings, and from the moment it left his bat there was no doubt about it going out. The ball traveled 431 feet (oddly enough on his 431st career homer), which is longer than any home run by a Sox hitter last year (at least at the Cell, I think). Isn't that incredible? It only took him one game. Picking up Vazquez, Mackowiak, and Cintron were all decent deals, but trading for Thome was really the one that substantially changed the team for the better. He gives us a lefty power presence not seen in a ChiSox uniform since - this is ridiculous, but true - Joe Jackson.

Ozzie made some late substitutions, which I was happy to see. Especially a good choice was bringing in Mackowiak for Podsednik, as risking the latter's gimpy groin out on the wet grass would have been idiotic. I actually don't think Pods should have played after the rain delay at all. Gload looked good at the plate, but that's really no surprise to anyone who's followed the Sox (and their farm system) in recent years; the one out he made was hit very hard and straight. Cintron came in for Thome, another good guy to get out of the lineup with the wet field, even if he was just running the bases. The newly acquired infield sub had a great spring (between the WBC and Arizona), but he looked really jumpy at the plate on Sunday - tons of erratic, jittery energy. I also would have liked to see Guillen bring in Boone Logan to pitch the 9th, but oh well.

All in all, it was a great win, even if it took six hours to finish. The real difference was in the walks: while Sox pitchers only allowed one, Sox hitters drew nine. Considering the past few years, when the Sox were a collective OBP sinkhole, drawing that many free passes was completely out of character. I don't expect it to continue (at least not to that degree), but if it does we've got a very good offense.

It was also a great night, even if everyone got wet and only a few thousand people got to see the last out. How many times do you think we'll get to be the reigning champions on opening day? It may never happen again in my lifetime (although I think it will), so it was great to soak it all in - literally and figuratively.

Play Ball (Almost)

2006-03-30T14:00:00.000-05:00

My dad was lucky enough to score an extra ticket to Sunday's season opener (thanks, Clyde!), so I'll be unexpectedly attending the Sox-Indians game at the Cell. It should be an extremely raucous event, including a F/A-18 Hornet flyover, rally socks, a performance by some dude, and, most importantly, a tremendous ovation for the World Champs when they take the field. The only downer: it's supposed to be about 40 degrees at game time.

Obviously I'll be writing a full report after the game, but I thought it would be fun to make some predictions. So here's what will happen, 100% guaranteed (um, yeah):

Top of the 1st

The Sox take the field, and I lose hearing in my left ear for a minute. However, it's because some dude in the seats behind us spat a tobaccy-loogie at me (Lenny Dykstra-style) in his excitement. When I remove it, I can hear the crowd going wild, in both ears.

Recently-minted millionaire Grady Sizemore leads off the game with a stand-up gap double, and the crowd settles in. After Mark Buerhle retires Jason Michaels on an infield-popup, he induces Jhonny "Mislexic Dother" Peralta to groundout, moving Sizemore to third. It looks like Buerhle is going to get out of the inning unscathed, but Travis Hafner blasts a long homer to right-center, stunning the crowd. Victor Martinez flies out to left to end the inning.

Indians 2, White Sox 0

Bottom of the 1st

In place of the injured Scott Podsednik, Pablo Ozuna gets the call in left and in the leadoff spot, facing the big lefty C.C. Sabathia. He promptly grounds out to short. Tadahito Iguchi looks silly striking out swinging. Jim Thome, fresh off of about 17 home runs in four spring games, draws a walk after seven pitches. The crowd comes to its feet, hailing new team captain Paul Konerko and his ability to tie the game with one swing. He doesnt, however, instead flying out to deep left.

Top of the 2nd

Cleveland's bumbling buzzsaw of B's (Belliard, Broussard, Boone, and Blake) go quietly, with only an infield single managed by Broussard. The inning takes about 45 seconds, and Sabathia barely has time to wedge his ginourmous behind in between two bench players before he has to huff and puff and drag himself onto the field again.

Bottom of the 2nd

Jermaine Dye leads off with a single that closely resembles his winning hit from Game 4 of the World Series, a bouncer up the middle. A.J. Pierzynski manages only a weak dribbler (reinforcing my point that Chris Widger - he of the .250/.353/.679 Spring line - should always play against lefties), which moves Dye to second. Juan Uribe smokes a line drive into the outfield, but it gets to Michaels in left so fast that Dye can only advance one base. First and third, one out. Playoff hero Joe Crede comes to the plate, and the crowd roars, smelling blood. On the first pitch he grounds to Peralta, who quickly starts the 6-4-3 double-play. I groan, along with about 40,000 other people (and thousands - millions? - more at home).

Top of the 3rd

Jason Michaels laces a one-out opposite field single to Dye, but Buerhle gets Peralta to fly out, and then freezes Hafner with a nasty 1-2 cutter on the outside corner.

Bottom of the 3rd

Brian Anderson's first plate appearance as the Sox' starting center fielder doesn't go exactly as planned, as he gets behind in the count and swings at a bad pitch in the dirt for a K. Ozuna's grounder finds light in between Peralta and Boone, and he's on base with a single. Ozzie calls for the hit and run, but Iguchi can't make contact and Pablo is gunned down at second. Tadahito flys meekly to right to end the inning.

Top of the 4th

Victor Martinez, fresh off his nice throw to nab Ozuna, hooks a double down the right field line to lead off the inning. The ball bounces around in the corner, but Martinez is slow, and Dye makes a nice relay throw to hold him at second. Ronnie Belliard grounds out to Uribe, and Martinez holds. Ben Broussard pops up to Konerko for the second out. Aaron Boone, fresh off a strong spring (that kept uber-prospect Andy Marte out of the lineup), rips a very-hittable Buerhle fastball into left field, and Martinez scores easily. The crowd seems uneasy, but is still relatively loud and supportive. Casey Blake flies out to Anderson in right-center to end the inning.

Indians 3, White Sox 0

Bottom of the 4th

Thome's long fly to lead off the 4th is hauled in by Sizemore for the first out. Konerko is fooled by a nasty curve from Sabathia and strikes out looking. On a 2-1 pitch, Dye follows up on his five Spring homers with his first of a the year, a rocket to left-center. The crowd erupts, as do the fireworks behind the scoreboard. Dye's 2-for-2, but more importantly has cut into the Indians' lead. Pierzynksi grounds out to Belliard.

Indians 3, White Sox 1

Top of the 5th

Sizemore leads off an inning for the third time, and draws a rare Buerhle walk. He's quickly erased, however, when Michaels chops one to Iguchi, who starts the 4-6-3 twin-killing. Peralta drives one into the left-center gap, and looks to have an easy double. He chooses to test the arm of the rookie center fielder, and Anderson shows off his best defensive asset, gunning down Jhonny at third for the final out of the inning. At least for one inning the Sox' defense looks every bit as good as last year.

Bottom of the 5th

Uribe continues to sport a hot bat, drilling a double down the left-field line. Ozzie calls for the sacrifice, but Crede can't get the bunt down, and has to swing away with two strikes. He manages to get the job done, however, by lofting a fly ball into right-center; Uribe takes third. Brian Anderson chops a grounder that takes Belliard deep to his right. The second baseman makes a nice throw to nab Anderson at first, but Uribe scores on the play. Ozuna strikes out to end the inning, and the ESPN announcers slobber all over themselves while praising Ozzie-ball (failing to notice that the entire inning was predicated on Uribe's very Large Ball double).

Indians 3, White Sox 2

Top of the 6th

Hafner leads off the inning by popping up to Crede at third. Martinez flys out to Ozuna in left. Belliard grounds out to Buerhle, who's clearly found his groove.

Bottom of the 6th

The Sox go quietly, with only a Konerko fly to the warning track to show for themselves.

Top of the 7th

Broussard leads off the inning with a single to right. After Boone flys out to Ozuna, Blake hits a sharp grounder past a diving Joe Crede, with Broussard holding at second. The Sox' bullpen begins to stir. But Buerhle induces Sizemore to fly out to Dye (Broussard advancing to third), and then strikes out Peralta on a questionable call. Clearly done for the night, he tips his cap to the cheering crowd as he heads to the dugout.

Bottom of the 7th

Jermaine Dye walks to start the inning, and the pitch of the crowd raises a bit, especially after he takes second on a wild pitch. Pierzynski grounds out weakly to Belliard, Dye inexplicably failing to advance. Eric Wedge decides to go to his bullpen, bringing in the righty Rafael Betancourt to pitch to Uribe. Juan crushes the ball to center anyway, but Sizemore makes a dazzling play, crashing into the wall and spinning to throw the ball to second, where he almost doubles off Dye, who had to hustle back. Betancourt strikes out Crede to end the inning, and Guillen kicks the Gatorade cooler.

Top of the 8th

Neal Cotts is called upon to face Hafner, and he quickly gives up a double to right-center. Ramon Vazquez comes in to run for him, and thankfully Hafner is done for the night. Cotts stays in to face the switch-hitting catcher, and Martinez extends the Indians' lead, smoking a line drive to left to score the pinch-runner. Ozzie sprints out of the dugout, calling for Cliff Politte. Politte is able to strand Martinez at first, but doesn't look good doing it; Belliard and Broussard hit balls very hard directly at fielders, and Boone helps him out by swinging at a terrible pitch.

Indians 4, White Sox 2

Bottom of the 8th

Rob Mackowiak pinch hits for Anderson, and singles to right on the first pitch. He tries to stretch it into a double, however, and Casey Blake throws him out at second. For the first (but not last) time in the short season, the crowd boos. Ross Gload hits for Ozuna, and draws a walk. After Betancourt strikes out Iguchi (who has had a terrible game at the plate), Cleveland goes to its bullpen again, bringing in lefty Scott Sauerbeck to face Thome. It works, as Thome grounds out to Peralta to end the inning.

Top of the 9th

Down by two runs, Guillen goes to his closer Bobby Jenks anyway, exhibiting his greatest trait as a manager - his willingness to utilize his bullpen in an unorthadox manner. Jenks' past control problems resurface, however, and he walks both Blake and Michaels, sandwiched around a strikeout of Sizemore. Ozzie gets on the phone to the bullpen, then paces around the dugout, clearly on edge. When Jenks gives up a single up the middle to Peralta, scoring Blake from second, Guillen hangs his head in disgust. Then he's onto the field, giving his large closer only a cursory pat on the ass as he takes the ball from him. Fresh off his startling Spring, Boone Logan gets the call, and doesn't disappoint: the new DH Todd Hollandsworth grounds into a 4-6-3 double-play to end the rally.

Indians 5, White Sox 2

Bottom of the 9th

Last chance for the Sox, and the crowd senses the unlikelihood of a comeback. Still, Bob Wickman, the Indians' closer, is eminently hittable, and the Sox have their 4, 5, and 6 hitters up. Konerko leads off with a single to left, and the fans come to their feet, rally socks a-swingin'. Alex Cintron runs for Paulie, meaning Widger's the only position player left on the bench. Dye takes two pitches low and away, then lofts a fly ball that Sizemore has no trouble with. Pierzynski, finally getting to face a righty, singles to right, Cintron holding at second. Uribe grounds to Belliard, and the crowd gasps, but Peralta's relay throw to first isn't in time; the Sox avoid the double-play, and have runners on first and third with two outs. Crede comes to the plate with a chance to prove that his clutch hitting last fall was no fluke. After taking a sinker for a ball, and watching a fast ball for a strike, Joe lifts a pitch to deep left. As the ball soars towards the outfield wall, the crowd screams, sensing a tie game. But Jason Michaels tracks it down, and closes his mitt around it to end the game.

Final score: Indians 5, White Sox 2

Admittedly, not the most romantic or uplifting prediction. But I need to get this in one more time before the season starts: the Indians are better than us. They might not win the division (they were better last year, too), although I think they will, but there's no question in my mind that they're set for the next four or five years. I certainly hope Sunday's results are better than this - I'm not a gloom and doomer by any stretch - but we'll just have to wait and see.

Musings

2006-03-28T09:55:00.000-05:00

Very busy these days, so some short thoughts:

I was down in Florida this past weekend, in part to see two spring training games. It was a great time: besides just seeing live baseball again, it's really fun to watch major leaguers (because by this point in spring training it's mostly starters for the first six innings or so) play in minor-league-sized stadiums. When I go to major league games, I almost never get to sit so close to the infield, so it was a treat.

