Chicago White Sox Preview

Ever notice how much the Kenny Williams and George W. Bush Administrations have in common? Both achieved their current posts in 2000 at relatively young ages with limited experiences and amid much controversy. They both took office declaring that they would elevate their organizations through daring innovation (sweeping tax reform / trading for David Wells). After struggling from the gates, both rallied their charges in the second half of 2001, in fact, Kenny Williams’s organization was in New York on September 11, 2001. In the winter of 2001-2002 both seized on plans that would brace their causes (the overthrow of Saddam Hussein / the acquisition of Todd Ritchie). Their plans were supposed to quickly and easily rectify the present dilemmas; successes were guaranteed but swiftly proved illusory. In 2005, both Williams and Bush are still searching for the magic elixir. But what is most similar about the two leaders is their commitment to an ideology and an insistence on continuing their reforms despite widespread antipathy to their chosen course. While some have said that both are apt to confuse the concept of inflexibility with that of fortitude, what is for sure is that they are both true believers.

It’s got to be nice to be a true believer, to be as certain of your course as Kenny Williams seems to be of his. Williams came to power committed to the idea that the White Sox would be a pitching-and-defense team. Further, he vowed to make the Sox offense faster, more versatile and able to “manufacture” runs. Finally, he was absolutely committed to winning now, and I mean right now. The White Sox slogan during the Williams first year at the helm was “It’s Time” and they gushed over how the team would be “aggressive.” Williams has labored long and hard to remake his pitching staff, firmly committed to his beliefs despite costs that would make more timid men tremble. He has finally ousted those players that he deemed to be insufficiently skilled in the defensive arts and replaced them with more athletic players. After bringing in a hand-picked field manager in 2001 to stress “aggressive baseball,” this off-season Williams has finally completed his transformation of a White Sox offense that had averaged 825 runs a year during his tenure. Gone are three slower power hitters that clogged his offenses, despite their combined 90 home runs per year. Replacing them are faster more athletic players to make the offense more “reliable,” despite their combined 50 home runs per year. During the Williams’ tenure, the White Sox bench has been completely refashioned from a collection of offensive-oriented specialists to a cadre of speedy, defensive-oriented generalists. And the organization has committed itself to a draft that that stresses athleticism over proven production. Through it all, Williams waves the bloody shirt of 1917 as the sign of his commitment to winning.

All things that conflict with the vision are marginalized. Home runs are irrelevant to Williams, since the White Sox hit 240 last year but didn’t win. Even, Runs Scored themselves are irrelevant to Williams. We scored 850 last year, Williams declared at one point this winter, and what did that get us? He vowed that he would gladly sacrifice 100 or more runs to score more “regularly.” Since all of the counting stats have failed to produce wins for White Sox, Williams’ has seemingly come to believe that things that can be counted are immaterial to winning. “I’m not interested in just the raw numbers,” Williams has declared. It’s almost as if Williams has decided that since the quantifiable has failed him that he will cast his lot with the incalculable. He continues to hold up the concepts of “style of play,” “attitude factor,” and “veteran presence” as divining rods that will lead to the fount of winning baseball. I do not doubt that Williams is truly dedicated to bringing the White Sox a world championship team or that he wholeheartedly believes that his plan will deliver upon that promise. I do, however, question his premises and, further, his ability to deliver on his goal.

WHAT WENT RIGHT IN 2004

They came out of the gates strongly. At the end of May, they were 29-20 and held a two and a half game lead on Minnesota.

Several White Sox players took great strides in 2004. Former first round pick, centerfielder Aaron Rowand broke out with a .905 OPS and was finally recognized for his gold glove caliber play in centerfielder. Twenty-four year old, Juan Uribe, stolen from out of Denver for Aaron Miles, broke out with 23 homeruns and the best walk rate of his career, while posting the best full-season batting average of his career. Paul Konerko rebounded from an atrocious first half of 2003 to have his best season. He compiled career highs in home runs, RBI, walks and total bases. Ross Gload established himself as a major league hitter by hitting .321 with an extra-base hit every ten at bats. Mark Buehrle won sixteen games while throwing more than 220 innings for the fourth consecutive year. Japanese import Shingo Takatsu saved nineteen games in twenty chances after June 12th, thanks to a bizarre assortment of breaking pitches.

Finally, the Sox made a series of astute minor trades and signings that netted them a good deal of talent, even if it all didn’t pan out as hoped. Getting Jason Grilli, Juan Uribe, Alex Escobar, Ross Gload and Shingo Takatsu while giving up just Aaron Miles and Matt Ginter needs to be applauded.

WHAT WENT WRONG IN 2004

First, the team was not well equipped to handle the 2004 season. With eight of their starting nine batting right-handed, the Sox came out of the harbor listing terribly to starboard. Second, despite the 11th hour addition of Timo Perez, the Sox bench was not equipped to handle any sort of injury tremors. They got an earthquake. No team can easily withstand the loss of its two best offensive players at mid-season, but the Sox bench was so awful that the twin injuries to Frank Thomas and Magglio Ordonez all but guaranteed that the Sox wouldn’t make the playoffs.

Several individual players struggled through 2004. Ordonez and Thomas were each hurt for more than half the season. Jose Valentin posted the worst batting and on-base percentages of his career, despite hitting 30 home runs. Carlos Lee hit only seven home runs in the first half of the season. To the surprise of no one, Scott Schoeneweis struggled horribly as a starter. Danny Wright limped to an 8.15 ERA before getting injured for the rest of the season. Jon Adkins and Neal Cotts, whom the Sox left on the roster all year despite better pitchers in the minors, had years that only the most pollyanna of Sox fans might describe as constructive.

It’s impossible to list “what went wrong” for this team and not mention the series of disastrous mid-season trades. In two deals, the Sox threw away much of their future, damning themselves, a mid-revenue team, to compete head-to-head with rich teams in the free market for talent.

OFF-SEASON PLAYER MOVEMENT

• Re-signed C Ben Davis and P Ryan Meaux (minor).
• Signed OF Jermaine Dye (2yr/10.15M), P Dustin Hermanson (2yr/5.5M), P Orlando Hernandez (2yr/8M), 2B Tadahito Iguchi (2yr/4.95M), P Kevin Walker (1yr/565K), C A.J. Pierzynski (1yr/2.25M), C Raul Casanova (minor), C Chris Widger (minor), IF Pablo Ozuna (minor), 1B Jorge Toca (minor) and OF Tony Alvarez (minor) as free agents.
• Claimed P Bobby Jenks off waivers.
• Traded for OF Scott Podsednik, P Luis Vizcaino and OF Jerry Owens (minor).

