The White Sox Have Snuck Back Into The Playoff Race Thanks To A Resurgent Offense And Dominant Pitching
What a roller coaster of a season this has been so far, huh? In just short of 100 games, the White Sox have evoked every emotion possible in their fans. We have seen them ride multiple stretches of piss poor play where every one of us clamor for the firing of Ventura, demotion of Sanchez, benching of Laroche and Alexei, and flat out release of Flowers. Then there’s been the stretches where the Sox have rattled off 5 in a row, where Sox fans have thought to themselves, “maybe, just MAYBE, this team is turning it around,” only to have our hearts ripped out with a subsequent 3-4 game skid right after.
Las Vegas books set the team total wins for the White Sox at 82 games, give or take a half game or so, and PECOTA projected 78 wins. I said the White Sox made the necessary improvements in their defense and pitching depth and lineup to make a run at a wild card, if not the division. If there was an “offseason championship,” the White Sox may have won it. Talk is cheap, though, and the Sox have largely underachieved up to this point. With that said, with how poor the team has played for the vast majority of the first 98 games, so only sit 2 games below .500 and 6.5 games out of the wild card lead is insane to me.
But how did they do it?
Let me preface this by saying I am as big a TWTW guy as there is. When I analyze a baseball player, I trust my own two eyeballs and intuition over stats a lot of time. A lot of times a player supersedes his statistics and provides worth elsewhere (eg: Aaron Rowand (sabermetric nightmare) and David Ross (player-coach)). With that said, we have a wealth of great statistics at our disposal that help aid in player analysis, so I’m going to toss a few tid-bits at you.
To date, the White Sox lead the American League in WAR for a pitching staff. League-wide it breaks down as follows:
1. Cardinals 14.8 WAR
2. Nationals 14.4 WAR
3. Dodgers 14.4 WAR
4. Cubs 13.8 WAR
5. White Sox 13.4 WAR
Last season, the Sox sat 26th in the league and had a 10.4 WAR after 162 games. Hat-tip to Rick Hahn for his offseason rebuild of a shit pitching staff from a season ago. Digging deeper, the sox also possess the 8th best FIP, or fielding independent pitching in the league, and 2nd best in the AL. If you don’t know what FIP is, it’s kind of like ERA, except it takes a pitcher or a pitching staff and places a league average defense behind them. For instance, the White Sox have the worst defense in baseball (shocker), so their pitchers’ ERAs are inflated. If they had a league average defense, their staff would be one of the top 5ish in baseball in terms of ERA. On the contrary, say the Red Sox pitch in front of the best defense in baseball (this obviously isn’t true). Their pitchers and their staff ERAs are actually UNDER INFLATED, and look a lot better to the naked eye than they actually are.
Long story short, in the last 3ish months of the season, the Sox have pitched their dicks off. Outside of Danks and an inconsistent Rodon, more often than not the White Sox staff puts them in a position to win baseball games, from whoever’s starting, through the middle relievers, through closer David Robertson. Then we get to the offense. I truly thought the White Sox made enough upgrades in the lineup to make a serious run at the playoffs. Melky was a huge upgrade over Viciedo. Avi’s return is an upgrade over De Aza (WAR says otherwise, however). Laroche was an upgrade over Dunn, and they had interesting organizational rookies that were asked to step up in Micah Johnson and/or Carlos Sanchez. On paper, the offense should have at least been decent.
That has not been the case however thus far. Outside of Abreu, who possesses a WAR of 1.7, Geovany Soto is second on the team with a WAR of 1.3. Yes, the backup catcher has been the most valuable asset as a hitter on the White Sox. Every player on the team, outside of Abreu, was brutal offensively until the month of July. Starters Alexei Ramirez, Adam Laroche, Avi Garcia, Tyler Flowers, Carlos Sanchez, and until a few weeks back Gillaspie/Beckham were ALL UNDER REPLACEMENT LEVEL OFFENSIVELY. Literally worst case scenario, and as Hawk describes it, it was a collection of talented hitters hitting poorly. And that doesn’t go into how bad Eaton and Melky were for the better part of the season. Every player was playing some of the worst baseball of their careers, and at the same time. Even with how good the pitching staff has been, you still need to score at least some runs to win baseball games.
But the good news is almost everyone is out of their funk. Outside of the Royals series to start the second half, (that team is so, so good), the Sox lineup has been producing at extreme levels top to bottom. Eaton is an on base machine again. Melky is PISSING on the ball. Saladino has been a nice spark to the lineup and in the field. Sanchez is currently riding an 11 game hitting streak and finally seems like he has figured out how big league pitching staffs are attacking him. The lone holes in the lineup, as we speak, are only Tyler Flowers (please bench him for Soto) and Laroche, who actually was benched. Every player is FINALLY regressing to their career mean, and the Sox have gone 15-9 in the month of July because of it.
The question is, now, what do the Sox do with the July 31st trade deadline looming? Their biggest trade asset (that would be a rental) is Jeff Samardzija, who possesses a 3.5 FIP and 2.6 WAR to date. Do the Sox keep even keeled, recognize that this hot streak will eventually regress to the mean itself, and trade Shark to build the farm and play for 2016-17? Or do they say fuck it, keep him, hope they can jump 4 teams and snag a wild card birth?
If the Sox do decide to hold pat, which at this point I believe will happen, and make Shark a qualifying offer after the 2015 season concludes, they will inherit a compensation pick anyways. I am of the opinion that this may be the best route for the team going forward, unless someone overpays for someone who is dead set on a 9 figure contract over the course of the next 6-7 years. With that said, the White Sox have a history of shocking fans at the deadline and making a big splash. Kenny Williams is always willing to gamble, and in case you didn’t know, he still calls the shots on this team. Not sure it will happen this year, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if it does. They are playing it extremely close to the chest and may wait all the way up to the deadline. It will take these last two games against the Red Sox to decide the path they would like to take. With Quintana and Sale on the mound and an offense that is absolutely teeing off on Boston pitching right now, you gotta like the Sox chances of getting back to .500 before their weekend set with the Yankees.
Do I think the Sox will make the playoffs? No, but at least they are giving us reason to watch. With that said, the Royals were 48-50 at this exact juncture of the 2014 season. You never. Fucking. Know. This is a very interesting time to be a Sox fan. We’ll have to check back in in 2 days.