The first game was the Reds versus the [Devil] Rays. Thanks to bad directions and getting stuck behind a 1000-year-old man driving a Cadillac at the speed of decaying uranium, we arrived in the bottom of the first inning, and missed a bunch of scoring (the Reds put up a 4-spot to start the game). Still, it was an entertaining game, highlighted by an inside-the-park home run by Carl Crawford. Is that the most exciting play in baseball? It sure seemed like it. By the way, Crawford is ridiculously fast; he didn't even start running hard until he was halfway between first and second. When he scored, I became a Rays fan for about 20 seconds. He's amazingly still only 24, so if he continues to get better he has a chance to be a superstar.

I also realized that the Rays are just a few pitchers away from being pretty good. I know that that's understating a major hurdle - it's extremely hard to find good pitchers - but their lineup is young and stacked, with super-prospects Delmon Young and B.J. Upton soon to make their mark. Prediction: if Scott Kazmir continues to improve, and they're able to find another good young starter (Edwin Jackson?), I think the Rays will be competing for the American League East crown by 2008. Sounds crazy, but I think it could happen, especially given the aging of the Yankees and Red Sox.

The second game we saw was the Tigers versus the Nationals. This game was great, in part because we were in Florida to celebrate the upcoming nuptual of my friend Josh, who is a die-hard Tigers fan (perhaps he drank some antifreeze as a young child?). I am proud to say that we regalled Magglio with a rousing chorus of "Oh-ee-oh...Maaaagglio" whenever he came to bat (a semi-clever chant that in my opinion was overused during his last years with the Sox). Magglio, by the way, is sporting a killer mullet for the Tigers that he never did for us. I think it's sad that his time with the Sox ended so poorly, because he was one of the better hitters in team history (it's true), and I'll always like him for it. The Sox made the right decision to let him (and his balky knee and $14 million salary) go elsewhere, but it's too bad that things got nasty.

Chris Shelton hit a home run for the Tigers; he's already quite a hitter, and still pretty young. And Jeremy Bonderman pitched a hell of a game for them. Detroit is taking both Verlander and Zumaya onto their major league roster, and there's a decent chance that the three of them will form a good-to-great starting staff very soon. The Tigers are actually very similar to the Rays in that they both have good lineups and not very good pitching. But the Tigers are a step ahead, in that they already have that young trio on the rise, and have capable innings-eaters in Maroth and newly-acquired Kenny Rogers ("You gotta know when to sign him, know when to pine him"). Josh convinced me that the Tigers are actually pretty on par with the Twins; the only caveat I would add to that is that the strength of one team (Minnesota) is pitching, while the other (Detroit) currently relies on hitting, and it's always easier to add good hitters than it is to add good pitchers.

* * *

The Sox officially put Boone Logan on their major league roster. He might actually be better than I've given him credit for before, because he changed his delivery last season and got much better as a result. Similarly, the other Sox addition to the 'pen, Matt Thornton, has been pretty good since he started working with Don Cooper. It's funny (yet sad), but in all seriousness these two guys might be better this year than Bobby Jenks and Neal Cotts/Cliff Politte, the former of which is once again experiencing bad control problems, while the latter combo is already regressing to its collective mean. Such is life in the unpredictable world of relief pitching.

* * *

Scott Podsednik's groin is acting up again, and I think it's going to be a chronic problem all year. It might be one of those injuries that doesn't keep him out of the lineup entirely, but that diminishes his capabilities. That would actually be the worst-case scenario for the Sox, because they would continue to play him even though his speed - and hence his good defense, baserunning, and part of his on-base skills - would be hindered. If Podsednik needs some time on the DL, Ozzie is talking about using a combination of Ozuna and Mackowiak in left field and in the leadoff spot. If Podsednik is unavailable, or available but anywhere below 85% capacity, I think it would be a much better idea to let Iguchi lead off and play Gload in left.

* * *

In some exciting news, I'm interviewing this Friday in Chicago with the White Sox for the position of "Senior Coordinator of Community Relations." It would be a dream-come-true to work for the Sox, and this job in particular sounds like it matches my skills and experience very well, so wish me luck!

Crystal Ball

2006-03-22T11:28:00.000-05:00

With the regular season so close at hand, I thought it would be fun (or scary) to consider the extreme possibilities for the Sox in 2006. First, to get it out of the way, I'll be looking at the worst-case scenarios for each player and each set of positions. (Well, the real worst-case scenario would be the team jet crashing, but let's not even go there...oops, too late.) Then, in what should make for some nice day-dreaming, I'll consider the exact opposite: what if everyone and everything were to work out swimmingly. This should almost go without saying, but I'll note it anyway: the chances are highly against either of these possibilities playing out. If either did, it would be a freak occurrence of the highest magnitude. Instead, we can reasonably expect something more in the middle to happen. Still, it should be instructive in that we can get an idea of the floors and ceilings the Sox will be working with this season. To top it all off, I'll give my best guess as to where each player will actually fall on the spectrum in '06.

* * *

Running on Empty

Infield

Joe Crede loses whatever edge he found late last season, reverting to his old form. He hits .245/.295/.415 with 17 homers and 60 RBI, making him a below-average bat at the hot corner and an on-base sinkhole in the batting order. Even his defense slips a little, as his struggles at the plate leak onto the field.

Juan Uribe attempts to fit into his new second spot in the lineup, but in the process loses a lot of his power while failing to upgrade his on-base skills. He hits .245/.300/.390 with 12 home runs and 55 RBI. When he does get on base, Guillen gives him the green light, but he only steals 10 bases while being caught 18 times. Like Crede, he also loses focus on defense, going from Gold Glove-caliber to merely average or slightly above. Ozzie stubbornly keeps him in the two spot for most of the season; when he finally shifts him lower, it's too late.

Tadahito Iguchi experiences the dreaded sophomore slump. At Guillen's urging, he tries to hit for more power, but it backfires: his line of .265/.325/.430 with 13 homers and 55 RBI is a major step backwards.

Paul Konerko begins to age (well, he doesn't begin to, but rather it starts to affect him negatively), dropping to .270/.350/.510 with 24 homers and 80 RBI. More disturbing, a series of small leg and back injuries take their tool, limiting him to only 525 plate appearances, 50 out of the DH slot.

Jim Thome's leg injury in spring training is just the start of the pain. Fully recovered from his 2005 arm injury, it's his back injury that keep him off the field. And even when he's on it, he's off his career form, batting .240/.335/.460 with 12 homers and 40 RBI in just 350 plate appearances.

A.J. Pierzynski continues his slide from recent years, batting .250/.300/.405. His "quirky" personality isn't tolerated as much while the Sox lose, and he gets into a series of spats with teammates, coaches, and the media.

Bench: Guillen gives Uribe the occasional day off, but Alex Cintron responds with a mediocre bat (.255/.295/.390) and terrible defense. Ditto Rob Mackowiak, who has trouble in the field at third, and bats .250/.320/.400 with 10 homers while backing up Crede and the outfielders. Pablo Ozuna runs wild - and ineffectively - on the basepaths, stealing 18 bases in 31 attempts. With Konerko and Thome missing time, Ross Gload gets a major chance, but disappoints with a .250/.315/.440 line in 375 plate appearances. Chris Widger gets some more playing time as the season wears on and Pierzynski's off-field problems multiply, but he too can't get the job done, batting .230/.280/.390.

Outfield

Scott Podesednik's spring arm troubles and '05 groin injury continue to haunt him. He manages to play in 130 games, but his .265/.325/.350 batting line and his 35 steals in 60 attempts make him a liability at the top of the batting order. Even worse, his reduced footspeed makes him only an average leftfielder.

Brian Anderson struggles mightily in his first extended stay in the bigs. He hits .235/.285/.390 with just 5 home runs and 35 RBI. His defense in center is sub-par, meaning the Sox' outfield defense takes a major dive, with many more hits falling in. 2006 equation: Anderson + Thome < Aaron Rowand + Carl Everett.

Starting Pitchers

Mark Buerhle's tendency to give up hits takes its toll as both the outfield and infield defense are worse than in '05. His ERA balloons to 4.45 and he only manages to win 14 games.

Similarly, Freddy Garcia struggles with the weakened defense, walking more batters (75) in an attempt to avoid having the ball put into play. His home runs rise (to 30), and with it his ERA (to 4.65). He wins 11 games while losing 15.

Jon Garland is hit by two major problems: 1) his regression to the mean (making his 2005 an outlier, career year), and 2) fewer of his ground balls being soaked up and turned into outs. The results: back to his 2002-04 form, with a 4.70 ERA and a 12-14 record.

Jose Contreras' arm continues to bother him at the start of the season, and combined with the loss of his friend and mentor Orlando Hernandez he takes a major step backwards in '06. His walk rate balloons out of control (4.5 per 9 innings), his ERA rises (to 4.55), and he wins only 8 games before being traded for prospects at the July deadline.

Javier Vazquez enters his worst nightmare, U.S. Cellular Field. The result: a league-leading (or -losing) 42 homers surrendered, a 5.15 ERA, and an 8-16 record.

Bullpen

Brandon McCarthy struggles in his new role in the bullpen, giving up walks and homers at unpalatable rates. His ERA of 5.80 is a serious eyesore in middle relief. Even worse, the transition to pitching out of the stretch substantially alters his motion, making him a serious question mark for 2007 and beyond.

Bobby Jenks fights against his weight and walk rate all season, and loses both. Out of shape and not controlling the strike zone, Jenks finds himself at AAA Charlotte in mid-May after blowing five of eight early save opportunities, mostly due to the free passes he issues. He's brought back up again in July, but fares only nominally better. The Sox spend much of the season searching for effective late-inning relief pitching.

Both Cliff Politte and Neal Cotts show their 2005 seasons to be flukes. Neither is completely ineffective (their ERAs of 4.15 and 3.65, respectively, aren't terrible), but the stalwart bullpen contributions the Sox expected fail to materialize.

Dustin Hermanson's back troubles ruin his season, and then his career. He pitches only 30 innings in '06, and all of them at AAA Charlotte. In September, after the Sox miss the playoffs, he retires.

Matt Thornton's walk and home runs problems continue, exacerbated by pitching at The Cell. He gets a chance early in the season, but fails (a 6.35 ERA, and 8 walks and 4 homers in 11 innings) and is sent down to the minors, only returning when rosters expand in September.

Ditto Boone Logan, who proves that the small sample sizes of spring training can be awfully deceiving. He pairs up with Thornton to provide an ineffective relief corps for the Charlotte Knights.

Outcome

A nightmare season. Just about everything that can go wrong does. The Sox win just 84 games, end up in third place in the Central Division (behind Cleveland and Minnesota), and miss the playoffs.

* * *

Perfect 10

Infield

Joe Crede continues his hot streak from the end of last season (and the playoffs), when he tweaked his batting stance and hand placement and subsequently tore the cover off the ball. He experiences his age 27 peak season, batting .285/.325/.485 with 28 home runs and 85 RBI. His fielding finally gets its due, as he wins his first Gold Glove.

Juan Uribe mirrors Crede in just about every way, carrying over his own changed batting stance into 2006, peaking (he's also 27) with a .290/.335/.515 line, 26 homers, 80 RBI, and his own Gold Glove award. In addition, he struggles early in the season with his new responsibilities batting second in the lineup (yes, I realize I'm writing about the best-case scenario), and is dropped down to sixth, where his power bat is better utilized.

Tadahito Iguchi shrugs off a rough spring training (in which admittedly he tried out a new batting stance) to improve on his impressive rookie season. He regains some of the power stroke he had left behind in Japan, while also improving his on-base skills during his second time through the American League. His line of .300/.365/.465 earns him a spot on the All-Star team, and makes him a valuable asset in the two spot (where he finds himself again after Uribe's early struggles).

Paul Konerko staves off the beginnings of his inevitable post-30 decline, putting up eerily similar numbers to his career-best 2005 campaign: .285/.365/.540 with 38 homers and 125 RBI. Most importantly, he stays healthy, topping 650 plate appearances. Although he's half a step slower than last season, his underrated defense continues, completing a four-man infield unit that's the best in the business.

Jim Thome rebounds extremely well from his injury-plagued 2005 (and spring '06), batting .260/.380/.575 with 32 home runs and 105 RBI. Ozzie rests him against lefty starters, thereby keeping him healthy for the duration of the season. He doesn't play first base even once, leaving all of those duties to Konerko and Ross Gload.

A.J. Pierzynski doesn't let his new-found fame go to his head, combining his '05 home-run stroke with the good batting averages of the rest of his career to hit .305/.345/.425 with 22 homers and 70 RBI. Like Thome, he doesn't play against lefty starters.