· Lost 2B Roberto Alomar, C Sandy Alomar Jr., OF Magglio Ordonez, P Scott Schoeneweis, SS Jose Valentin, IF Wilson Valdez and P Jason Grilli to free agency or waivers.

· Traded OF Alex Escobar and OF Carlos Lee.

The basic purposes of the Lee/Podsednik trade, as I see it, was to A) free up some salary B) add to the outfield defense and C) further the great Go Go Sox 2005 experiment. Needless to say, I’m highly dubious that trading a .280 hitter who hits 30 homers for a .280 hitter who hits 10 homers can be rationalized on nearly any grounds. But let’s move on. Other than that, the off-season news for the Sox was a bit of a mixed bag. Jermaine Dye was as good as any right fielder not represented by Scott Boras on the market (Hidalgo and Burnitz each got five million dollar, one year deals). For an organization that recently obsessed with cost certainty, the El Duque signing was rather bizarre. Wouldn’t Cory Lidle, a pitcher as talented, more durable and cheaper than Hernandez, have made more sense? The team rushed into the Hermanson and Davis signings which subsequently made unnecessary by the acquisitions of Pierzynski and Vizcaino. The losses of Alex Escobar and, even, Jason Grilli due to 40-man roster considerations seem rather inexcusable. On the other side of the ledger, being able to stumble upon Pierzynski and Iguchi was a nice surprises that the Sox smartly seized upon. Their netting of Ozuna, Casanova and Jenks should make Charlotte area baseball fans happy, while providing solid insurance for the last major league rosters spots.

MANAGEMENT

Head of the ownership group, Jerry Reinsdorf is vilified on the Southside. And, for the life of me, I just don’t understand it. In fact, if you listen closely to the anti-Jerry arguments you find nearly everything they purport is wrong. For example: Supposition - The Sox will never win while Reinsdorf owns the team, Fact – Jerry Reinsdorf has the best winning percentage of any White Sox owner; Supposition – Reinsdorf never spends any money, Fact – Reinsdorf has twice had the highest paid player is baseball on his team. Plus, when he first took over the team he signed ton of free agents, and then picked up more big ticket free agents (Floyd Bannister, Juice Cruz, Ellis Burks, Julio Franco, Tony Phillips, Albert Belle Jaime Navarro, Jose Valentin, etc. . .). Supposition – Reinsdorf is completely disloyal and all about the money, Fact – Has there ever been an organization more loyal? Seriously. All but three of the Sox coaches played for JR and the other three have worked for him at least 18 years. Start counting the number of former players that JR gave a shot to when no one else wanted them? Let’s see, Hoyt, Dotson, Kittle, Baines, Calderon, Fisk, Hairston, Hickey, Marc Hill, Alomar, Cangelosi, Darrin Jackson, Carlos Castillo, Jose DeLeon, . . . Heck, Cangelosi alone was signed 13 times! Sox fans who whine about Reinsdorf either don’t remember or choose to forget the Allyn Brothers reign or terror or the pathetic nature of Veeck’s last regime or (going back now) everything between 1920 and 1950. Perhaps Southsiders hate him so much because they see a little of themselves in him -- the pride; the competitive spirit; the tendency to look for a bargain; the loyalty and the sentimentality.

General Manager, Ken Williams is the product of Reinsdorf’s loyalty. An organizational soldier for fifteen years who has proven himself so committed to producing an immediate winner that he will not allow an opportunity (both sensible and insensible) to add to the team go by.

Field Manager, Ozzie Guillen kept his word. He said that he was going to bunt, hit-and-run, steal bases, yadda, yadda, yadda. Ever notice how great managers never commit themselves to specific actions in advance? Well, maybe, Earl Weaver did, but can you picture Joe Torre or Bobby Cox saying something silly like this? No, of course not. Why? Because great managers (be they in sports, business or what have you) understand that the job of management is to get the most out of your personnel and not simply follow some preordained guideline.

Pitching Coach Don Cooper is like that cliché of the small-town mechanic of yesteryear. He thinks he can fix anything. “You say your engine exploded this morning? Well, let me take a look at ‘er.” I’m sure he’s smart and all but what exactly has he fixed yet? I mean so that you could actually count on it to get you where you want to go and not just around the block before it breaks down again (*cough*Loaiza*cough*).

Hitting Coach, Greg Walker knows all the basics of hitting technique, I’m sure. He talks about all the same things that the other hitting coaches do. As a player he was a Lau disciple, as they all were. I wonder how much better he might have been if he had played today, with the current emphasis on shorter swings and bat-head speed?

First and Thirdbase Coaches, Rock Raines and Joey Cora were both very fast players who often batted immediately after Guillen in the order. They will have the boys running into all kinds of 7-2, 9-5 and CS2-4 putouts, as per orders.

MINOR LEAGUERS

RHP Brandon McCarthy (ETA 2005)

McCarthy was the talk of the White Sox spring camp. He’s a tall (6’7”) rail-thin (190 lbs.) right-hander with an over-the-top delivery and good mechanics. His fastball usually hovers around 90 mph and he has a knee-buckling curveball, but his real weapon is extremely good control. Just 21 years old, McCarthy is already adept at hitting hits his spots with all his pitches. In his two years, from rookie league to AA, he has walked just 60 batter in 351 innings pitched while striking out 406. There is no reason to think that he will not be successful at the major league level.

That said, the notion that McCarthy should begin the season with the White Sox should be squelched immediately. First, while he has done extraordinarily well in the low minors and hasn’t looked fazed at all in spring training, his resume is not perfect. Aside from eight starts at Winston-Salem his H/IP ratio is solid (299 IP, 286 H) but nothing exciting and he has proved intermittently to be liable to the home run. Also, his changeup is decent right now but not fully developed. Finally, the Sox have a history of rushing pitching prospects based on the good numbers (and presumably good scouting reports) earned in the spacious parks of Kannapolis, Winston-Salem and Birmingham. I would hope that the Sox will remember the travails of Mssrs. Garland, Rauch, Sanders, Diaz and Cotts before they insert McCarthy into the rotation.

OF Brian Anderson (ETA 2006)

Having good athletes on your baseball team is nice all. I mean, they look good in the team photo and give your organization a lot of pub with the Baseball America crew. The White Sox think that Anderson, 23, is a “good athlete who knows how to use his tools,” to quote one local scribe. They rave about how he has power to left and hits to all fields. They tout him as a possible centerfielder and laud his strikezone judgment (a solid 48/74 BB/K ration in 117 hi-A and AA games last year). Scouts, however, point out that he probably doesn’t have enough speed for center and criticize him for the poor routes to balls. He’s been injury prone thus far in his career (knee and wrist injuries), and while this does not mean that he will be brittle as he gets older it is not a good sign. Finally, his supporters envision him as a .285 hitting corner outfielder with 20 homer potential, which is nice and all, but to trade your organization’s best prospect because the guy you have in Hi-A ball might someday become Geronimo Berroa demonstrates a lack of rationality.

