2009 MLB Preview: Chicago White Sox
White Sox hope to power way to AL Central repeat
Laden with power bats, the White Sox will need a turnaround on the mound if they hope to be one-half of a possible All-Chicago matchup in the World Series this fall.
An all Windy City World Series? It’s possible, and for a little while last season it appeared the 2008 Series might be played in Chi Town with both the White Sox and Cubs winning their respective division.
The Cubs all but cruised to the NL Central title, winning an NL-high 97 games and setting North Side fans up for good times in Wrigleyville throughout the National League playoffs. Meanwhile on the South Side, the ChiSox had to play a rainout makeup on the Monday after the final Sunday of the regular season, and after winning that game against the Tigers they had to take on the Twins for the ALC tiebreaker before officially becoming part of October baseball.
That late push to get into the postseason forced manager Ozzie Guillen to press some of his starters into extra duty down the stretch, with Mark Buehrle pitching on short rest in the Sunday regular season contest and bringing John Danks back on a day’s less rest to pitch the tiebreaker against Minnesota. Guillen wouldn’t use that as an excuse for why the ChiSox eventually fell in the ALDS to Tampa Bay, partly because the Rays earned their first trip to the playoffs with a very solid team.
But at least the White Sox have something of an excuse to give; the Cubs have no excuse for the pathetic showing they put up in the NLDS when the Dodgers swept Chicago’s lovable losers from the postseason.
Now in 2009, both teams are looking to get back to the playoffs and possibly set up the first all Chicago World Series since 1906 when Big Ed Walsh, Nick Altrock and Doc White pitched the White Sox past the Tinker/Evers/Chance Cubs. That entire six-game Series attracted less than 100,000 paying customers through the turnstiles at the old West Side Grounds and South Side Park where the teams played then.
If the Cubs and White Sox get together this year to decide baseball’s big prize, there will be that many people milling around outside Wrigley for a game.
OFFENSE / DEFENSE
One thing the Chicago attack didn’t lack in 2008 was home run power. The White Sox led all of baseball with 235 round-trippers, the eighth straight season the team finished in the Top 4 of AL clubs in the HR category, and the eighth time in the last nine seasons they clubbed at least 200.
All of those bleacher bombs helped Chicago finish with 811 runs, fifth in the AL. Of course when you have a lineup laden with home run hitters – Eight regulars finished with at least 13 homers – it tends to affect your offensive ability in a negative manner elsewhere. In this case, those extra plodders contributed to grounding into an AL-high 157 double plays, with the league average 135.5.
While most of the pitching staff returns this year, a third of last year’s regular lineup will not be coming back after Nick Swisher changed his address to the Bronx, Orlando Cabrera went west to Oakland and Joe Crede shifted AL Central locations to Minnesota. Replacing those 49 HR, 230 runs and 22 of the team’s 67 steals – 19 from the legs of Cabrera alone – will be crucial to Chicago’s chances in 2009.
With Swisher splitting time between center and first last season, it appears his replacement in the outfield will be DeWayne Wise who has won the job over Brian Anderson. Both have enjoyed pretty good springs, with the final nod likely given to Wise who has decent base stealing potential hitting leadoff for the Sox this year as Guillen has indicated.
Right field belongs to Jermaine Dye who has had a slow spring but bounced back from an off-2007 to post 34 HR, 96 RBI in 2008. And left field is Carlos Quentin’s territory after his comeback season in 2008. Quentin missed all but one game in September with a wrist injury, and still topped Chicago with 36 HR and 100 RBI. Quentin also accounted for 20 of the team’s 63 hit by pitches last season.
Anderson will apparently be the only true outfielder on Guillen’s bench after the team asked for waiver on Jerry Owens this week.
Around the horn on the infield we start with Paul Konerko at first, Chris Getz taking over at second while Alexei Ramirez shifts to short, and Josh Fields at third. Konerko is coming off one of his worst seasons with his average dipping to .240 and battled some injuries that held him out of the lineup for about four weeks in June-July. So far this spring, he looks fine.
Getz was in a battle for the 2B job with Jayson Nix, and that was decided in part by Nix injuring a quad and being placed on the DL. It was also decided by Getz having a pretty fair spring.
After spending his time at second last season, Ramirez slides to shortstop this year to replace the departed Cabrera. Very slow out of the gate in his rookie campaign, Ramirez was hitting under .200 with one homer on May 24 last year before closing with 20 homers and a .305 average the rest of the way.