Bench: In limited duty (225 plate appearances), Alex Cintron harkens back to his eye-opening 2003 season, batting .285/.335/.430 and providing some nice power in pinch-hitting situations. Similarly, Gload plays a nice backup to Konerko and Thome (and the occasional outfielder), hitting .275/.340/.445 in 200 plate appearances. Pablo Ozuna steals 20 bases (getting caught only 4 times) while pinch-running, and plays above-average defense when he's put on the field. Rob Mackowiak gives Crede's herniated discs an occasional rest and doesn't embarrass himself at third base. Chris Widger gets more plate appearances than expected (with so many lefties in the division), and hits decently (.250/.310/.410) while handling the pitching staff well.

Outfield

Scott Podsednik's spring injury is only a fluke, and he goes on to almost duplicate his rookie season: .310/.365/.390 with 8 homers and 45 RBI. His balky groin doesn't act up, which leads to 85 stolen bases (in 100 attempts) and more center-field(ish) defense in left.

Brian Anderson makes a smooth transition to the big leagues, hitting .265/.325/.420 with 15 homers and 55 RBI. His defense in center is above-average, thereby negating some of the expected dropoff from Aaron Rowand. The 2006 equation reads: Anderson + Thome > Rowand + Carl Everett.

Jermaine Dye, like Konerko and Thome, is able to maintain his production while traveling down the dangerous trail of aging. He hits .270/.335/.480 with 27 homers and 90 RBI. His defense regresses a bit, but not by much.

Bench: Mackowiak spells Anderson on a semi-regular basis, to let the rookie get acclimated to the grind of the major league season. Also subbing for Podsednik and Crede, he hits .280/.340/.420. Ozuna's quick feet translate to above-average outfield defense (something he only recently began learning), and he makes a nice late-inning replacement for Dye.

Starting Pitchers

Mark Buerhle is...um...Mark Buerhle...throwing a ton of innings (230) with a low ERA (3.45), a nice (but not overpowering) strikeout-to-walk ratio (145-45), a lot of hits (250), and ends up winning 18 games. You know, like every year.

The 2001 version of Freddy Garcia shows up, as luckily the schedule aligns so he pitches a ton of away and day games. His ERA drops (to 3.25), his strikeouts rise (to 170), and his home runs drop (to 18), resulting in a 17-9 record.

Jon Garland sustains the major step forward he took last year, keeping his home runs down (24) and inducing double-plays when he needs them. He even adds a few more strikeouts to his repertoire (up to 130), as he continues to learn when and where to place his pitches. The result: a 3.75 ERA and a 16-9 record.

Ditto Jose Contreras, who overcomes the loss of his friend and mentor Orlando Hernandez to post numbers similar to the second half of 2005. He gives up fewer walks (60) and homers (20), while he uses his nasty forkball to strike a ton of guys out (205). This leads to a 3.10 ERA, a 23-5 record, and a Cy Young award.

Newcomer Javier Vazquez, under the tutelage of pitching coach Don Cooper, regains his Montreal form. He gives up a lot of hits (215), but compensates by striking out a lot of batters (220) and somehow cutting down on his home runs (the schedule aligns so he pitches on the road a lot?). His ERA drops to 3.75, and he wins 17 games.

Bullpen

Brandon McCarthy adapts extremely well to his new role, striking out almost a batter an inning while sporting a 3.15 ERA. He gains an entire season of major league experience that will serve him well once he enters the rotation in 2007 or '08.

Bobby Jenks rides a wave of confidence from the playoffs, keeps his walk rate down (only 28 in 80 innings), strikes out more than 100 batters, has an ERA of 2.25, and saves 40 games.

Both Cliff Politte and Neal Cotts are able to recreate their unbelievable 2005 seasons, shutting down opposing lineups in the 7th and 8th innings, striking out nearly a batter an inning each, and sporting ERAs in the mid 2.00s.

Dustin Hermanson's back recovers in time for a May return to the bullpen, and ongoing treatment keeps him ready to go. He plays an important role in the 6th and 7th innings, with an ERA of 3.10.

Matt Thornton harnesses his awesome potential, striking out 65 batters in just 45 innings. He keeps his walks and homers down, and gives Politte and Cotts needed rest by providing middle relief bridgework to Jenks.

Youngster Boone Logan get his cup of coffee, and pitches decently: 4.25 ERA and a 1.25 WHIP in 30 innings. He doesn't get much opportunity pitching behind two other lefties, but he sets himself up for a nice career in the Sox' 'pen.

Outcome

If all of these things happened at once, it would be a miracle. The Sox would win 105-110 games, and waltz into the playoffs.

* * *

Like I said above, this is just a thought experiment, taking every member of the team to his extremes, and the most likely results are something much more in the middle of the two. In case you're curious how I actually expect things to go this year, here are my predictions. A rating of 0 means the player will perform like he did in the "Running on Empty" scenario, while a 10 means just the opposite. A rating of 5 is right in the middle.

Crede - 5
Uribe - 7
Iguchi - 7
Konerko - 8
Thome - 6
Pierzynski - 7
Podsednik - 3
Anderson - 5
Dye - 6

Mackowiak - 5
Cintron - 3
Ozuna - 4
Widger - 7
Gload - 8

Buerhle - 8
Garcia - 7
Garland - 4
Contreras - 6
Vazquez - 5

McCarthy - 5
Jenks - 6
Politte - 3
Cotts - 4
Hermanson - 1
Thornton - 4
Logan - 3

Outcome

The Sox lineup is improved, and their starting pitching strong, but a weak bullpen blows a lot of close games. They win 93 games, come in second in the Central behind Cleveland, and have to "settle" for the AL Wild Card.

Swap Meat

2006-03-20T21:25:00.000-05:00

Jon turned out to be absolutely right: today the Sox traded Joe Borchard. (He should probably get some points off for potentially having access to inside information, but we'll let him have this one.) It was the right move, as Borchard's chances for making the major-league roster were slim to none (although they got a serious jolt in the arm when Ross Gload ran into the outfield wall on Sunday), and he was out of options, meaning some other team would most likely claim him on waivers. When the options are A) getting nothing, or B) getting something, it doesn't take a genius to choose the latter. And even more, Kenny Williams made just the right type of trade, getting a low-risk/high-reward player who might just plug one of the holes in the team's leaky bucket, the bullpen.

The newest Sock is Matt Thornton, who spent his entire career up to this point in the Mariners organization. Thornton actually has a lot in common with Borchard, in that both were first round draft picks with great things expected of them, and in that stardom has eluded them both like the Golden Snitch. Baseball Prospectus had this amazing line about Thornton in their 2005 annual: "We have no idea why he causes people to salivate so much - maybe he has rabies, and bites them?"

The main reasons people slobber over Thornton are that he's a 6'6" lefty with a good fastball (clocked as high as 98 MPH, although more typically in the low- to mid-90s) and a nasty slider. He struck out a batter an inning last year in 57 with Seattle, so there's no question he has the stuff to get hitters out. But he was also highly innefective last season, giving up a batting line of .248/.368/.450. That massive disparity between Thornton's opponent's batting average and on-base percentage was the result of a hideous walk rate: 6.63 per nine innings. And that less-than-stellar slugging percentage came from the unpalatable 13 homers he gave up (in 57 innings, remember), which is even worse when you consider that he pitched half his games in extremely pitcher-friendly Safeco Field. Furthermore, he was even worse against left-handed batters, giving up a .262/.372/.485 line. The potential nail in the coffin? He's 29, meaning time is certainly not on his side.

However, this is still a good deal. Thornton's not going to be a star, but neither is Borchard. And a big lefty with above-average stuff is exactly the type of pitcher that Don Cooper might be able to turn around (Coop has apparently already spotted something amiss in his delivery). Lastly, and most importantly, he may be able to help out in a bullpen that's already the team's most glaring weakness and seems about to take on a 21-year-old with a poor track record on the basis of only a handful of spring innings. If Thornton crashes and burns, so what - we would have lost Borchard anyway. And if he succeeds, then we've got someone for our bullpen. Give Kenny Williams credit for this one; getting high-upside players in exchange for spare parts is exactly the way to fill your middle-relief corps.

* * *

In addition to providing a great and unexpected matchup in the World Baseball Classic final, the string up upsets in the past few weeks has meant that every Sock playing in the tournament is now back in Tucson. That doesn't really matter in the case of Alex Cintron (who between the WBC and spring training has been on fire at the plate), but it's nice to know that Freddy Garcia and Javy Vazquez are back under the watchful eyes of the Sox staff. We should all exhale a big sigh of relief that they came back with their right arms intact. Go ahead, try it. There, doesn't that feel better?

* * *

A big thanks to Jon for providing some first-person updates from Sox camp. Later this week, I'll actually be heading down to spring training myself, although to Florida, not Arizona (not my choice). I'll be seeing a Reds-Devil Rays game on Friday, and a Nationals-Tigers game on Saturday. On paper those obviously suck, but I'm hoping to get glimpses of Tampa wunderkinden B.J. Upton and Delmon Young on the first day, and maybe Detroit's Justin Verlander on the second. If I'm really lucky, maybe I'll get to watch Jose Vidro and Alfonso Soriano take ground balls together at second base. In any event, it will be great to see some baseball in person. Opening Day is less than two weeks away!

Not a Mirage - Sox Win One in Desert

2006-03-19T12:09:00.000-05:00

So, the Sox finally looked interested on Saturday and blew out the Cubs 9-3. Pretty much everything went well. Javier Vazquez was nearly unhittable until he tired in the fifth. Alex Cintorn broke in with two hits including a double. Joe Crede, no doubt scarred by my scathing indictment of his play two days ago, busted out with four hits and a monster home home run in the first inning off Glendon Rusch. Jim Thome reached base all three times up (his OBP must be around .700 this spring) and Brian Anderson launched a homer to right center.

Of other interest, Brandon McCarthy looked fantastic in his first relief appearance of the Spring, inducing a double play to end the fifth, then striking out two in a 1-2-3 sixth. Boone Logan, now the favorite to break camp as our second lefty retired the side in the sixth in about five minutes. A couple guys hit the ball hard off him, but I think he only threw two balls in the inning. Joe Borchard recorded two hits, but dropped a routine fly ball in right field, which prompted a chorus of groans from a group of MLB scouts sitting near me. I overheard something like, "that's the nail in his coffin." To his credit, Borchard was one of the few players that showed up at the postgame investors' picnic. Then again, maybe he figures he'd better get all the free food he can (I think Borchard will be traded in the next four days, for the record). Gload went 1-for-4 with a hard single to right-center off of Bobby Howry. Bobby Jenks looked okay in his inning, although he didn't strike anybody out and he walked a minor-leaguer before inducing a game-ending double play. There's no radar at the park, so it was impossible to verify claims he's lost 10 mph off his fastball.

That's about all from Tucson. I think I probably got to see our crispest game of the Spring, which is nice. Everyone is back from the WBC now and Ozzie's going to play a lot of starters in the last week so we should see some victories, or at least well-played games. On the injury front, Guillen says Podsednik will start playing Monday or Tuesday, Contreras feels fine, and, alas, he doesn't think Ugueth Urbina is a "good fit" for the Sox, even if he does get out of jail.

Barren Desert

2006-03-17T20:00:00.000-05:00

So, just returned from another less-than-thrilling performance by our Sox. First the good stuff: Jermaine Dye and A.J. Pierzynski hit long home runs, Paul Konerko hit the ball hard every time up and our third baseman of the future, Josh Fields, raised his spring average to .450 with a long double to right-center. Also they painted the bases green for St. Patrick's Day, a nice touch.

Okay, the good stuff's out of the way. Now for the rest: Mark Buerhle, whose stated spring goal is to give up less hits this year, was pounded for nine hits in four innings, and I can tell you very few of them were cheap. Joe Crede looked pathetic on offense (like the Crede we grew accustomed to last year, in fact, until he became an altogether different Crede for the last three weeks of the season and the playoffs) and made an ugly error that led to three runs in the 2nd. Our offense, in general, was lackadaisical and inept for most of the game - actually until we started bringing the minor leaguers in, which has been the pattern all spring. You know, I hate to get too concerned about stuff in spring training, but it's alarming to watch just how uninterested a lot of our regulars look right now. I've seen it in the box scores the last couple weeks and I saw it in person today. In the first six innings against Juan Dominguez and John Wasdin (not exactly world-beaters), we managed four hits and one walk. I can hardly even remember any good at bats or three-ball counts. Considering there's less than two weeks left until the season starts, I can't help but think this team is showing all the markers of coming in a little overconfident after a World Series campaign. Which wouldn't be a big surprise, when you think about it. Most of the Sox have never won before; they won in dominating fashion and by all accounts the team has gotten better in the offseason. You worry a little about a mentality that we just have to show up to win the division again this year, which couldn't be further from the truth, considering a) how good our division is and b) the state of our bullpen (on which more below).