3B Josh D. Fields (ETA 2006)

Hey, after the Joe Borchard experiment proved so successful, how can you blame them? Both Fields, now 22, and Borchard were both good college quarterbacks with major programs. And both played baseball as a hobby. Not that they were bad at it on the college level. While at Stanford, Borchard hit 47 doubles and 40 homers, drawing 111 walks and striking out 153 times, while never hitting below .330 in 700 at bats. And while Borchard’s troubles at the upper levels of the professional baseball might have given another organization pause, the White Sox decided to fish from the same barrel again. Fields had even less baseball experience than Borchard, batting only 579 times at Oklahoma State with 40 doubles, 25 homers, 87 walks and 113 strikeouts. Fields’ batting average was about 20 points per year better than Borchard’s. And just to remind you – Kenny Williams played both football and baseball at Stanford, and then had no sense of the strikezone as a major leaguer.

Fields did pretty well after stepping into straight into the Hi-A Winston-Salem lineup. His OPS (.285/.333/.445) at slightly above average was respectable, but his lack of plate discipline was exploited mercilessly (18 BB/74 K in 274 ABs). Scouts are still strong on him but isn’t that what we’d expect? He might be a great 3B someday, but let’s remember the history lesson provided by another hot corner denizen, currently out of favor with the organization. Joe Crede played third for Winston-Salem in 1998. As a 20 year old in 1998, he hit .315/.385/.514 with a 53/98 BB/K ratio, which is, if my math is correct, about a million percent better than Fields’s 2004 season. Damn you Clio! You keep getting in the way of the best fantasies!

OF Ryan Sweeney (ETA 2007)

Ryan Sweeney has a beautiful, short, left-handed swing and he will almost certainly become a major leaguer eventually. Thanks to a great three week hot streak during spring training last year, Sweeney landed in Hi-A Winston-Salem despite having only 100 professional at bats, all at the rookie level. His experience there (.283/.342/.379 for a barely average OPS) doesn’t make one take note immediately, however there are several caveats. Sweeney played his high school ball in the short seasons and against the less than stellar competition that one finds in places like Cedar Rapids IA and other Midwest locales. Secondly, producing at an average rate in the Carolina League at the age of 19 is still pretty good. Also, Sweeney got better as the season progressed. He was hitting .265 in mid-July but a strong second half boosted his season average over .280. He isn’t philosophically opposed to drawing a walk, he doesn’t strike out much and his K/BB rate actually improved slightly from his 2003 debut in the Sox rookie leagues.

LHP Gio Gonzalez (ETA 2008)

Ahh, to be left-handed. A right-handed pitcher who threw 87-90 with a really good curveball would be considered a “fair” prospect. But a left-hander with such numbers? Well, a southpaw like Gonzalez, 19, might immediately be placed on a team’s top ten list even though he has less than 65 innings of professional experience. Gonzalez dominated the Appy league with 36 Ks and a 2.25 ERA in 24 innings over six starts. His Kannapolis stint was very good for an 18-year old, but otherwise an unspectacular 3.76 ERA with 20 walks in 41 innings. Gonzalez has a very nice assortment of off-speed and breaking pitches (read: a good “feel for pitching.”) so he has been projected as high as an eventual number two or number three starter in the bigs. Still, you can wake me when he turns in one season as nice as Arnie Munoz (115 Ks and 41 hits in 79 innings at Kannapolis as a 19 year old in 2001) has produced several times.

C Francisco Hernandez (ETA 2007)

Did you know that the White Sox have never developed an all-star catcher? Me neither, but Phil Rogers said so. Except that Rogers was wrong (I know, hard to believe). The White Sox developed Brian Downing, an all-star for the Angels in 1979. Hernandez, 19, is very, very young but it’s possible that he might eventually become the first home grown ChiSox catcher to start an all-star game while with the Sox. A switch-hitter, he’s got solid power from both sides of the plate and a discerning eye (53 walks in 465 professional plate appearances). Further, he has demonstrated good “game calling” skills and a strong arm, despite some concerns about his slow release and lack of polish behind the plate. Anything goes with predictions about very young catching prospects. Hernandez might, like Ivan Rodriguez, bulk up (cough) and be great; he might simply get worn down by the position, peaking as someone’s AAA utility guy; or he might fail to hit at higher levels. We don’t know, of course, but it should be fun to watch.

Others

Shhhh. Don’t tell KW or Ozzie but several of their lower level minor leaguers are actually able fight off the temptation to swing at every pitch. For example, homegrown Sox fan, OF Mike Spidale, 23, gets on base a lot (drawing a walk every other game to go with his dozen HPBs a year) and has shown some ability to drive the ball over the last two years. Detroit area prep star 1B/OF Casey Rogowski, 24, had been hobbled by injuries for two years before breaking through with 18 homers and 91 walks last year at Winston-Salem. At Lo-A Kannapolis: OF Thomas Brice posted a .394 OBP and .882 OPS; 2b/3b Antoin Gray, a Ray Durham look-alike, had a .356 OBP to go with his 32 doubles and 13 homers; OF Chris Young drew sixty walks and clubbed 60 extra-base hits; and Phelps-All-Star of the future RF Ricardo Nanita, 24, is every bit the professional hitter (.316/.391/.400) despite falling on his face at Winston-Salem to begin the year.

On the mound, last year’s top pitching prospect, Kris Honel, 22, had a miserable year. His fastball, originally clocked in the low-90s topped out around 88 by the end of 2003. Then, he developed shoulder “tendonitis” during his first start of 2004. Expected to miss only a week, he made only three more appearances after that (all bad). The good news for Honel is that the White Sox reported finding now structural damage to his shoulder. The bad news is that his shoulder hurts and that is usually not good at all. The Sox decided to make another of last year’s can’t-miss pitching prospects, LH Arnie Munoz, 23, back into a starter at AA where he pitched very well. He didn’t handle AAA well though, and he made the worst start you’ll ever see in Chicago (seriously), before ending the year in the Sox pen (where he pitched decently). Just to confuse everyone the Sox have two Josh Fieldes. The RH Josh L. Fields had some potential and may be a solid major league middle reliever someday. LH Ray Liotta got a lot of the press this off-season for his efforts in the Pioneer League, but fellow 2004 second rounder LH Wes Whisler is probably just as good a pitcher. It doesn’t show since he was rushed through Kannapolis and into Winston-Salem despite a mediocre strikeout rate.

