Fun with numbers

Written by: JJ Stankevitz on 29th April 2009

Fun with numbers | read this item

With just under 1/8 of the season now in the books, the White Sox sit squarely at .500 with a 10-10 record. There have been spurts of very good baseball (specifically, the final two games of the April 10-12 Twins series and the final two games of the April 16-19 Rays series) and some strings of pretty bad baseball (which have been more recent—losing 2/3 to Baltimore and Toronto in back-to-back series).

Are there any trends that can be spotted this early into the year? Maybe. 20 games is still a very small sample size, and there’s plenty of time for outliers to regress back to the mean (for instance, the A’s as a team are not going to hit the 63 home runs they’re on pace to right now). With that in mind, though, here are a few interesting numbers involving the White Sox so far this year:

-4.9: The White Sox’ team UZR entering the week, meaning the Sox’ defense has cost the team nearly five runs in the first few weeks of the season. The -4.9 UZR is the 20th best (or 10th worst) in baseball. After what looked like a promising start, Josh Fields‘ UZR sits second-worst on the team at -2.2 (with Carlos Quentin bringing up the rear at -2.5). The only player with a positive UZR at his natural position is Paul Konerko, who holds a 2.6 UZR at first base. Surprisingly, Brian Anderson‘s UZR in centerfield is -0.7, which could be another reminder that yes, this is a small sample size, but if that’s a trend, the Sox outfield will allow a lot of runs with Jermaine Dye‘s UZR sitting at -1.3. Another poor defender according to UZR this year has been Chris Getz, whose -1.4 UZR at second base is the third-worst UZR on the team. The White Sox did make the playoffs with a -23.3 team UZR in 2008, though, but this year’s pitching staff may not be able to cover as well for a suspect defense.

47.9: The White Sox’ pitching staff’s ground ball percentage, best in the majors. This is more cool than anything else, but then again, it never hurt anyone pitching at U.S. Cellular Field to keep the ball on the ground.

4.44: The White Sox’ pitching staff’s FIP. Four of the White Sox’ five starters have FIPs bunched from 4.15 to 4.30 heading into the week, while Jose Contreras‘ FIP lies at 5.54. If each starter’s FIP normalizes itself with his ERA (which is not always the case), then expect Contreras, Gavin Floyd and Bartolo Colon‘s ERAs to drop (Colon’s already dropped with his performance yesterday) and Mark Buehrle and John Danks‘ ERAs to rise (Danks’ ERA did some rising yesterday, that’s for sure). A caveat, though: FIP has a history of underrating Buehrle’s actual performance, so take what I just said with a grain of salt. As for Danks, his ERA was not going to stay at the ridiculous 0.95 it was coming into his start, it was just a matter of time before he gave up some runs to normalize that number.

56.1: The percentage pitches that were fastballs White Sox hitters have seen heading into the week, the lowest in the majors. It’s not necessarily because the White Sox have faced fastball-happy pitching staffs, either—only the Rays (54.8) and Blue Jays (53.3) have thrown a fewer percentage of fastballs than 56.1 of the White Sox’ opponents. The book on getting White Sox hitters out has not changed from last year, when the Sox saw the fewest percentage of fastballs of any team at 57.4 percent. When you’re facing a lineup that loves to hit home runs like the Sox do, the best pitches you can throw are offspeed pitches away that will get Sox hitters to roll over and hit ground balls to their pull field. This is a White Sox team that has a lot of trouble staying on pitches and taking them the other way with consistency (which, for a home run happy team, should not be a surprise), and pitchers are still going to do everything they can to exploit that.

55.4: The percentage of first-pitch strikes thrown to White Sox hitters, tied for second-lowest in the majors. This has absolutely nothing to do with White Sox hitters, it’s just an interesting stat.

Looking at most of the other offensive numbers, the White Sox are squarely in the middle of the pack for everything from home runs to wOBA to runs scored to BB/K, and so on. In no way is this surprising, as the Sox’ runs of good offense have been countered by runs of poor offense. The Sox have already been shut out three times and have scored two or fewer runs seven times this year. Conversely, they have scored six or more runs seven times this year.

And that’s exactly what you can expect out of this White Sox lineup this year: inconsistency. There will be weeks when this offense looks unbeatable, and there will be weeks when this offense looks as effective as the Springfield Monorail. Obviously, then, the season will come down to pitching, pitching, and more pitching—like it did last year. If the pitching holds, so will the White Sox—but as soon as it starts to go south, so will this team’s record. I know, I know, that’s not groundbreaking analysis or anything, but with a sub-par defense and an offense that scores (or doesn’t score) in bunches, the Sox will need good, consistent pitching to stay afloat in the AL Central.

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Topics: bartolo colon, Brian Anderson, carlos quentin, chris getz, Gavin Floyd, John Danks, jose contreras, josh fields, Mark Buehrle, Paul Konerko