Other bad stuff: Scott Podsednik was not in the lineup. Dustin Hermanson did not pitch. Who did pitch, besides Buerhle? Well, Tim Redding got a few minor leaguers out, then, after we'd improbably come back and taken the lead (we were down 7-2 early, but Fields and some low-level prospect named Angel Gonzalez bashed around the Rangers' bullpen), we brought in a couple of the guys supposedly competing for the final spots in our bullpen to nail the thing down. You can look at the final score to see what happened. Right-handed retread Agustin Montero gave up three hits, two of which stayed in the park, as Hawk would say, and three runs in 2/3 of an inning. It was actually sad watching Montero lumber off the mound and into the dugout after being unable to hold the lead in the 9th. He looked like a man who knows he's just blown his chance. Then we brought in Paulino Reynoso to face a lefty and he walked him, which is I'm sure exactly what Ozzie was looking for in the situation. You'll notice if you look at the box score, also, that Armando Almanza pitched a scoreless inning. But I can tell you that he faced one left-hander, and that one left-hander hit a screaming line drive that Dye made a nice play on crashing into the wall. The point being: he wasn't impressive either.

As for the last position player spot, not much news: Borchard squirted a single up the middle and then grounded out with the game on the line in the ninth. Gload didn't play. I'm kind of surprised they're not trying to get both of them more at bats against the starters, considering all the other position roster spots are locked up. I hope they do, because I think this will emphasize their difference. Borchard can look impressive against Double AA pitchers (as can Gload), but Gload can actually hit major league fastballs, whereas Borchard needs about a ten-second warning. On the other hand, if we're trying to make Borchard look impressive so we can trade him, then we should keep batting him agains the minor leaguers.

By the way, Jake, my dad brought a up a good question re our middle relief situation. When is Ugueth Urbina getting out of jail? Ozzie worked very hard this summer, visiting him and talking him up on ESPN, to make sure he doesn't even think about signing with any other team when he gets out. And now we really need him.

Alright, I'm going to the White-Sox sponsored Harley Davidson theme party somewhere at the hotel (don't ask). The weather is beautiful in Tucson and there are lots of Sox fans here, although maybe not as many more compared to previous years as I'd expected (today's game wasn't close to sold out, although tomorrow's against the Cubs will be). Here's hoping we score some runs and I get to see Boone Logan tomorrow against the Cubs! (the good news: I definitely won't be seeing Mark Prior, Kerry Wood or Derek Lee).

Trouble in Tucson

2006-03-15T09:29:00.000-05:00

[Editor's note: You may have noticed that there are two contributors listed at the top of this blog: "Jake" and "jb." No, I'm not schizo (although the Sox' performance this spring certainly makes me feel that way at times). Rather, I am proud to introduce Jon Baskin, Chester's Senior High-Elevation Desert Baseball Correspondent. Jon is one of the smartest and most well-informed White Sox fans I've ever met, and a great writer to boot. Tomorrow he heads down to Sox' camp in Arizona (lucky bastard), whence he'll be sending us first-hand observations. Once the season gets underway, he'll (hopefully) continue to regale us with his insight. Anyway, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Jon for contributing to Chester's Cup of Coffee, and to introduce him to our readers. Below is his first contribution, in preparation for his trip. Enjoy!]

So I'm off to Spring Training tomorrow and what everyone will be talking about is the Sox bullpen. If you haven't been paying attention, this has gone from a sideshow competition for the last lefty spot to a major concern, with Brandon McCarthy's struggles and Dustin Hermanson's back pain. Overall, it has turned out to be a pretty disturbing Spring for the Sox, in my opinion, and if it weren't for our starting pitching, I'd be very worried about the team right now. Actually, that's not true. If it weren't for the fact we'd won the World Series, I'd be very worried right now. As is, I'm mildly concerned, in an absentee kind of way - there's not that palsied sense of panic I usually feel this time of year. After all, we won. I get to enjoy it at least until Opening Day. Also, Mark Prior and Kerry Wood are both injured again, so, actually, Spring hasn't been a total wash.

But, to look closely for a moment at the relief situation: During the broadcast of yesterday's 12-5 shellacking at the hands of the Arizona Diamondbacks Double AA team, Hawk and DJ spent about ten minutes talking about how "shocked" they were that none of the eight left handers the Sox had brought into camp to compete for the final spot in the bullpen has really "seized the opportunity." Actually, it's not surprising at all, and it's not a question of effort but one of talent. The White Sox brought in a bunch of guys with major and minor league track records which were absolute trainwrecks (today's Tribune has a rundown). Put those guys in high-altitude Tucson, and it's likely they'll perform at least as badly as they have most of their careers and in many cases worse. If you brought in twenty such retreads, maybe one or two would have a good Spring, only to get pounded once the season started. In this case, we may be lucky enough that all eight show their true colors in Spring Training, sparing us from having to watch them pitch when it counts. Just to look at the remaining three:

Armando Almanza, in his last full year for Florida, had a 6.08 ERA and a WHIP of nearly 1.70. In and out of the majors for 6 years, he's never walked less than a batter per two innings, nor posted an ERA under 4.34. So, really, it should be little surprise that Almanza has a 15.43 ERA in 6 games this Spring. He gave up three earned runs on three hits and a walk in one third of an inning yesterday. Nice.

Paulino Reynoso has spent five years in the minors, never rising above Double AA. There's a reason for that. Last year at Birmingham, he posted a semi-respectable (considering it's a pitchers' paradise) 3.92 ERA, but walked 41 batters in 57.1 innings (his WHIP was 1.82!). This is almost unbelievably awful. Reynoso had stayed unscathed in Spring Training until yesterday, when he allowed 2 hits and 2 walks in one inning, and was touched for his first run. His ERA for the Spring is 1.50, but I submit that his double AA walk total disqualifies him as a serious candidate.

Javier Lopez, the early favorite to win the job after he "impressed" Guillen in a side session, has been anything but impressive in his three major league seasons, admittedly spent mostly in Colorado. Still, Lopez has compiled a 6.09 ERA, including 9.42 in 22 games last year after he was traded to Arizona. In 2003, his first year in the majors, Lopez pitched pretty well, mostly because he kept his walks down, but in subsequent years his control has abandoned him. He's walked 49 batters in his last 73 innings. This Spring, he's pitching to form with a 6.14 ERA in 7 1/3 innings. He gave up a monster three-run home run to Eric Chavez a couple days ago.

These pitchers have been brought in and told to throw strikes. For awhile, at least, they have managed to throw mostly strikes, and this has resulted in their getting hit very hard. It's turned out that the reason they have tended not to throw the ball over the plate in their careers has been that they do not have good enough stuff to get major league hitters out. This should have been obvious from their previous records. In light of this Spring Training, it is clear they also do not have good enough stuff to get minor league hitters out, as essentially Double AA teams from Oakland and Arizona have obliterated our pitching the last two days.

It would be one thing if this was the Sox only problem, as we were promised it was going to be, but it's not. With Hermanson likely heading to the DL (that's just my prediction, but we'll see), the Sox need another right-handed reliever. The options here have not been promising either. I'd heard good things about non-roster invitee Agustin Montero and was excited to see him pitch against the Diamondbacks Double AA team yesterday. My excitement didn't last, as Montero, who posted a 5.46 ERA and 1.59 WHIP last year at Double AA, surrendered 3 runs (2 earned) on 2 walks and 2 hits in 2 innings. I can tell you, it was not as pretty as it sounds. Montero had no idea where the ball was going when it left his hands: Luis Vizcaino he is not.

Meanwhile, the Sox' other new bullpen replacement, Brandon McCarthy, got lit up for 7 hits and 4 runs in 3.2 innings (McCarthy on the outing: "the happiest I've been"). He has a 6.10 ERA and his general numbers and demeanor on the mound beg the question: Has there ever been a worse candidate to convert to a middle reliever? I expect McCarthy to be a fine long relief option this season, but not someone we can use on back-to-back days, nor a guy to come in and get a strikeout with guys on base. I can't stand contact relievers, and I think he is going to have a pretty long year, at least until a starter gets hurt and he can step into the rotation.

Our other right-handed option, Tim Redding, has lots of major league experience to show he's not a major league pitcher. Redding, even in what were considered his good years, always gave up more hits than innings pitched, but he has outdone himself recently, allowing a staggering 88 hits over his last 61 innings pitched. Talk about a contact reliever! Redding pitched a scoreless inning Tuesday to lower his Spring ERA to 8.44.

I don't have much of an opinion as to what the Sox should do here. I think we're seeing one of the results of gutting your farm system: when you need someone to step in as a middle reliever, you realize you traded them to Pittsburgh five years ago for Todd Ritchie (hello Josh Fogg). Now we're considering a 21 year old lefty, Boone Logan (career minor league ERA: 5.49), who wasn't even invited to camp. At this point, it's going to be hard to trade for a legitimate middle man. I will say this: teams with bad bullpens perish in the American League; it doesn't matter how good your starters are. And the fact we only have three relievers we can count on now (Politte, Cotts, Jenks), all of whom, as Jake mentioned, likely will have worse years than last year, is not a good sign.

Jake, think anyone will give us a decent reliever for Borchard? They'd have to be crazy, but, you never know, power tends to get overvalued.

By the way, one other note from yesterday's game: Jerry Owens is really good. This guy (331/393/406 at Double AA last year) could step in (and may have to, given the inexplicable Prior-esque shoulder problem) for Podsednik at the beginning of this season in left field and we would not lose too much. He had two hits, one on a beautiful drag bunt, and a walk yesterday, along with what would have been a stolen base if Anderson hadn't grounded out on the pitch. Beyond a potential replacement for Podsednik, I'm almost positive Owens would give us more than Anderson offensively this year, though there are supposedly some questions about his fielding.

See you from Tucson!

People All Over the World, Join Hands

2006-03-13T16:21:00.000-05:00

I watched an incredible amount of baseball yesterday. It was classic world baseball (which amazingly is an anagram for "World Baseball Classic"), and it didn't disappoint. Frankly, with only the White Sox World Series DVD to tide me over, any baseball at this point is like a sweet fix for a junky in withdrawal.

Anyway, it made for some good watchin', especially with so many upsets (or near upsets). Nobody expected Cuba to beat Venezuela, nobody expected Puerto Rico to take out the Dominicans, and Japan was only one bad-call away from beating the U.S. (and Korea beat Mexico, but I don't know if that qualifies as an upset). This all just goes to prove my earlier point ("In the Central of It All," 3/5/06) about the unpredictability of baseball. Cuba, which has good players but no major leaguers, defeated Venezuela, which has a number of All-Stars. Does that mean that Cuba's the better team? No. It just means they outplayed them on this given day, in a sport where luck and timing play a huge role. If they played 100 games, Venezuela would probably win 65 to 75. If they played a seven game series, Venezuela would probably win four to six. But in only one game, the chance that the better team wins is not as great as the actual difference in talent. If a basketball team, made up entirely of NBA players, including a smattering of All-Stars, played against a college All-Star team, the former would destroy the latter 99 times out of 100. But baseball just isn't like that. More than in any sport, the team that wins in baseball is not necessarily the better team, just the team that plays better.

Anyway, on to some observations from the best game of the day: Puerto Rico vs. the Dominican Republic. It wasn't the closest game, nor did it contain the most impressive baseball (Japan's defense was truly fantastic), but it was the best game based solely on the atmosphere in the stadium. The PR-DR rivalry is every bit as good as the Yankees-Red Sox, Dodgers-Giants, or Cubs-Cardinals, except that the fans are better dancers and babies are handed giant flags the moment they are born. It was really amazing to see.