PLAYERS

C A. J. Pierzynski (2004: Miguel Olivo/Sandy Alomar Jr./ Ben Davis/Jamie Burke)

The White Sox lucked into Pierzynski. That is if you consider paying Ben Davis a million dollars to hit .260 at Charlotte lucky. Seriously, though, the never expected to be able to sign A.J. but his non-tendering by the Giants allowed the Sox to acquire a solid backstop at a cut-rate price. Pierzynski’s hit rate dropped to just 27% in 2004, down from his career norms of 32-34%. Why? He wasn’t making the same kind of contact, presumably. While he wasn’t striking out nearly as often (putting the ball in play in 94% of his at bats), he didn’t do much with the balls that he hit fair. His line drive rate dropped last year, while his fly ball rate jumped. While he hit just .249/.273/.382 in the second half (thanks to a 25% hit rate), almost all the difference between his first and second halves was due to fewer singles. Additionally, his strikeouts dropped from and average of 57 to just 27 last year. It’s possible that Alou used him a lot of hit-and-runs, asking him to put a lot balls in play without regard to driving the ball. Pierzynski will probably rebound to his usual .290/.330/.440 and his left-handed bat will have its uses. Too bad Ozzie is already talking about platooning him.

1B Paul Konerko (2004: Konerko)

The foundation of player evaluation in baseball is the season. We want to know what a player did over the course of 160 or so games. And while there is a good deal of validity for using this as a yardstick, there is no real necessity for it since with the information that we now have we can use almost any basis for our measurements. I’m not advocating the reducto ad absurdum statistics that can be gleamed from ballpark jumbo screens (“Johnson is hitting .296 in day games at home against AL Central left-handers.”) or Jayson Stark (“Johnson is only the seventh right-fielder since 1997 to average 28 homers, 23 stolen bases and 87 RBI over three years.”). However, using the baseball season as a baseline can frequently obscure as much as it illuminates. For example, in Paul Konerko’s six seasons he has posted an OPS of at least .810 in every half season but two. One of those half-seasons – first half of 2003 - was so miserably bad though that it made it look like a Konerko had performed badly all year. But after posting a .567 OPS (thanks in large part to a 19% hit rate), PK rebounded in the second half of 2003 (.865 OPS) and carried that over into 2004, as the smart money said that he would.

That said, the Sox will have a difficult decision concerning Konerko after 2005 when his contract expires. Konerko is a fan favorite and aside from Frank Thomas the only player linked to the Chisox of the 20th century. However, he’s not nearly the player that the White Sox seem to think he is. Konerko is essentially Eric Karros, the man he wasn’t able to unseat when both were with the Dodgers. His skills are just not very rare. Five current players are among his top comps and all ten players on the list score at least a 920 (on a 1-100 scale in which 900 or higher signifies that the two players are very similar). Further, the names on the list, while solid first baseman in their times, don’t strike fear into the hearts of many (Alvin Davis? Jason Thompson? Don Hurst?). Then there are the facts that Konerko probably isn’t as good as most of those players and, finally, that most of his comps aged pretty badly. So, the question facing the Sox will be how much should we pay to bring back a fungible commodity that probably won’t be worth a fraction of his current value by the end of even a three year contract? Knowing the Sox, they will probably give him a healthy raise and a four year deal.

2B Tadahito Iguchi (2004: Juan Uribe/Willie Harris)

Talk about setting bar low. While introducing Iguchi to the media, Ken Williams reeled off a scouting report that few could have interpreted as being enthusiastic. Williams first praised Iguchis “attitude” and “style of play” before blandly declaring that Iguchi’s “raw numbers” were mostly irrelevant. Williams, who never saw Iguchi play live before signing him, lauded his ability to take a “mistake up in the zone on a change or breaking ball” and “pull it out of the park.” Really? So the best things that Williams can say about Iguchi are that his excellent recent numbers in Japan are irrelevant and that he can hit a homer on a hanging curveball. OOOOOH, I’m all tingly!!!

So, what should we really expect from Iguchi? Unlike almost everyone else on the Sox, he looks he’s able to draw a walk. He can probably hit 10-15 homers and field the position well. Is he an upgrade over the position from 2004? If you believe ZiPS, yes, since Sox second baseman posted only a .736 OPS last year. Whether he can he replace Jose Valentin, the middle infielder out of the equation in 2005, remains to be seen. Still, he was a good pick-up for the White Sox. Even if Willie Harris, an underrated defensive second baseman, turns his best year with the bat, he’s still not as good a player as Iguchi. Getting him for a small fraction of Kaz Matsui’s salary is just frosting on the cake.

3B Joe Crede (2004: Crede)

Is this guy a streak hitter or what? From the beginning of the season: 0 for 8; then 7 for 18; then 0 for 12; 4 for 11; 0 for 11; 15 for 45; 1 for 26. He hit .329/.418/.600 in June, but an amazingly bad .198/.232/.264 in July. The other thing that jumps out at you when you look at Crede’s batting stats is how eminently mediocre a hitter he is. If a pitcher knows himself, then Crede is toast. Crede can’t hit the good flyball pitchers nor the good groundball pitchers. He can’t hit the good finesse pitchers nor the good power pitchers. He’s mediocre the first time he faces a pitcher and remains so in all subsequent at bats. He’s in his prime breakout years, but right now he has one offensive skill – he creams a first pitch fastball from crappy pitchers. End of story.

SS Juan Uribe (2004: Jose Valentin)

Believe it or not, Juan Uribe is maintaining his Miguel Tejadaesque career path. Stolen from Colorado for a 27-year old slap-hitting second base prospect (Aaron Miles), Uribe broke out in 2004, setting career highs in several categories. Uribe also fielded admirably in his 30 games at SS last year (.881 ZR, second in the AL behind Pokey Reese). Comiskey Park’s very low infield error totals, surely help Uribe’s fielding stats, but he’s a solid SS, regardless. The thing that should interest Sox fans the most though is that he has mirrored Miguel Tejada so far in his development. Uribe still needs to a season confirm his new-found offensive prowess and needs to boost his walk total to more than a few dozen a year, but he’s on his way to being Tejada. Of course, he could always end up as Hubie Brooks too.

