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Ok, I know that after today there are three more days (and games) left for the Chicago White Sox in April, and plenty could happen, but in my first day of not-having-a-ton-to-do in a long time I decided I would spend this precious time discussing the defending World Champion and current AL Central leading Sox (whoa, that’s a mouthful). So with no further ado, I present part-one, a rudimentary look at the White Sox after one month. I won’t be getting too complex with this analysis, so don’t worry (or do…?).
Side note — it’s inevitable that I use the 2005 season as a benchmark for team analysis since, well, they won the goddamned world series last year. I understand they aren’t going to be that team (for better or for worse).
The Chicago White Sox - A Team Perspective

2005 Chicago White Sox (thru April 27) — 16 wins - 6 losses
2006 Chicago White Sox (thru April 27) — 14 wins - 7 losses

Notes on Hitting

Homeruns

Unless you actually bought into the whole “Ozzie-ball” craze (idiocy) last year, you probably noticed that the White Sox belted the 5th most home runs in MLB last year — 200. Through the first 24 games of the 2005 season, the White Sox had hit 21 HR. Through the first 21 games of the 2006 season, the Sox have knocked out 31 HR. Somehow I feel the loss of Carl “The Chauffer” Everett and the gain of Jim “Homerun” Thome had something to do with this.

Batting Average

Through April, the Sox as a team are hitting a solid .283 (5th in MLB). This beats the lousy .255 in April last year. As Jim over at Sox Machine points out, it’s mostly due to the Sox 2-7 hitters. On the bright side Podsednik seems to be turning it around a bit as of late. Hell, he’s hitting over .200 now!

On Base Percentage / Walks

We might need to stop the press on this one. The White Sox have a team OBP of .360. I know what you’re thinking: this can’t last. Okay, well at least I’m thinking that. Maybe Kenny Williams isn’t, afterall his anti-moneyball team won a World Series with a team OBP of .322. But let’s not dwell in the past! So far the Sox have drawn 82 walks, which is 15 more than they had drawn last year in 3 more games. For a team that only had two guys (Konerko, and Pods…barely) with OBPs higher than .350 last year, I’d say this is a step in the right direction. From an observational standpoint, it sure does look like they’re making a conscious attempt at being more patient at the plate for the most part. I’m not quite ready to congratulate Greg Walker yet…we’ve got a long way to go. More on this in the player-analysis “part two” section.

Slugging

The Sox come into the last weekend in April with the third highest slugging percentage in all of baseball, .478. They’re even ahead of Adam Dunn and the Big Red Hitting/Scoring Machine, which is a surprise bonus! Again, not to dwell too much, but the 2005 Sox (17-7 in April) had a less than stellar .375 SLG% in their first month, which was terrible enough for 25th in MLB. In an additional note, the Sox have knocked in 118 runs, which is good enough for third in the league.

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Remember 2005? Yes, I do, too. Pitching and defense, right? As indicated by brief stat check above it’s obvious that the Sox are hitting the shit out of the ball a lot more than they were last year, now let’s see how the pitching matches up.

Notes on Pitching

Strikeouts / Walks

This will be looked at in more depth in the player section, but for now — the Sox have 107 strikeouts and 47 walks. Last year in three extra games, the Sox had 154 strikeouts and 80 walks. Obviously it’s hard to compare with the 30+ IP in the ‘05 stats, but if anything it’s encouraging. I have reason to believe, barring any sort of mega-Garland meltdowns and “old” Jose Contreras performances, that the Sox will walk 20+ in the next three games. Which is good! Walks are bad! And so far, they seem to be keeping them down, especially from last year, which was the year of “pitching”. I blame El Duque. Just like with the walks, I don’t think the Sox will strikeout 40+ against the Angels this weekend, although with the likes of Ol’ Ersty and Vlad the Bad I wouldn’t be surprised if there were plenty of K’z to go around for the Angels.

Homeruns

In April of 2005, the White Sox gave up 16 HR. This year, they’ve already given up 23 HR. Not that it’s THAT big of a difference, especially considering when some of these were given up (Wells and Glaus homering in an already blow out loss to the Blue Jays, Jenks giving up 9th inning bombs for good measure, etc.) — but I certainely know where it’s coming from: the bullpen. I don’t care that Hawk Harrelson thinks Neal Cotts has “the quickest 88mph fastball in the game”, I’m more concerned that he’s already given up more HR than he did the entire year last year. Admittedly though, Cotts only gave up 1HR last year and that’s hard to top.

Earned Run Average (ERA)

Haha, no.

WHIP

Here’s an area of interest. The Sox WHIP in 2006 is a nice 1.25, which is comparable to their 2005 first-month WHIP of 1.20. Though you might compare the ERAs from last year and be like all “well last year they were way better” — well, that’s probably true, but since ERA isn’t very indicative of how a team is actually pitching, I figured this might be a closer look, although it doesn’t really even break the surface. I swear though, one of these days I’ll start using more complicated stats. If only I wasn’t so busy/lazy, there would be DIPS ERA, PRC, and more to go around for all!

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Ok, that’s it for now. Since my being busy in the film-related world has been subsided for the moment (month), expect more baseball (and maybe film??) related posts in the near future. That is until June, when I become completely internet-less for a while. At least expect a look at first month individual performance soon. Hopefully my colleagues will pick up the slack as well.

(Music to write to: Les Savy Fav — Go Forth)