The game's winning pitcher, our own Javier Vazquez, pitched incredibly well: 5 innings, 1 run, only 3 hits, no walks, and 5 strikeouts, and all against a lineup that for the first six batters resembles a major league All-Star team. Soriano, Tejada, Pujols, Ortiz, Alou, Beltre - oh my! Pitchers spend much of spring training facing quadruple-A lineups consisting of some major leaguers, some borderline players, and a whole lot of minor leaguers. Mark Buerhle, for example, pitched very well yesterday against the Angels, but was facing a lineup that included no regulars and only three players on their 25-man roster. But dominating an opposing lineup in the WBC is much more impressive. Freddy Garcia's manhandling of Italy was masterful, but that lineup only contained a couple of decent major leaguers, and only one star (an aging Mike Piazza). But Vazquez taking it to the Dominicans is just in another category altogether.

The one blight on his pitching line was an Adrian Beltre' home run to deep center, which brings up an important question regarding Vazquez: how will his propensity to give up the long ball translate to the bandbox also known as U.S. Cellular Field? Javier surrendered 35 homers last season, which was tied for second in the major, along with Jeff Weaver and Tim Wakefield, and behind only Eric Milton. But Weaver and Wakefield pitched more innings than Vazquez, meaning that his rate of 1.46 homers per 9 innings was actually worse. Furthermore, of the 93 starting pitchers who qualified for the ERA title last year, Vazquez had only the 53rd best ground-ball to fly-ball ratio; his score of 1.19 was worse than the majority of starters in the majors, and worse than all four of the returning Sox starters.

Meanwhile, The Cell has become the home of the homer. In 2005, the Sox' home park was the 10th highest run-scoring environment in the majors. But it was the 2nd best place to hit home runs, behind only Coors Field. That suits the Sox hitters quite well, as the home run is their single greatest offensive weapon. But for pitchers, the number of homers at The Cell makes it a difficult place to play. Furthermore, the Sox had one of the best defenses in all of baseball, making it more worth a pitcher's while to keep the ball in the park. In short, Vazquez's tendency to give up fly balls - and the homers that result from them - is his Achilles' heal, and no one knows how much it's going to hurt him now that he's in Chicago.

In general, Vazquez is the biggest unknown of the Sox starters, and not just because this is his first year on the team. Buerhle and Garcia are pretty automatic at this point - you know almost exactly what to expect. Contreras and Garland, on the other hand, both took major steps forward in 2005, and it remains to be seen how much of that they will maintain. Vazquez, however, is even more of a wild card. From 2001 to 2003, he was one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball, displaying an uncommon combination of power and control (even if no one noticed it up in Montreal). Since then he has been hit-or-miss, managing only partial-season stretches of great pitching.

It's entirely possible that Vazquez will regain some of his prior form, especially since 1) he's not yet 30, and 2) pitching coach Don Cooper has a good track record of resuscitating careers. It's also possible that he will give up a ton of home runs while playing at home, and consequentially be no better than league average (although there's always something to be said for a league average pitcher who can throw 200+ innings). If possible, perhaps the Sox should consider aligning the rotation so he pitches more of his games on the road. Either way, Vazquez will be something of a mystery until we see him in action this year. Yesterday's WBC game was a great start. (I'm still planning on weighing the pros and cons of the trade through which Vazquez was acquired, but that's a larger question for another day.)

On the other side of things, the loser of Sunday's PR-DR game (or, rather, the man on whom the loss was hung) was Damaso Marte, former White Sock and inclusee in another of Kenny Williams' offseason moves. That move brought in Rob Mackowiak, utilityman extraordinaire. The move was more or less universally lauded in the press, but I'm closer to 50/50 on it. Mackowiak brings some nice insurance to the 2006 Sox: he can play six positions, including ones where the incumbent starter has been battling injuries (Crede at third and Podsednik in left) or hasn't proven himself in the majors yet (Anderson in center). Even more than insurance, Mackowiak can serve as preventative medicine; giving starters the occasional day off will go a long way towards preserving a healthy team. At the plate, Mackowiak is decent. His career line of .258/.328/.414 is more indicative of a place-holder and a sub (which he is) than it is of a star (which he isn't), but it's still not bad by any means. Considering his versatility (really his #1 asset), he's a nice player to have.

On top of that, Marte had the worst year of his career in '05. More than anything, he lost his control, walking batters at a much higher rate (6.55 per 9 innings) than ever before, and therefore becoming a much less effective pitcher. This was easily seen during his meltdown against Boston in the AL Division Series - only El Duque's heroics bailed him out. Even more importantly than his performance, Marte had clearly fallen out of favor with the Sox management. After reporting late to the ballpark one day last season, Guillen's opinion of the reliever soured, and it never sweetened. Keeping with their recent attempt to employ only "gamers," those players who may lack in talent but make up for it (?) in "heart," the Sox made the easy decision to part ways with Marte.

But was it the right move? Mackowiak is a versatile, useful player, but we have to remember that in 2002 and 2003 Marte was one of the most dominant relievers in the game, and certainly one of the best lefties. In 2002 he held lefty batters to a line of .149/.237/.218 (.204/.276/.296 overall), and the following year he held them to .168/.245/.240 (.185/.280/.266 overall) - just filthy numbers. In 2004 his performance dropped off a bit, but he was still a highly-effective reliever. Last year, his walk rate did rise dramatically, but he was also unlucky: non-home run balls that were put in play against him fell in for hits 34.2% of the time (Batting Average on Balls In Play, or BABIP, is usually denoted like a batting average), while the league average was about 29.8%. All in all, when a player has one bad year, it either means he's changed dramatically (due to injury, aging, etc.), or it's an outlier, and he should return to (something approaching) normal the following year. In the case of a player as talented as Marte, the latter very well may be the case.

And frankly, we may need Marte this year more than we'd like to think. Dustin Hermanson's back is acting up again, and it now looks like he won't be on the opening day roster. Rubber-armed Luis Vizcaino is gone (in the Vazquez trade). Our most readily-available minor league fill in, Jeff Bejanaru, is also gone (in the Cintron trade). Bobby Jenks displayed great stuff for the short time he was with the team, but he's hardly a slam-dunk for '06. Cliff Politte was extremely lucky last season; his BABIP was a miniscule .208. Similarly, the guy who is supposed to carry most of the lefty-killing load in the bullpen now, Neal Cotts, was also extremely lucky: while all of his peripheral rate stats (with the exception of his home run rate) stayed steady from previous years, his ERA dropped precipitously, at least in part due to a .242 BABIP. So the bullpen, which was a major strength last season, has a chance to be merely average, and perhaps even short of bodies. Even the 2004 version of Damaso Marte could have been a major help.

So really, I'm not sure it was a wise move to get rid of him. Given the Sox' distaste for Marte, it was probably inevitable. But while Mackowiak is a semi-nifty guy to have around, our bullpen may suffer mightily for it. Perhaps I'm not 50/50 on the deal; I'm probably more like 65/35 in favor of it. But we may end up regretting it if we fail to hold some leads in '06 that would have been money in the bank in '05.

Lastly, newly-acquired Alex Cintron was also playing in the PR-DR game. Once again he was Puerto Rico's starting shortstop, and displayed a mixed bag with the glove: he made an early error on a play Juan Uribe makes in his sleep, but then showed off a strong arm in the later innings. He went 1-for-4 with an RBI, although both the hit and the RBI came on a safety-squeeze attempt that wasn't fielded cleanly; still, I'm sure Ozzie Guillen sneezed in his pants when he saw it. The Sox won the World Series in '05 because of their pitching and defense, not their small-(or smart- or Ozzie- or whatever-)ball offensive tactics; sadly, I'm sure Ozzie is perfectly willing to give up a ton of outs for no reason this year too. Cintron just gives him one more player to do it with.

Sundry Sox

2006-03-11T13:09:00.000-05:00

Some brief and varied notes for a Saturday afternoon:

Ryan Sweeney continues to crush the ball in spring training, hitting his third home run on Thursday. It's still a very small sample size (20 PAs), but it's a great sign to see him mashing nonetheless; he's hitting .444/.500/.944 with 3 home runs, 2 walks, and 17 total bases in only 18 at-bats. If this is the year his power develops, Sweeney could be starting in the outfield at The Cell by 2008 (or even as soon as next year).

* * *

Another Sox hitter putting on a clinic with the bat this spring is third baseman Josh Fields. Fields, the Sox' #1 draft pick in 2004, hasn't exactly torn up the minor leagues, hitting .252/.341/.409 for AA Birmingham last year. While he did sport a decent walk rate (55 BB in 551 PAs), his power was marginal at best for a corner position player. This spring, however, the former college quarterback has tatooed the ball: .500/.571/1.417 with 3 home runs and 2 doubles in just 12 ABs (14 PAs).

Fields' roadblock to the majors, Joe Crede, has shown only small improvements at the plate in recent years (.252/.303/.454 in '05 after .239/.299/.418 in '04), so if Fields can parlay his spring hitting into a solid year at AAA, a change at the hot corner may come sooner for the Sox than most people expect. On the other hand, Crede has two things working in his favor: 1) he hit very well down the stretch (.379/.419/.759 in September) and in the playoffs (.289/.327/.622) last season, and it's possible he could carry that success forward into '06, and 2) Joe is one of the better fielding third basemen around, while Josh has shown a sub-par glove so far in his time within the organization.

* * *

Speaking of former college quarterbacks, Joe Borchard hit his first home run of the spring yesterday, going the opposite way while batting left-handed. He's only hitting .188/.278/.375, so don't expect him to make the 25-man roster, especially not with the plan to take both Cintron and Ozuna, and the fact that Ross Gload is mashing this spring: .333/.412/.667.

* * *

New Sock Alex Cintron also hit his first homer of the year yesterday, going deep for Puerto Rico in the World Baseball Classic. He's at .333/.333/.583 in 12 plate appearances; don't expect him to hit for such a high average this year, and his lack of walks is troubling (but not unexpected), but he's displaying the power that makes him a decent alternative to Juan Uribe - at least at the plate.

* * *

The two other Sox in the WBC have also performed well, in varying degrees. Javier Vazquez pitched three innings for Puerto Rico on Tuesday, giving up just one run. He did, however, surrender three hits and two walks. On Wednesday, Freddy Garcia one-upped him, dominating Italy while pitching for Venezuela. Garcia pitched 3 and 1/3 innings, giving up only one hit while striking out seven (!) batters and walking only one. Most importantly, however, both pitchers seemed healthy while out from under the watchful eyes of the White Sox staff. It's extremely important to the Sox' chances in '06 that both make it out of the WBC with healthy arms; Vazquez threw just 57 pitches, and Garcia 61, but keep an eye on them as the tournament progresses, as pitch limits will rise and the competition will get tougher, with more pressure on them to pitch well - and therefore a greater tendency to overthrow - than in spring training starts.

* * *

Jim Thome continues to display the incredible patience at the plate that has made him one of baseball's best hitters over the last decade. He's batting only .231 this spring, but with an OBP of .474. Similarly, last season, playing hurt and for only part of the year, he managed a .360 OBP even with an average near the Mendoza line (.207). Paul Konerko has obviously been a very-good-to-great hitter for the Sox the past few years, and Magglio Ordonez was the same during his time with the team, but if healthy Thome will provide a presence in the middle of the lineup not seen since Frank Thomas was playing on sturdy legs.

* * *

So far, Jose Contreras has carried over his late-season dominance from last year into this spring. In ten innings pitched, he has given up just four runs. More importantly, he has struck out twelve hitters while walking none (!). There was some concern that the "loss" of Orlando Hernandez would mean the end of Contreras' new-found confidence, but so far that hasn't played out. No one has ever doubted Jose's talent, so as long as he continues to throw strikes, and gets lucky in terms of his run support, he has a legitimate chance to be in contention for the 2006 Cy Young. Seems crazy to say that before the season even starts, but it's true.

* * *

AL Central watch: Twins' pitcher Francisco Liriano, playing in the World Baseball Classic for the Dominican Republic, struck out six hitters in just two and 2/3 innings Friday. If he can avoid injury, this guy is going to be a thorn in our side for years....Indians' prospect Andy Marte is lighting it up in spring training, smashing the ball at a .500/.471/.938 clip (it's possible to have a lower OBP than AVG if your sacrifice flies exceed your walks). Luckily for the Sox, so is incumbent third baseman Aaron Boone (.500/.500/.667), so it's probable that Marte will begin the year at AAA; the sooner the Indians replace Boone with Marte, the worse for us and the rest of the league....Young Indians pitcher Fausto Carmona (22) is also making a play for a spot on the big-league roster, having yielded no runs, no walks, and just five hits in five innings this spring.