LF Scott Podsednik (2004: Carlos Lee)

Was this really necessary? Let me establish my credentials on this one. Unlike many of my sabermetric friends, I am not opposed to the stolen base or good defensive players. I like them both. I loved the Whitey Herzog teams. When I manage in a table-top league my teams are always among the leaders in stolen bases. In my world, there is nothing wrong with a team stealing a base or two-hundred. And there is nothing wrong with a team wanting good defensive players. Further, Podsedinik could turn out to be suffering from nothing more than a sophomore slump. Sure, his MLEs suggest that his 2004 is a truer indication of Podsednik’s ability than his wonderful 2003 season, but he’s still entering his peak years and could still become a good major league player for a couple years. I can see him becoming a Dan Gladden or something like that, which isn’t too awful. That said, please keep in mind that Carlos Lee is also coming into his prime and that Podsednik’s career numbers are no where near as good as Lee’s crappy half of 2004. Trading Lee for Podsednik and Vizcaino saved the White Sox about three to four million dollars, but may cost them the division.

CF Aaron Rowand (2004: Rowand/Harris)

Aaron Rowand is my favorite current player. Sure, he’s a sucker for the slider away and doesn’t take enough pitches, but other than that he’s nearly a perfect ballplayer. Rowand got his first real publicity this season after posting the best offensive numbers of his career. And while those 2004 stats, especially his batting average, might be a bit over his head, his power numbers are legitimate. The best news is that his defense has finally gotten some notice by the baseball intelligentsia, despite being all but ignored by the major mediots. Rowand doesn’t look like a center fielder. While he’s not a hulking behemoth in the Gorman Thomas mold, he doesn’t look like cliché-image of the best defensive centerfielder in baseball. And yet he just might be. By the time the makers of conventional wisdom (read: Dan Patrick) discover him he will be long past his prime, so revel in his defensive glory while he’s still largely unnoticed.

RF Jermaine Dye (2004: Ordonez/Rowand/Borchard)

What the White Sox needed to do this off-season was find a left-handed power hitter who drew walks to replace Maggs Ordonez in right field. Too bad there weren’t any players like that available on the free agent market. What’s that you say? There was a free agent who fit all those qualifications? And he was willing to sign for three million dollars less per year than Ordonez made in 2004? If all that’s true, why wouldn’t the White Sox have signed this J.D. Drew guy? Oh . . .right. Scott Boras. See, Scott Boras is J.D. Drew’s agent and the White Sox refuse to deal with Boras. Eventually, the Sox will learn that it’s tough enough to run an organization without hoisting oneself by one’s own petards. As for now, they labor on, denying themselves the best players in baseball because of spite.

Dye was not an awful signing, given what was available on the FA market at the time. Dye can play defense and he can hit some homers. Nobody is denying Dye’s capacity to continue to play a good RF and hit .270 with 20 homers a year for the next five or so year. I’m just saying that I’m wouldn’t be very excited to have that guy as my cleanup hitter.

DH Frank Thomas (2004: Thomas/Carl Everett)

Over the last three seasons, Frank Thomas has hit three times as many homers in Comiskey Park (I leave sucking up to corporations to ESPN) than on the road. I have no idea what this indicates, but I’m sure that it’s significant. I’m not a mathematician and I don’t play one on TV (man, that would be a boring show!) but it seems to my liberal-arts brain that a consistent ratio of between 2-1 and 6-1 home HRs to road HRs indicates a real phenomena. I have no idea what this means for Thomas’s future, but I do know that you can’t have a DH who posts an .800 OPS (as Thomas does in road games). I guess you need to gut this one out since he’s the only guy on the team that knows how to get on base consistently, but it’s a scary trend. It’s almost enough to make one forget that Thomas was the Sox OPS leader in 2004 by almost 100 points.

BENCH

Chris Widger will begin the season as Pierzynski’s backup. Things to know about Widger: A) He’s never had an OBP above .315, ever. B) He’s the kind of guy you sign when you have no idea what you need in a backup catcher. The Sox currently have three catchers in Charlotte (Burke, Davis, Casanova) who are all as good as Widger.

Ben Davis is the kind of guy that Billy Beane talks about when he says “we aren’t selling jeans.” Davis looks like a baseball player as selected by central casting - tall, strong, handsome. Too bad he can’t play baseball. He’ll start the season in Charlotte for his own good, according to Ozzie Guillen, since it wouldn’t have been fair to him to only play one game a week. Ain’t that nice of Ozz?

Willie Harris will have a few pretty good seasons at the major league level. He’ll probably have to wait until he’s 30 or so and has learned how to pull a pitch though. Harris’s biggest problem right now is that he doesn’t hit the ball with enough authority. He takes a ton of pitches, but since he does next to nothing with the ball once he puts it in play there is no reason for opposing pitchers to do anything other than pound the strikezone. I’m probably the only one who’s willing to go out on this limb but it wouldn’t surprise me if Willie eventually turned out to be a similar player to Tony Phillips. In three of Phillips’s first four years he was shuttled from position to position picking up only 400-450 at bats, roughly the same number as Harris had last year. In those three seasons Phillips averaged only 16 doubles, 3 triples and 4 homers. In his first full-season Harris had 15, 2 and 2, despite getting roughly 30 less at bats than Phillips averaged.

Once upon a time, Pablo Ozuna was going to be a star. But then he aged faster than that Nazi at the end of the last Indiana Jones movie. Suddenly, his promising age-24 year at Calgary in 2002 (.326/.371/.475), became an age-27 career season. He’s now almost 30 and coming off a couple of mediocre years at AAA. He has a little speed but can’t steal bases with any reliability; he has no power to speak of; and in a really good full year he might draw 30 walks. Ozzie loves him but wouldn’t you love a guy that that would make your career numbers of .264/.287/.338 look good? Did you realize that the White Sox have traded off five decent prospects to acquire Carl Everett during the last two seasons? Isn’t that a pretty high price to pay because the White Sox haven’t properly evaluated their team during the off-season? Here, try this at work sometime. “Hey, Boss. I didn’t realize that we would need more raw materials to run our Chicago plant at the level that I promised, so, I sold off the Des Moines, Elmira and Wichita plants to get what I needed. Hope that’s okay.” Call me tomorrow and tell me if you still have a job. Ross Gload did for the Sox last year exactly what he’s been able to do for years. Gload was a minor league star. He’s hit better than .295 with power every year except during the first half of 2000 in Portland (he hit .284 with a .494 slugging percentage). He posted 56 extra-base hits in lo-A. After he was traded to the Cubs (for Henry Rodriguez) he had as good a month as any human can (.404/.453/.942) in his first taste of AAA. Problem is that he “failed” in 60 big league at bats subsequently and acquired the dreaded AAAA-hitter tag. Hopefully he has now rid himself of that moniker for good.

