Chicago White Sox: Analysis as of May 16, 2008

Ozzie Guillen has his team tied for second in the miserable American League Central Division. This division has the potent Tigers offense which has shown up every blue moon along with their miserable pitching which has shown up much more frequently. The Indians have begun to play recently with their solid pitching although their offense has yet to wake up. This second place spot might be more of circumstance than the White Sox being a quality team.

Chicago White Sox

Infield

• A. J. Pierzynski has continued his solid hitting as he has done through out his career. He never gives you the huge numbers, but will have good at bats and an above average batting average for a catcher.
• For some bizarre reason, Paul Konerko cannot find his consistent swing that he’s had in his breakout years. His strikeouts are very high. However, he’s still shown a good eye to get on base. He’s supposed to be a power bat in the middle of the lineup, unfortunately the best he can seem to do right now is walk.
• Juan Uribe, the shifted shortstop, has been flat out bad at the plate. Cuban defector, Alexei Ramirez has not been much better. Ramirez, based on the limited information anyone has on him, is supposed to be a very good talent. Forty-eight at bats is not enough to pass any judgment, so if I were Guillen, I’d have Ramirez play a little more if Uribe continues to sleep in the batters box.
• For those who know Orlando Cabrera, no one expect him to hit over .300 this year. Last year was a career year for him for his batting average and the start to this season is showing how the law of averages works. There is a reason he is a career .271 hitter and this season will make up for his high production last season. However, the only option for Guillen to go to if he were to replace Cabrera is to bring in Uribe and that is much worse. Cabrera should improve, but he’s been painful for the White Sox front office while watching Jon Garland succeed in southern California.
• Joe Crede has returned from his back injury. No problems here.

Outfield/DH

• Carlos Quentin, coming in as the fourth outfielder, has taken off. He cannot be taken out of the lineup; he’s too good.
• Nick Swisher: hot start, terrible since. His on base percentage is over 100 points better than his batting average, which sounds great, except when the batting average is .211. He also strikes out too much.
• Jermaine Dye has been playing as well as a slugger can with no protection in the lineup.
• Jim Thome somehow has 7 HR and 23 RBI while batting .205. He’s making his hits count. However, they’re too and far in between. He has been showing off his wheels with a 100% stolen base success rate (1 SB).

Overall offense: If the middle of the lineup were Pierzynski, Dye, and Quentin (yes, I took into account lefties and righties), the lineup could be intimidating. It could be even more intimidating if Guillen can change the rules to only have three guys in their batting order for a game.

Starting Pitching

The starting pitching has been excellent, with the exception of Mark Buehrle. Javier Vazquez has been a solid pitcher throughout his career (except on the Yankees). Jose Contreras is capable of stringing together long stretches of winning decisions. He’s proving last year was just a bump in the road. John Danks and Gavin Floyd are two young emerging pitchers who have performed better than the other three starters so far this season. Finally, I think Mark Buehrle must be the nicest guy in the world. He sees the other pitchers being stingy and not giving out runs, so he decided he needs to be the guy to share. He’s giving them out left and right, so to all those teams out there who still get to face the White Sox: Buehrle is being generous! Get ‘em while they’re hot!

Relief Pitching

The bullpen has been solid. Nick Masset has been the most inconsistent and he’s still been good. Ehren Wasserman has also been roughed up in limited work this season, but he was good last year, so there’s no reason to give up on his freaky delivery just yet. The ERA is low so far this year. The defense (including himself) seems to hate when Octavio Dotel is on the mound allowing for many unearned runs. The only problem is too many people do get on base with this bullpen. Now, they always seem to get out of it, but at some point if they consistently try to make things interesting it will bite them.

Overall pitching: This is a solid pitching staff. This staff is the sole reason why the White Sox are at .500. If the pitching wasn’t good, they’d be in a battle with the Tigers for the worst team in a bad division. If Buehrle was pitching better, they could actually be in first ahead of the Indians who’s starting pitching is learning from their new pitching coach, Cliff Lee.