Musical Chairs

2006-03-09T10:09:00.000-05:00

Nothing, aside from house dust and NASA's latest space mission, should be examined within a vacuum. Yesterday's trade for Alex Cintron is no exception. My analysis of the move was based upon the assumption that Cintron would be taking over Pablo Ozuna's role, in that both of them play the exact same three positions. Cintron's edge at the plate, mostly in terms of his power, would make him an upgrade over Ozuna, although the whole deal was tempered by having to give up a cheap and already-viable bullpen option in Jeff Bajenaru. I assumed that Ozuna would start the year at AAA, only coming up to the Sox in case of injury.

Well, apparently my assumption was wrong. All indications (for the moment) are that the Sox are planning on keeping both Cintron and Ozuna on the 25-man roster. This, in my opinion, is a mistake. Not a weapons-of-mass-destruction-in-Iraq-sized mistake, but a mistake nonetheless.

The Sox only have 25 roster spots to start the season. 21 of those spots, barring injury, are locked in stone: the starting nine hitters, plus Mackowiak and Widger, and the five starting pitchers, plus McCarthy, Jenks, Politte, Hermanson, and Cotts. That leaves four available spots. One of those is clearly going to be taken up by a LOOGY (Lefty One-Out GuY, for the uninitiated; disclaimer: not my term), which will come from a constantly-dwindling pool. (It occurred to me that the contest for the LOOGY role this spring is a lot like American Idol, in that someone gets sent away every couple of days, and there are three presiding judges. Ozzie Guillen is obviously Randy Jackson, in that you don't know what the hell he's talking about. Kenny Williams will have to be Simon Cowell; I don't think Simon's nearly as mean as he's made out to be, and frankly, he's usually right. That leaves Don Cooper to play Paula Abdul's role of always being supportive; it's not entirely fair, because Cooper is a smart guy, while Abdul is...um...yeah. Apologies, Coop.) Right now, it seems like Javy Lopez (not the Orioles' catcher) is the leading candidate for the job, but it doesn't really matter who gets it; the point is that the lucky winner will take up one roster spot.

That leaves three available roster spots. Originally, the Sox had talked about carrying twelve pitchers to start the season, but they have thankfully backed off from that position; as much as pitcher injury will be a major concern this year, it just doesn't make sense given the number of early off days on the schedule. That means that in all likelihood, all three of those spots will be for position players. One of those has to be for a backup infielder who can play shortstop; as I argued both above and yesterday, that should now be Cintron. That leaves two more players to take.

In my opinion, Ross Gload should be one of those two, without question. Gload absolutely destroyed International League pitching last season, batting .370/.423/.672 in 61 games with Charlotte. He didn't hit all that well in a September callup, but he did hit very well at the major league level in 2004: .321/.375/.479 in 259 PAs. (In fact, the Sox probably wouldn't have had to sweat the Indians so much last year if they'd plugged Gload into Carl Everett's spot from the start of the season; the vast disparity in salaries between the two players - and the "experience" that tags along with it - didn't make it a publicly-acceptable move, but it would have been the right one.) Plus, he's a lefty hitter on a right-heavy team, and is our only good option as a defensive replacement at first base for Konerko; Gload is above-average with the glove, and it's probably best to keep Thome in the DH role as much as possible (assuming he doesn't have a Frank Thomas/Jason Giambi-style drop-off in production when he's not playing the field). Gload is also out of options, meaning that if the Sox don't put him on the roster, he'll need to clear waivers to play for Charlotte again. Given his production the past few years, it's a pretty good bet that some other team would take a chance on him.

That leaves one available roster spot. Under the Sox' current plan, that would go to Pablo Ozuna. But Ozuna plays the exact same positions as Cintron, and doesn't hit as well. Do we really need three guys on the roster who can play shortstop, and four each who can play second and third? It's a waste of a roster space. Instead, I think we should give Joe Borchard a shot. His career has entirely stalled, and he's not going to be the superstar that the Sox envisioned when they gave him a record signing bonus, but he could still be a worthwhile addition to the team as a fifth outfielder, occasional DH, and pinch-hitter. Borchard's a switch-hitter with power from both sides of the plate (.265/.339/.487 at Charlotte in '05), which makes him much more valuable as a pinch-hitter than Ozuna. Plus, he's 27-years-old, meaning we might be able to squeeze some value out of his peak season at the major league level. Lastly, he too is out of options, so by not putting him on the roster we risk losing him entirely.

The only advantage that Ozuna has over Borchard is his speed (his ability to play all around the infield is obviously important too, but that's negated by the presence of Cintron). Ozuna stole 14 bases in limited action last season, and 31 the year before in AAA; and while Borchard isn't entirely slow (he can almost handle center field if you're willing to give up a lot of doubles), neither is he fast. Speed off the bench is a useful tool (i.e. Willie Harris in the playoffs last year), but when you're planning on trotting out Scott Podsednik for 600+ plate appearances, it's probably better to lean your bench towards power. It's also possible, but not likely, that the Sox will use that last roster spot for Jerry Owens, but that presents the same speed-power conundrum.

If the Sox do put Borchard on the roster, it's possible that he'll stink up the joint in his first 50-75 at-bats. If that's the case, then they can try to send him down to AAA, and if he gets claimed on waivers, it's no real loss because he would have just showed he can't handle major league pitching. But when the other option is to potentially lose him, without trying (admittedly, again) to find out what he can offer, just to have Ozuna sit on the bench and play the role of super-redundant utility infielder, it's worth a try.

(F)utility

2006-03-08T15:11:00.000-05:00

In the olden days, when most (or many) marriages were arranged, there was a commonly-held idea that although couples did (or could) not marry for love, they grew to love their spouses over time. After years of arguing, physical abuse, and trying to spout out children at a rate above that of infant mortality, the couple, tired and worn out, settled into an uneasy truce approximating love.

Has Kenny Williams fallen into that same kind of love? After playing the Arizona Diamondbacks four out of their first six spring training games (and losing them all), did the Sox' GM look into the smiling face of the Snakes and see what was missing from his soul? Because today he went out and sealed the union, trading for Arizona utility infielder Alex Cintron.

Well, perhaps that would be the case, except that Cintron didn't play for the Diamondbacks in any of those four games. In fact, he hasn't played for them at all this spring, as he's been away with Team Puerto Rico, preparing for and competing in the World Baseball Classic (he went 1-for-3 and scored the winning run in yesterday's 2-1 win over Panama). In any case, suddenly we have a new Sock, so let's consider how we did and where we are now.

First of all, Cintron was acquired for 28-year-old pitcher Jeff Bajenaru, who spent most of last year as AAA Charlotte's closer (he had a very quick cup of coffee with the Sox, but nothing worth noting). He pitched well in 70 and 1/3 innings, with a 1.41 ERA and 1.05 WHIP. Even better, he struck out more than a batter an inning, fanning 83 hitters. He was extremely tough to hit homers against, giving up just four. He also saved 19 games, but that's completely immaterial. All in all, Bajenaru was a pretty good pitcher in '05, although he's certainly not a prospect. Still, he could have been useful this year as a low-cost replacement in the Sox' bullpen should Dustin Hermanson's back continue to give him trouble, or Bobby Jenks' control problems resurface, or Cliff Politte's luck even out, or Brandon McCarthy have to step into the starting rotation due to an injury.

Cintron has spent his entire career with Arizona. He was the Diamondbacks' starting shortstop in 2003, and exploded onto the scene with quite an impressive season: .317/.359/.489 with 13 home runs in 482 plate appearances. Only 24, he seemed poised to make a name for himself. Handed the starting job again in 2004, however, Cintron took a major step backwards, batting .262/.301/.363. His walk and home run rates fell, and he became something of a liability at the plate. Relegated to a back-up in 2005, he bounced back a little, but only in the power department (.273/.298/.415). He did play well during Winter Ball this year, however, batting .333/.388/.500 in 90 at-bat for the Caguas Criollos of the Puerto Rican League; how much that should matter, I don't know.

Cintron's major value to the White Sox is that he can play shortstop. While Mackowiak's versatility is a plus, shortstop is one of the two positions he can't play (the other being catcher). With Willie Harris no longer on the team, the Sox' only other option behind Uribe at short is Pablo Ozuna. Both Cintron and Ozuna can play second, short, and third, so this move doesn't exactly expand the Sox' positional depth. But while neither are adept at getting on base, Cintron possesses a lot more power, which makes his value as a pinch-hitter much greater. He's also a switch-hitter, although that edge is mitigated in part by his extreme platoon split; over the past three years he's hit lefties at a .322/.359/.463 clip, while struggling against righties: .268/.304/.401. If Uribe gets injured, or needs a day off, Cintron's presence gives Guillen the option of handing over the shortstop spot to someone who has already been an everyday starter in the majors. Cintron is not a particularly good fielder at short, so the Sox will take a major hit in terms of their infield defense, but frankly the falloff from Uribe to just about anyone is steep.

Overall, this move improves the Sox' infield depth by a small margin, providing more experience and power off the bench. On the other hand, Bajenaru could have been a decent addition to the bullpen, if not this year then perhaps in '07. Furthermore, Cintron is due to make $1.6 million this year, pretty steep for a marginal bench player. He's not all that old (27), so if he can regain some of his 2003 form this might be a pretty good trade. Until that happens, however, I give it a C+/B-.

This Sweeney Wields a Bat

2006-03-08T12:10:00.000-05:00

I know, I know - it's been a few days. I apologize; I've been working on some new statistical stuff, and it's turned out a bit frustrating. Plus, I do have a regular, full-time job to worry about sometimes. Sometimes.

Some good news from Arizona: the Sox finally won a game. And then another. I'd like to think it had something to do with Ozzie's rah-rah speech on Monday, but who knows. And in any event, I don't give a damn about spring training wins and losses - there is absolutely no correlation between a team's spring and regular season records. If you looked, most of the runs they gave up during the losing streak were surrendered by minor league pitchers or veteran re-treads trying to break in with the big-league club. What was somewhat unsettling was the offense's inability to produce, especially in the high run-scoring environment of Arizona. But in the last few days, they've begun to come around a bit.

One guy in particular who I've noticed stepping up this spring is outfield prospect Ryan Sweeney. Once again, spring stats don't mean very much (although they probably mean more for an individual than for a team), and this is an extremely small sample size, but in 12 plate appearances (through Tuesday) he has mashed to the tune of .545/.583/1.091. It's really that last number - his slugging percentage - that bears mentioning.

Sweeney is something of a controversial prospect, in that there is a great deal of disagreement about how high his ceiling is - or rather, what his chances of reaching that ceiling are. The White Sox brass are extremely high on him, and not without reason. The second-round draft pick has been rated highly by Baseball America, gets on base at a decent clip (.342 in 2004 at high-A Winston-Salem, .357 last season at AA Birmingham), and plays an above-average right field. He is a big guy - 6'4" - and has even been compared to a young Rafael Palmeiro (although let's hope that has more to do with his sweet lefty batting stroke than any propensity to dope himself).

On the other hand, performance analysts are not so high on him, and project him as something closer to a fourth outfielder. Almost exclusively, this pessimism has to do with Sweeney's power: he slugged .379 with 7 homers in 2004, and .371 with just one homer (!) last season. Unless he brings those numbers up, he just won't be that useful of a player. The last thing the Sox need is another Scott Podsednik, especially one who's not all that fast (Sweeney has 14 stolen bases over the past two years, but in 26 attempts).

But there is some hope for him. Last year both his slugging percentage and homer total dipped, but he was playing half his games in Birmingham with its extreme pitchers' park. Plus, he does have a slugger's frame, so it's always possible his body will develop (but how many times have you seen that written about a prospect?). And most importantly, he's still very young, and has just about always been young for the level he's played at. Last season he was 20-years-old; the average age of a player in the AA Southern league was about 24 or 25. And the year before, he played as a 19-year-old in the high-A Carolina league, where the average age was about 22 or 23. (Granted, the average age of legit prospects at both those levels was probably a little bit lower.) Being able to hold your own against older players is a great predictor of future success, so it's possible that the Sox will be right about him in the end. (I certainly hope so.)

So that's why it's encouraging to see him show some power this spring. In just six spring games he has two home runs, already more than his entire total from last year. That's a ridiculously small sample size, and it should once again be noted that Arizona is a notoriously high run-scoring environment, but still: it's better than nothing. Keep an eye on Sweeney's production this year (most likely at AAA Charlotte) - how well his power develops will go a long way towards telling us if we've got a legitimate major league player on our hands or not. And with Chris Young traded out of the system (more on that another time, but let's just say we may end up regretting it), Brian Anderson is our only young and potentially major-league-ready outfielder - and he hasn't even played a full season in the bigs yet. Before long, both Pods and Jermaine Dye will be gone, and the Sox will need replacements; some home-grown (and therefore cheap) talent would be nice, but no one's sure yet if Ryan Sweeney will fit that bill.