Timo Perez will rebound in 2005. He had a terrible 22% hit rate in the second half, so he’ll bounce back in 2005. But to what? His yearly OPS numbers are 70, 106, 74 and 58. It’s terribly unlikely at this point that his age-27 year was anything but a fluke, so he might rebound to a .260 hitter who’ll hit a homer once a month. That’s the kind of player that will kill you if he has to play more than once a week.

And then there’s Joe Borchard, Mr. Untouchable. "No way will I trade [Borchard]," Kenny Williams told Peter Gammons right before the trade deadline. "It took him time to learn that baseball is different from football because it's a game of controlled aggression," says Williams. "Joe is very intense, but he has made great strides. He's going to be an exceptional player in time." Borchard hit .170 in the second half of 2004, and then his winter league team revoked his baseball visa, citing gross hitting incompetence. Whoops. So, now Mr. Untouchable will go back to Charlotte, for the fourth time and dream of someday being David McCarty.

ROTATION

Mark Buehrle

It was recently revealed that the reason that the CIA botched the Iraqi pre-war intelligence so badly was because of “Groupthink.” You see, Groupthink is a concept identified by Irvin Janis in the early-1970s to explain faulty decision-making by a group. According, to Janis, Groupthink occurs in highly cohesive settings (for example, large numbers of overweight, baseball-obsessed, computer-savvy technicians) when the group is under considerable pressure to make a quality decision (say, during a book deadline when they need to formulate a system by which one can predict when a pitcher will get hurt due to overwork). In these circumstances, the members of the group tend to: be uncritical of each other’s ideas; manifest an illusion of invulnerability and superior morality; share similar self-reinforcing stereotypes; and rationalize poor decisions. As you might guess, I would argue that Groupthink has infested the sabermetric community in recent years. The most grievous manifestation of this pollutant is in the area of pitch counts and managerial “abuse.” The level of Groupthink on this issue has become so pervasive that it has taken on the characteristics of a crusade, with the acolytes declaring that they are “saving” the pitchers and that agnostics to their dogma are sadistic tyrants.

This brings us to 26-year old Mark Buehrle, who has thrown more innings over the last four years than any pitcher in the majors. Buehrle is a rare bird – a left-handed innings eater. Like 1980s southpaw workhorses Fernando Valenzuela and Frank Viola, Buehrle has thrown a thousand strong innings while still in the salad days of his career. You might think that was a good thing, but from a dogmatist to the cult of pitchcountology this would elicit nothing by the “tsk, tsk” of moral indignation. You see, Viola’s career was negligently disfigured by the unenlightened Billy Gardner and Valenzuela’s promise was sacrificed at the altar of Saint Tommy’s ancient orthodoxy. They could have been so much more, we are told, if only their managers had been schooled in the new religion. It’s a seductive argument. Both of those strong lefties were done as effective pitchers by the time they were just a bit over thirty years old. Couldn’t they have done more if their managers had been more enlightened? No, probably not. Seriously, how many innings do we expect from a guy? Fernando and “Sweet Music” each threw nearly 3000 innings in their careers, placing them in the top sixty pitchers since the WW2, the Big One. Isn’t that enough? I find it ironic that the same people who claim that there is “no such thing as a pitching prospect” because of the omnipresence of injuries are so quick to dismiss the notion that the same ubiquity exists for older hurlers. Look, pitchers get hurt. They get hurt at the age of 15; they get hurt at the age of 40; and they get hurt at every age in between. If injuries force Mark Buehrle to “limit” his career to just 3000 innings, then he and all of us should consider him pretty damn lucky.

Freddy Garcia

Boy, did I rant about this one for a while. The Sox had only three young properties last season: Juan Uribe, Jeremy Reed and Miguel Olivo. At mid-season a superficial look at the White Sox stats suggested that they were losing because of a lack of pitching, specifically because of a lack of a fifth starter. Ignore for a moment that no team has ever failed to make the playoffs because of a lack of a fifth starter. Meanwhile, out in Seattle’s spacious pastures, Freddy Garcia, playing for a free agent contract, was putting together his best half season in years. So, Kenny Williams never one to shy away from a bad trade to acquire an “ace” pitcher, traded not one but two of his three marketable commodities to get Garcia. To add insult to injury, Sox fans immediately learned that Garcia and his new manager, the Ozzard of Whizz, are like family. Garcia apparently has always wanted the chance to play for his father figure. So, the Sox gave up the only solid catcher in their organization AND their best prospect AND a player with a decent shot at being a major league infielder some day for three months of Freddy Garcia, whom they surely could have signed as a free agent. In Williams’s defense, when he acquired Garcia the organization had no idea that Magglio was done for the season or that Thomas’s season would end in short order. Garcia is a really nice number two or three starter. Anyone who tells you he’s an ace because he once starter the first game of the playoffs for the 2000 Mariners is selling something.

Orlando Hernandez

El Duque’s last 230 innings have been just great. He’s stuck out nearly 200 batters while walking just 70 or so, and he’s given up 200 hits despite pitching before a crappy defense. Unfortunately, those 230 innings have come over three full seasons. The conventional wisdom is that Hernandez will be an excellent pitcher as long as he’s healthy. This, of course, might be true; it might even be likely. But isn’t there just as good a chance that a 38-year old pitcher with health issue might not be effective when he throws? Might he not lose his control if it hurts to throw the ball? Isn’t it possible that his stuff will lag due to injury and age? Of course. So, I would like to see the Sox use El Duque with creativity. Don’t throw him out there every fifth day until he breaks down. Use him the way that the Tigers used the great Tommy Bridges in his waning years, when his weary right arm ached from throwing too many knee-buckling curves. The Sox need to put El Duque on a strict once-a-week, 24-game-a-year schedule. Thanks for the complete game, Orlando. See you next Sunday.

Jose Contreras

This was a decent gamble by the Sox. How were they to know that things would go this wrong? This decision to trade Contreras for Loaiza was about cost certainty. Loaiza, the 2003 AL Cy Young runner-up, was having a solid first half and was due to be a free agent after the 2004 season. So, the Sox swapped Loaiza and his likely ten million dollar 2005 price tag for Contreras and his certain six million dollar 2005 and 2006 price tag. That Contreras has seductive stuff was the kicker. He has a devastating split-fingered pitch to go with (as Bill James once said of a young Frank Tanana) the ability to throw a snowball through a blast furnace. But Contreras has a nasty habit of falling behind batters, making himself into a batting practice pitcher in deep count situations. I have this rule about people. I don’t expect people to change after they reach maturity. If someone is a lazy bum when they are 30 then they will probably be lazy the rest of their life. To expect anything else is self-delusional. If you wish to believe that Contreras will suddenly become a different pitcher at the age of 33 then go right ahead, but I refuse to be co-dependent when it comes to Contreras.

Jon Garland

Look, Jon, throw the damn sinker 70% of time, will you?!?! Garland has two really good pitches: a fine sinker and a good curveball. He throws both. He shouldn’t. Seriously, it’s almost mind-boggling that anyone with this good a sinker can give up 34 homers a year. He only gives up two kinds of balls in play, it seems – weak grounders and titanic flys. And yet I’m strangely sanguine about Garland.

I would suggest that these are growing pains. I think it’s funny that same people who are fascinated by completely unproven prospects are so quick to write off young major league players because they have not become everything that a fevered mind predicted that they might be. Garland is 25 years old. Yes, 25. His lifetime ERA+ is 101. Yes, 101. And his he has already won 46 major league games. Yes, 46. If Garland develops a strikeout pitch, he’ll be a great pitcher for several years. If not he’ll just be someone like Tim Belcher or Mike Moore. In other words a winner of say, 150-170 major league games.

BULLPEN

Shingo Takatsu

Takatsu throws a 60 mph pitch. Seriously. He delivers pitches from every point on the compass and at about 25 different speeds between 60 and 85 mph. It seems to be working. Takatsu saved 19 games in 20 tries after getting his first opportunity in late June. Some analysts have suggested that his second half ERA of 3.58 indicates that Mr. Zero will struggle a bit more in 2005. But these are his monthly opposition batting averages in 2004: .192, .154, .105, .188, .233 and .200. That doesn’t look like he trended toward a bad second half to me. It looks like he had a bad month of August (really just a bad weekend in Boston). So, I’d expect Takatsu to continue to baffle AL hitters for at least one more season.

Damaso Marte

Marte can be as unhittable as any left-hander in the majors. His control will desert him frequently and when he falls behind he’s as likely to give up a homer as not. However, he cannot be touched by a left-handed hitter and when he’s pitching well, he gets both righties and lefties out with regularity. Making him a LOOGY would be a waste. This is too good an arm to be limited to 40 innings a year. The Sox’ acquisitions of a gaggle of mediocre right-handed setup men suggest that they don’t agree with me. Too bad.

Three nearly identical righthanders

Dustin Hermanson is Kenny Williams answer to Joe Nathan. Williams does this kind of thing a lot. Let me refresh your memory. Joe Nathan was a starting pitcher for San Francisco before the Giants converted him into a highly effective reliever. The Twins braved the slings and arrows of outrageous sports columnists to make Nathan their closer and then rode his great 2004 year into the playoffs. And then this off-season, in what I’m sure is just a coincidence (wink, wink), Kenny Williams signs Dustin Hermanson, another SF starter turned reliever, to a free agent contract this off-season. The difference between the two is, of course, their save totals. You must conclude that Nathan is a much better pitcher than Hermanson, unless you confuse the accumulation of saves with a skill. The weight of the evidence to this point indicates that Kenny Williams is so deluded. But the silliest part of the Hermanson signing is that the Sox already had at least three right handed setup pitchers who are better than Hermanson on their major league roster.

But don’t think that they let this dissuade them from doing something even more foolish, like, say, trading for Luis Vizcaino. Vizcaino once had a season in which he posted a good ERA and he’s been given the opportunities to amass 19 or more holds in a season twice. Unfortunately, he’s just not a quality pitcher. Good pitchers do not give up 28 home runs in 134 innings pitched, like Vizcaino has over the last two years. On the bright side, fans in the Comiskey Park bleachers now have a much greater chance to get a souvenir.

The best of the three White Sox right-handed setup men, Cliff Politte, is the one that the Sox already had and didn’t need to replace. Politte struck out 48 in 52 innings last year and walked only 17 batters unintentionally. Plus, he gave up only 6 homers last year despite Comiskey’s tateriffic environment.

Others

In the days before the contagion of relief pitcher platooning spread from a localized virus in the town of LaRussaville to a national epidemic, a team with five relievers might have seemed completely set for the upcoming campaign. But nowadays teams “need” to carry at least eleven pitchers and usually twelve, even though the last two (and often the last three or four) pitchers on the staff completely stink. So, the Sox will carry at least one and probably two of the following pitchers for the better part of the 2005 season.

Jon Adkins, the alpha and omega of what the Sox got in return for Ray Durham, will almost certainly have a spot on the roster because he was everything that Kenny Williams could get for trading one of the 50 greatest second baseman in baseball history. The highlight of Adkins resume is a 3.97 ERA campaign at AAA Charlotte in which he struck out only 59 (!!!) batters in 122 innings.

Neal Cotts spent all of the 2004 season in the Sox pen and I have no idea why. Going into 2004, Cotts had no experience above AA, where he had walked 56 batters in 108 innings. Cotts struggled all year (despite a bit of an improvement to his control in the second half) giving up a ridiculous 13 HRs in 65 innings and allowing opposing lefthanders to post a .861 OPS. It’s not like the Sox didn’t have a better option than allowing Cotts to gain service time while pitching badly; Kelly Wunsch, he of the 2.97 ERA and .176/.314./250 numbers to opposing lefties, was showing that he can still get out everyone in AAA. Why was this decision made?

Felix Diaz is homer-prone, but unlike Cotts and Adkins he has accomplished all that he needs to at AAA. After posting a 3.97 ERA in the lefty-swinging haven of Charlotte in 2003, Diaz dropped his ERA to 2.97 with just 24 walks while striking out 96 in 115 innings last year. When he got roughed up in five of his first seven major league starts, the Sox decided that the 24-year old was not a viable starter and moved him to the pen. Now, it’s possible that he’ll be better as a reliever because he does not have a good off-speed pitch to get lefties out. However, it’s possible that he was better as a reliever last year because me made most of his starts in 2004 against good hitting teams (Cubs, A’s, Indians) while he threw most of his relief outtings against bad hitting teams in pitchers environments (Tigers, Dodgers, Royals). Good thing that Greg Maddux didn’t pitch for this organization after his horrible first season or he might have been shipped back to AAA in his next season like Diaz was this spring.

Another pitcher better than Cotts or Adkins was Jeff Bajenaru who posted ERAs of 1.34 and 1.80 in AA and AAA with a combined 31 hits and 67 strikeouts but just 14 walks in 55 innings. If you can explain why the Sox have banished Bajenaru and Diaz back to AAA but refused to reconsider the tenures of Cotts and Adkins without including Kenny Williams’s trade history, I’d like to hear it.