In the Central of It All

2006-03-05T12:28:00.000-05:00

It is ridiculously obvious to say that in order to win the World Series, a team needs to make the playoffs. But it bears mentioning for a reason: the baseball playoffs are an absolute crap-shoot, and all a GM can do is build a team that will give them a good shot of getting there. Given the long length of the regular season, and the fact that even the very best teams win only 58-64% of their games (compared to much higher rates in the other major team sports), the idea that the better team always prevails in a 7- or (gasp!) 5-game series is ludicrous. There is an insane amount of luck involved in winning a postseason baseball series, as the Sox well know (Graffanino's gaffe, Pierzynski's third strike, Dye's "hit by pitch"), so in reality the most important thing is just to get there, and then hope for the best.

In order to do that, a team needs to have one of the four best records in the league (usually - there are extremely rare other scenarios). And while the Sox do need to worry about the A's, Angels, Red Sox, Yankees, and, to a lesser extent, the Rangers and Blue Jays, given the unbalanced schedule they mostly need to take care of business within their division. Last year the Sox were just .500 (35-35) against the AL East and West, but decimated the Central (52-22, including 25-12 versus Cleveland and Minnesota) to punch their playoff ticket. If they can do that again, they'll have just as good of a shot as any team at winning it all. But what are the chances of that happening? At the suggestion of a (the?) loyal reader, today I'll be examining the Sox' direct competition in '06, the AL Central.

Royale with Cheese

I almost feel bad just skirting over the Royals, as there are actual, real human beings out there who root for them (umm...Go Chiefs!), but let's face it: they're terrible. They attempted to patch some holes this offseason by going after middling veteran talent, but the only decent thing to come from that this year will be the sheer amount of times that announcers get to say "Grudzielanek to Mientkiewicz for the out." They've got a decent core of young talent to build around (Zach Greinke, uber-prospect Alex Gordon, Billy Butler, and Justin Huber), but the Royals won't be contending this year. And given the strength of the rest of the division, there's a chance they could be better than in '05, but still lose more games (yikes). At least Kansas City still has kick-ass barbeque.

Le Tigre

Not a terrible team, and certainly better than the Royals, but a ton of things would have to go right for the Tigers this year in order to challenge the Sox, Tribe, and Twins. They have a young masher in Chris Shelton who should only continue to get better, and some pretty good veteran position player talent in Carlos Guillen, Placido Polanco, Magglio Ordonez (remember him?), and Pudge Rodriguez. But Maggs is still an injury risk, and I-Rod is starting to slide down the slippery slope of aging and will most likely only resemble a shell of his former self from here on out.

Where the Tigers hopes do reside, and rightfully so, is with their strong stock of young pitching talent. Jeremy Bonderman is only 23, has a very high ceiling, and has already been in the Majors for three years now, improving in each one. Justin Verlander (23) is one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, and Joel Zumaya (21) and Kyle Sleeth (24) aren't far behind (although Sleeth is recovering from Tommy John surgery and probably won't be productive until '07). Much of Detroit's outlook for the future will rest on how well - and quickly - these pitchers develop, if they do at all. One positive sign: in 2005 the Tigers racked up the 4th lowest total of Pitcher Abuse Points (a Baseball Prospectus stat measuring the stress put on starting pitchers' arms) in the Majors, vitally important when dealing with young pitchers. One terrible sign: Detroit's new manager, Jim Leyland, has a horrific history of over-working young hurlers. Tigers fans should hope that the organization imposes pitch-count restraints, and makes Leyland abide by them. If so, it's possible that the Tigers could have one of the best starting rotations in the game by 2008, and challenge for the Central divsion crown. If not...well, they haven't had a winning record since 1993, so maybe people in Detroit are used to it by now.

No Lumber in Da Nort' Woods Dere, Eh?

The Twinkies were one of the worst offensive teams in all of baseball last year, sporting a line of .259/.323/.391. Luckily, their pitching was just as good (.261/.307/.408) as their hitting was bad, allowing them to escape with a record over .500 for the fifth straight year. In actuality, their no-hit, all-pitch formula was remarkably similar to that of the Sox, except that 1) the Sox scored 43% of their runs via homers (the Twins haven't even had a single guy hit 30 dingers since the 1987 championship season), and 2) the Twins were more reliant on one guy - the amazing Johan Santana - for their pitching line, while the Pale Hose got good contributions from across the board. Still, Minnesota was just 16-21 against Chicago and Cleveland, and really didn't have much of a chance at the playoffs once the Indians caught fire.

The limp-noodle Twin bats should be better this year. The immensely-talented Joe Mauer has another year of development under his belt, and slugger Justin Morneau is pretty much guaranteed to have a significantly better season (chicken pox, pneumonia, and appendicitis? good lord). Torrii Hunter is still a pretty good hitter for a(n A+) center fielder, and this might finally be the year where Ron Gardenhire lets the underrated Jason Bartlett man shortstop for a full season. The team made a decent signing in Rondell White, who's not a bad hitter (career .289/.343/.472) when he's healthy (which is not all that often). Plus, they've got two pretty good hitting prospects ready to contribute in Jason Kubel (24-years-old) and Doug Deeds (25), although Kubel remains an injury concern.

But by far the biggest improvement to the Twins lineup should come at second base. Last season, Minnesota second sackers combined to hit an atrocious .256/.320/.345, compared to the AL league average of .271/.323/.413. Wisely, GM Terry Ryan sought out a solution, ultimately picking Luis Castillo from the Marlins' fire-sale in exchange for a pair of pitchers with nowhere to go in the Twins system. Castillo is a career .293/.370/.356 hitter - no power at all, but his OBP will work wonders for the Twinkie lineup. Contrary to conventional wisdom, the move to the Metrodome's astroturf will actually hurt a hitter like Castillo, as his grounders will get to infielders faster and take truer hops in doing so. But even so, he should be a vast improvement over Luis Rivas and Nick Punto at the plate. Throw in his superior defensive skills, and this is the Twins' best move of the offseason, by far.

On the other hand, the team is still planning on giving a significant number of plate appearances to Tony Batista and Shannon Stewart, so let's not declare the '06 Twins the second coming of the '32 Yankees quite yet.

Like the Tigers, the Twins' hopes - for this season and the future - rest on their young pitchers. Santana (27) is older than Bonderman, but also a million times the pitcher. And Francisco Liriano (22) is even better than Verlander; if he makes the rotation coming out of spring training (and he should), he could already be the Twins second ace. Liriano, like Santana, is a lefty, and together they're going to make the Mark Mulder-Barry Zito combo in Oakland look like chopped liver. Scott Baker (24) is another highly-talanted young pitcher, and he already showed he's legit last season: .241/.288/.362 in over 50 innings pitched with the big-league club. Throw Adam Harben (22), Boof Bonser (24), and J.D. Durbin (24) into the mix, and the Twins have the makings of an outstanding young pitching staff. They've got the above-average but not stellar trio of Brad Radke, Carlos Silva, and Kyle Lohse blocking their path, but the young guys should get there eventually (with the usual caveats about young pitchers, of course). The Twins have an excellent history of treating their young hurlers' arms well, and tallied the second lowest number of Pitcher Abuse Points in the majors last season, both of which should help their cause. They also have an above-average defense (seventh best in '05 in Defensive Efficiency, a Baseball Prospectus stat that measures the rate batted balls are turned into outs) which should only get better with the addition of Castillo - always a plus for the confidence of young pitchers.

As things stand right now, the Twins are clearly a step below the Sox and Indians, but they could make up a lot of that deficit this season with the infusion of young pitchers and a sizable improvement on offense. If Liriano and Baker both find a way into the rotation, and perform up to their abilities, this team could surprise the league and win 90-95 games. If they don't, the Twins might win something more in the 80-85 range. That's a full ten-game swing, which says a lot about the quality of the young guns they're grooming.

Indigenous Talent

The Indians were the best team in baseball last year. I know that sounds ridiculous, especially since they failed to even make the playoffs, but it's true. They batted .271/.334/.453, while their pitchers stifled opponents to the tune of .247/.287/.302. No other plus offensive team came close to their pitching performance, and no other plus pitching team approached their hitting performance. They also had the third best defense in the majors, with a Defensive Efficiency score of .710 (only the A's and White Sox were better). In short, they were the best all-around combination of run scoring and run prevention in the game.

So why were they sitting at home in October? Bad luck. Luck is almost a dirty word in sports, but there's no doubt that it plays a major role, and can obscure underlying performance to an incredible degree. And that's just what happened to the Indians in 2005. The things they did on the field should have translated into more runs for them, and less for their opponents, but didn't. (These theoretical runs are called Equivalent Runs, and are factored directly from a team's hitting and pitching lines. The Indians "scored" 832 Equivalent Runs, but actually only scored 790 runs. Likewise, they "gave up" 640 Equivalent Runs, but actually allowed 642 runs.) And given the number of runs they scored, and the number they allowed, the Indians should have won more games, but didn't.

Given the number of hits and walks Indians pitchers gave up, the team "should" have had an ERA of 3.46. Instead, because of the order in which those hits and walks came, their ERA was 3.61. Given the run differential between them and their opponents, the Indians "should" have won 96 games, not 93. And if you use the Equivalent Run differential, they "should" have won 100 games.

Think that's too many "should"s? Maybe you're right. Maybe it doesn't really tell us anything to look at these "invented" stats. But I think they make a lot of sense, mostly because they follow directly from what we can observe about the game. I'm sure you've seen a pitcher who gives up three hits in an inning but doesn't allow a run. Some of that was probably his skill, but a lot of it was probably luck. On the other hand, a pitcher can give up only one single or walk in an inning and still allow a run. Was it his fault for not pitching through his teammates' errors? Sure, but there was also luck involved. Remember Freddy Garcia's one-hit masterpiece last season against the Twins? 99 times out of 100 he wins that game, but because of the opposing pitcher and his own team's inability to score runs on that particular day, he lost.

Anyway, back to the Indians. In games decided by one run, they were 22-36. Some of that might of had to do with timely mistakes, poor managerial decisions, or because a young team was affected by pressure. But the vast majority of that record can be attributed to bad luck. Performance in one-run games is something that fluctuates wildly from year to year. With regression to the mean, the Indians should win much closer to half of their one-run games in '06. In games not decided by one run, the '05 Indians won at a .683 clip - dominance.

Meanwhile, the White Sox were winning 65% of their one-run games. And the Sox' run differential dictated that they should have won closer to 91 wins, instead of 99. (Using Equivalent Run differential, the Sox were even worse, projecting at 87 wins.) So not only were the Indians unlucky, their main competition for a playoff spot was extremely lucky, which is a form of bad luck in and of itself. If you were able to recreate the exact conditions of the 2005 season, and play it over again a million times, most of the time Cleveland would win the AL Central.

And it's not a fluke by any means. The Indians have a phenomenal young core of talent. There were only three shortstops who had better seasons that Jhonny Peralta last year (Young, Tejada, and Jeter), and he's only 24-years-old. Grady Sizemore will be just 23 in 2006, and yet last year he was the third best center fielder in the game, behind two future Hall of Famers (Griffey and Andruw Jones). Victor Martinez is getting older (27), but he's still young, and was the best catcher in the majors last year. And Travis Hafner, who's still on the happy side of 30, was just about as good as David Ortiz last year. And last, but not least, the Tribe just acquired Andy Marte from the Red Sox; Marte, just 22, has the potential to be a big star at third base once Aaron Boone is out of the way.

Even better (or worse, from the Sox' perspective), they've got help on the way. Brad Snyder (24) and Ryan Garko (25) should both play a role in '06, and Ryan Mulhern (25) and Mike Aubrey (24) aren't far behind. At the same time, the Indians have some decent veterans to man the fort in Ronnie Belliard, Jason Michaels, Ben Broussard, and Casey Blake.

The Tribe pitching staff should once again be better than average, if not excellent. C.C. Sabathia is still only 25, Cliff Lee is 27, and Jake Westbrook is 28. They got a terrific contribution from Kevin Millwood last season, and he and Scott Elarton won't be around, but GM Mark Shapiro has shrewdly added Paul Byrd and Jason Johnson, stemming much of the loss. And in any event, they're only short-term placeholders, as some combination of young hurlers Jeremy Sowers (23), Fausto Carmona (22), Adam Miller (21), and Jake Dittler (23) should be in the rotation soon, the first two possibly this year.