According to a Chicago area columnist who covers the Sox for Baseball America, Bobby Jenks needs to get his personal life straightened out in order to remedy his professional career. See, that’s why I can never be a sports columnist; I’m not quick enough to use amateur psychoanalysis to explain a lack of athletic accomplishment. I just thought that Jenks needed to learn how throw strikes and stop getting hurt every three months. Silly me.

Arnie Munoz posted a 3.90 ERA in 10 relief innings after his catastrophic initial start. Like Diaz, there is no reason to think that Munoz cannot be a solid starter eventually. Making him a LOOGY would be a waste of talent at this point. And yet, these are the White Sox who gave a 40 man roster spot to Kevin Walker and let proven LOOGY Kelly Wunsch depart for nothing. Walker’s signing also means that there was one less roster spot for someone who can help the team now or in the future, like Alex Escobar.

WHAT CAN KEEP THEM FROM WINNING THE DIVISION IN 2005?

For one, Kenny Williams could get his wish: the White Sox could score only 650 runs. Their lack of on-base ability means very few opportunities to be “aggressive.” For another, Conteras could pitch like he did in 2003 and/or El Duque could get hurt, leaving the White Sox with the same rotation that they had at the end of last season. So, it’s very conceivable, heck, it’s likely that the Sox will have sacrificed 150 runs for no gain. If that happens they will be lucky to hold their losses to 90. Another thing that could happen and probably will at some point, is that Williams will decide that he needs a veteran presence and some playoff experience at some irrelevant point on roster and do something blindingly foolish like give up Diaz and Munoz for Craig Counsell or McCarthy and Sweeney for Erstad. Don’t laugh, you know it can happen. That said, the Sox will probably be a better defensive team next year, especially in the outfield. It’s possible that Dye will rebound and Crede will breakout, bolstering the offense. Can the White Sox eke their way into the playoffs and then win the World Series while being outscored (like their mentors the Marlins did a few years ago)? Sure. But, personally, I’d rather go “all in” with a 3-8 offsuit in the hole than put my money on this team.

2005 ZiPS Projections

Name                 W   L    ERA   G  GS     INN    H   ER  HR   BB    K 
Marte*               5   2   3.73  72   0    70.0   57   29   6   31   75 
Buehrle*            17  11   4.04  35  35   236.0  248  106  25   55  148 
Hernandez            6   5   4.08  20  19   119.0  115   54  14   38   97 
Takatsu              6   4   4.19  59   0    58.0   54   27   6   22   48 
Politte              3   2   4.19  59   0    58.0   53   27   7   22   53 
Garcia              14  11   4.39  32  32   211.0  212  103  30   65  173 
Meaux*               7   6   4.46  29  18   121.0  121   60   9   54   76 
Bajenaru             3   3   4.57  54   0    61.0   57   31   7   32   57 
Adkins               5   6   4.95  36  16   111.0  122   61  17   38   72 
Vizcaino             4   4   4.96  74   0    69.0   70   38  13   25   63 
Pacheco              5   6   5.02  28  20   120.0  123   67  11   63   75 
Garland             12  12   5.03  33  33   197.0  215  110  27   74  115 
Diaz                 7   7   5.04  31  21   134.0  144   75  26   40  101 
Honel                8   8   5.10  25  25   134.0  135   76  17   69  103 
Hermanson            5   7   5.14  41  14   105.0  112   60  18   39   74 
Jenks                4   4   5.20  13  13    64.0   56   37   4   51   59 
Munoz*               7   8   5.21  39  21   133.0  132   77  20   66  110 
Cotts*               5   7   5.27  38  15    94.0   82   55  10   69   92 
Villacis             5   6   5.51  33  16   111.0  119   68  18   50   69 
Contreras            9  12   5.56  30  28   157.0  159   97  30   81  143 
Sanders*             2   2   5.57  49   0    63.0   64   39  11   34   51 
Smith                3   4   5.75  60   0    72.0   78   46  11   41   47 
Stewart*             6   9   5.78  25  24   137.0  159   88  26   55   74 
Walker*              1   3   6.56  48   1    59.0   67   43  14   34   45 

Name               P    AVG   OBP   SPC   G  AB   R   H 2B 3B HR RBI  BB   K SB CS 
Konerko            1b  .276  .352  .497 151 543  74 150 24  0 32 100  60  84  1  0 
Podsednik*         cf  .271  .339  .396 150 594  84 161 26  6 12  60  58  96 52 13 
Thomas             dh  .242  .378  .469 125 426  62 103 25  0 24  75  88  89  1  1 
Iguchi             2b  .281  .363  .427 127 480  74 135 30  2 12  62  58  90 17  5 
Crede              3b  .258  .313  .462 148 535  70 138 29  1 26  82  37  79  1  2 
Dye                rf  .262  .333  .462 126 481  78 126 26  2 22  75  48 109  3  1 
Pierzynski*        c   .292  .338  .447 135 486  55 142 30  3 13  67  21  42  1  1 
Rowand             cf  .276  .329  .491 137 442  71 122 32  3 19  66  28  74 13  5 
Uribe              ss  .267  .314  .443 134 506  73 135 25  5 18  65  33  96  8  8 
Gload*             lf  .298  .339  .468 127 410  54 122 27  2 13  57  23  55  3  3 
Alvarez            cf  .283  .339  .456 125 417  78 118 22  1 16  69  33  73 19 13 
Borchard#          cf  .231  .294  .418 140 507  68 117 24  1 23  68  43 136  4  4 
Everett#           cf  .258  .331  .447 113 396  51 102 19  1 18  60  34  67  3  3 
Harris*            2b  .260  .335  .341 129 419  62 109 15  2  5  35  47  74 20  9 
Perez*             cf  .272  .311  .382 120 356  40  97 19  1  6  41  19  31  5  5 
Ozuna              2b  .257  .293  .354 112 401  55 103 21  3  4  42  17  45 22 15 
Toca               1b  .259  .291  .383  95 332  31  86 17  0  8  40  12  62  3  2 
Burke              c   .275  .320  .366  92 287  37  79 12  1  4  31  17  35  0  1 
Davis#             c   .233  .291  .380  98 300  33  70 17  0  9  37  23  71  1  1 
Casanova           c   .250  .302  .381  79 268  32  67 15  1  6  35  20  45  1  1 
Lopez              ss  .234  .267  .272 114 401  48  94  9  0  2  26  15  39 12  5 
Widger             c   .229  .284  .377  71 223  21  51 18  0  5  27  15  37  0  1