The secret ingredient to the Indians' '05 success was their dominant bullpen. By just about any metric you care to use, the Cleveland bullpen was one of, if not the best in the game. Two of the primary contributors, Bobby Howry and Arthur Rhodes, will be gone this year, so it's possible the 'pen won't be able to repeat its peformance. But signing veteran relievers with well-known names to expensive contracts is not the way to build a bullpen (as you just about always overpay, and can get the same production out of relative unknowns), and Shapiro knows it. Instead, the Tribe will get help from within from any number of young arms: Fernando Cabrera (24), Andrew Brown (25), Thomas Mastny (25), Ed Mujica (22), and/or Rafael Perez (24). Cabrera in particular has a chance to be unhittable; he might end up as this year's version of Huston Street.

Some pundits have predicted that the Indians will take a step back this year. That's possible, especially in the bullpen, but it just won't matter in the long term. Shapiro has taken a page from his mentor John Hart and stocked the Cleveland system with loads of cheap, young position player talent. Leaning your player development investments towards position players is a wise move, as they pay off much more often than pitchers. Furthermore, Shapiro has concentrated his efforts on developing or acquiring stars at the up-the-middle, harder defensive positions; Martinez at catcher, Peralta at short, Sizemore in center, and Marte at third. It's fairly easy to fill holes at first base, DH, and the corner outfield positions, and Shapiro has shown himself to be a wise spender.

White Sox fans might not want to hear this, but the Indians are the much younger team with a lot more upside. The Sox, with incredible starting pitching depth and what should be an improved offense, should be very good in '06, and probably in '07. But it's entirely possible that Cleveland will win the next five AL Central titles, and easily. They're built for long-term dominance, especially if their attendance grows and their payroll with it. The Red Sox showed last year that there's no shame in going from winning the World Series to winning the wild card. If the White Sox want to make the playoffs this year, they might not have a choice.

HAL's Revenge

2006-03-04T14:29:00.000-05:00

I've been getting a lot of comments lately, such as: "What the hell is all that html code appearing at the beginning of your paragraphs?"; "Why don't you get rid of all that computer code on your blog? I still wouldn't read it, but at least maybe you wouldn't look like such an idiot."; and "Have you considered bathing?" The good news is that I've (mostly) figured out what's putting all that crap at the beginning of paragraphs: I prefer to write these posts in Word first, and then cut and paste them, and apparently The Matrix isn't a fan of Microsoft formatting (and I'm not talking about Shawn Marion's well-known preference for Linux). The even better news: I'm still not bathing.

Apparently, it might also have something to do with the settings in your Internet Explorer browser. I don't know what the wrong settings are, nor the right ones. But I do know that I haven't heard any complaints from people who use Firefox, so if you needed any extra incentive to stop riding Bill Gates' tip and join us in the land of sunshine and lollipops, here it is.

So, please bear with me while I sort out these technical difficulties. This is the first post I've written from within the actual Blogger.com window, and I can't say I like the experience. Add in the fact that I like to use a lot of spreedsheets, and I'm just not sure that this is gonna work out. But I'll do my best. Please keep in mind that when it comes to technology, I'm basically the equivalent of a lumbering caveman poking at an Apple IIe with his killin' stick. Nerds, lend a hand.

On Guard, Thee!

2006-03-03T16:26:00.000-05:00

Luck is something we’re going to have to discuss a lot in the coming days and months, because, regardless of how much we may have liked the results, there’s no question the Sox were extremely lucky in 2005. And while that may have given us a title to gloat about, there’s certainly no guarantee of having such good luck again this season. The Baseball Prospectus 2006 annual just came out, and the entire chapter on the Sox is devoted to a discussion of luck, and various ways to quantify it. I’ll go into detail on their methodology at a later date, but for now just know that the authors concluded that despite their 99 regular-season wins, the Sox were something more like a 90-win team. That seems entirely reasonable to me, given both my general observations in ’05 and the fact that just about no team, in any sport, wins a championship without Lady Luck on its side.

But luck comes in many shapes and sizes, from winning close games to avoiding injuries to getting favorable matchups in the playoffs to a mistake made by an umpire. Today, I’m going to be examining a variety of luck that doesn’t get a lot of press in baseball: the quality of the opponents that individual players face.

If you’re a pitcher, it makes a huge difference whether you end up facing a lot of top-tier hitters, or those from the bottom of the barrel; it’s just plain easier to get the Christian Guzmans of the world out. And vice-versa: an average lefty hitter who has to face Randy Johnson, Johan Santana, Barry Zito, and Mark Buerhle an inordinate amount of times over the course of a season may have his production and stats deflated by the high level of direct competition he faces. Granted, this can be mitigated by strategy or circumstance; a manager can purposefully choose to sit a lefty hitter when facing a tough lefty pitcher, or a pitcher in the AL East might have an inflated ERA just because he has to face the formidable Yankee and Red Sox lineups a number of times. But in the end, there certainly is an element of luck to it: in a three game series, a team can miss the opponent’s best starting pitcher; or a player can be on the disabled list for a period of time in which his teammates face some really tough pitching; or one pitcher may have to face better opposing lineups than one of his teammates, just by the way the schedule falls.

Luckily, the fine people at Baseball Prospectus keep track of these things (or someone else does for them), and you can easily discover the exact level of competition that every batter or pitcher had to face over a given season. (To see this stuff for yourself, click here for batters’ opponents' stats, and here for pitchers’ opponents's stats.) First, I took the 2005 “quality of pitchers faced” stats for all the batters on the 2006 Sox (except I used Thome’s 2004, as I don’t think using stats from an injury year really shows you all that much). Then I took the corresponding 2005 league averages (using NL for Mackowiak, and 2004 NL for Thome), and divided them by each batter’s opponent rates. This created a multiplier, based around the number one: if the number was larger than one, it meant the batter was unlucky, and had to face tougher competition in that category; if it was smaller, just the opposite. Then, I multiplied their actual, real 2005 stats by that multiplier to get a new set of translated statistics. Here’s an example of that process, using Scott Podsednik:

Scott Podsednik	AVG	OBP	SLG
A. Pods' Quality of Pitchers Faced	0.256	0.330	0.406
B. 2005 AL Average	0.268	0.328	0.424
C. Multipliers (B/A)	1.047	0.994	1.044
D. Pods' actual 2005 stats	0.290	0.351	0.349
E. Pods' translated 2005 stats (C*D)	0.304	0.349	0.364

As you can see, Pods was slightly lucky in one of the three stats categories, OBP; while the league average pitcher was giving up a .328 OBP, Pods faced pitchers who gave up a .330 OBP. For AVG and SLG, however, he was pretty unlucky, having to face pitchers who allowed lower rates than league average. Therefore, his translated stats have a lower OBP than his actual stats, but a higher AVG and SLG.

Now what does this mean for Pods in ’06? Perhaps not very much, as his luck may be similar this season, given that he’ll still be batting in the AL Central. But I still think it’s useful to see who got lucky and who didn’t in this respect last season, and then to consider their translated stats when thinking about ’06. Here are the complete numbers for the Sox hitters (“Tr” means translated):

Name	PA	TrAVG	TrOBP	TrSLG	TrOPS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Konerko	694	0.301	0.377	0.566	0.943	0.283	0.375	0.534	0.909
Thome	667	0.289	0.392	0.725	1.117	0.274	0.396	0.581	0.977
Iguchi	609	0.296	0.344	0.463	0.807	0.278	0.342	0.438	0.780
Dye	608	0.294	0.336	0.548	0.884	0.274	0.333	0.512	0.845
Podsednik	598	0.304	0.349	0.364	0.713	0.290	0.351	0.349	0.700
Uribe	563	0.269	0.303	0.440	0.743	0.252	0.301	0.412	0.713
Mackowiak	545	0.283	0.334	0.401	0.735	0.272	0.337	0.389	0.726
Pierzynski	525	0.274	0.311	0.447	0.758	0.257	0.308	0.420	0.728
Crede	496	0.270	0.305	0.485	0.790	0.252	0.303	0.454	0.757
Ozuna	221	0.303	0.322	0.360	0.682	0.276	0.313	0.330	0.643
Widger	156	0.263	0.299	0.413	0.712	0.241	0.296	0.383	0.679
Gload	44	0.183	0.212	0.238	0.450	0.167	0.205	0.214	0.419
Anderson	35	0.204	0.192	0.450	0.642	0.176	0.176	0.382	0.558
Borchard	13	0.472	0.446	0.702	1.148	0.417	0.417	0.583	1.000

Every single Sox hitter made out better in his translated stats; I suspect this has to do with the excellent level of pitching in the AL Central, even when you take the Sox pitching staff out of the equation. Only Thome, Podsednik, and Mackowiak were hurt in individual stat categories, and all three in OBP. On the whole, Thome was helped the most (as measured by change in OPS) of the starters, the result of him facing some stiff pitching competition in the ’04 NL East. Anderson and Borchard also faced tough pitchers, but in very small sample sizes.

For pitchers, I actually used the exact same statistical categories. This might seem strange, but I’m a big fan of using hitting metrics to discuss and rate pitchers. Because in the end, 1) pitchers are just trying to do the exact opposite of hitters, and 2) OBP and SLG are the most accessible and telling stats around (BP stats like EqA and VORP are more telling, but sadly not as accessible). And this way, you end up comparing apples to apples; if you know that Freddy Garcia gives up a line of .259/.307/.408 (which he did in 2005), then you also know he’s basically reducing opposing teams to the equivalent of nine Juan Uribes (.252/.301/.412 in ‘05). Conversely, when Jose Lima (.314/.373/.544) is on the mound, it’s like the opposing lineup is made up entirely of Chase Utley clones (.291/.376/.540). Anywho, here are the ’06 Sox pitchers and their real and translated stats:

Name	PA	TrAVG	TrOBP	TrSLG	TrOPS	AVG	OBP	SLG	OPS
Buehrle	971	0.269	0.300	0.395	0.694	0.262	0.295	0.380	0.675
Garcia	943	0.264	0.311	0.422	0.733	0.259	0.307	0.408	0.715
Vazquez	904	0.275	0.314	0.474	0.788	0.266	0.308	0.456	0.764
Garland	901	0.258	0.297	0.400	0.697	0.255	0.298	0.399	0.697
Contreras	857	0.235	0.307	0.376	0.683	0.232	0.307	0.372	0.679
McCarthy	277	0.240	0.289	0.446	0.735	0.242	0.293	0.453	0.746
Politte	262	0.184	0.256	0.328	0.583	0.181	0.254	0.323	0.577
Cotts	248	0.180	0.281	0.238	0.519	0.179	0.286	0.241	0.527
Hermanson	228	0.228	0.288	0.364	0.652	0.222	0.284	0.353	0.637
Jenks	168	0.232	0.302	0.359	0.661	0.225	0.299	0.351	0.650

On the whole, Sox pitchers faced a fairly easy group of hitters. (It’s possible that my methodology is faulty, and favors the hitters; if anyone notices something I did wrong, please let me know.) Of the starters, Vazquez, Buerhle, and Garcia in particular faced limp bats, while Contreras and Garland faced hitters much closer to league average. McCarthy benefited more than any other pitcher from the translations; if you remember, he faced tough Boston and Texas lineups (and beat them both!), and the correction shows him to be an even better pitcher than I already thought he was. Neal Cotts also faced tougher-than-average batters, which is important because he was extremely lucky in other areas (to be addressed another time) and will need some four-leaf clovers and rabbits’ feet to approach his fantastic ’05 production.

If the Sox’ luck evens out in ’06, we can expect both the batters and pitchers to put up numbers closer to their 2005 translated rates. In general, this would help the hitters and hurt the hurlers. Of course, that’s assuming that players’ production would automatically be the same as in ’05, which is an extremely foolish thing to do, considering aging, growth, skill development, injuries and a myriad of other variables. Furthermore, for the most part the Sox will be facing the same competition they did last year, so it’s possible their quality of opponents will remain the same or similar; the presence of new players, both on our team and others, will lessen this to some extent, but the point still holds.

The most important thing to take away from this exercise is the notion that luck always plays a role in player performance, and that it often lurks in strange places. It’s our job to separate that cacophonous noise from the sweet music of the stats.