Fields takes over for Crede, and injuries have really retarded his entry into the majors. Healthy this spring, Fields is hitting over .400 with three dingers and has won the starting job. His competition for the job, Wilson Betemit, has also had a solid camp with a team-leading six homers, but he will ride the pines for now along with the remaining infield reserve, Bren Lillibridge.
The tools of ignorance will go to A.J. Pierzynski again, with Corky Miller his backup. And the bulk of the DH time will fall on Jim Thome who currently sits fifth among active players in career home runs with 541.
PITCHING
Most of the pitching staff that ranked sixth in the AL with a 4.11 ERA and third in strikeouts (1,147) returns for the 2009 season. That might qualify as both a blessing and a curse.
Certainly it’s a blessing for Guillen and pitching coach Don Cooper not having to get acquainted with a bunch of new faces. They know what the returning pitchers are capable of, and they (hopefully) know how to get them back on track when issues arise.
But it can also be a bit of a curse after some of the arms faltered last year, or in the case of one pitcher, the past two years.
The top of the rotation – Buehrle, Danks and Gavin Floyd – all did their jobs in 2008. That trio made exactly 100 starts between them, and the White Sox were 58-42 in those games. Chicago went 31-32 in games started by someone other than those three arms. Both Danks and Floyd have carried their fine seasons over into spring, with Buehrle struggling a bit.
The two arms at the back of the order this time will Be Jose Contreras and Bartolo Colon, with Colon the newcomer to the staff and replacing the spot formerly held by Javier Vazquez. Neither is having a very good spring, but there really isn’t anyone else ready to jump in and take their spots. Clayton Richard is also being knocked around this spring and will likely be the long reliever out of the pen to start things. Lance Broadway and Jeff Marquez were both sent to Triple-A Charlotte this week, with one or both an option later this season.
Bobby Jenks is back as the closer and has yet to allow a run this spring. He’s also whiffed six in seven innings of work, well ahead of the K/IP pace he had a year ago (38 K, 61.2 IP).
Octavio Dotel and Scott Linebrink entered camp as the most likely setup arms, and both will begin the season as the primary seventh and eighth inning arms. But both have had rough times in exhibition play and without someone bridging that gap from the starters to Jenks, the White Sox will be in no position to be in the AL Central hunt.
Lefty Matt Thornton has enjoyed a solid spring and could quickly supplant either Dotel or Linebrink in a setup role. Another reliever who has pitched well is Mike MacDougal who has 19 strikeouts in 12 spring frames.
D.J. Carrasco will work in long or middle relief to start the season as the club plans to take 12 arms north for Opening Day. Keep and eye on both righthander Jack Egbert and lefthander Randy Williams to be part of the staff at some point in 2009.
SCHEDULE
The White Sox will play some extra games on the road the first 6-8 weeks. Other than that, their biggest schedule imbalance is extra road trips to play the Angels and Mariners on the West Coast.
Chicago averaged 81.2 wins in the five simulation runs that were conducted several weeks ago. The back end of their rotation is very iffy right now, and while they will hit the long ball one again, will anyone be on base when Konerko, Dye and Thome connect?
The Greek is listing a break at 79½ wins with the Over priced at a nice +150 and the under sitting very juicy at -170. I might be tempted to make a small play on the Over. Betting Odds at 5Dimes show the White Sox at +500 to win the AL Central, +1725 to hoist the AL Pennant and +3500 to win their fourth World Series.
Laden with power bats, the White Sox will need a turnaround on the mound if they hope to be one-half of a possible All-Chicago matchup in the World Series this fall.
An all Windy City World Series? It’s possible, and for a little while last season it appeared the 2008 Series might be played in Chi Town with both the White Sox and Cubs winning their respective division.
The Cubs all but cruised to the NL Central title, winning an NL-high 97 games and setting North Side fans up for good times in Wrigleyville throughout the National League playoffs. Meanwhile on the South Side, the ChiSox had to play a rainout makeup on the Monday after the final Sunday of the regular season, and after winning that game against the Tigers they had to take on the Twins for the ALC tiebreaker before officially becoming part of October baseball.
That late push to get into the postseason forced manager Ozzie Guillen to press some of his starters into extra duty down the stretch, with Mark Buehrle pitching on short rest in the Sunday regular season contest and bringing John Danks back on a day’s less rest to pitch the tiebreaker against Minnesota. Guillen wouldn’t use that as an excuse for why the ChiSox eventually fell in the ALDS to Tampa Bay, partly because the Rays earned their first trip to the playoffs with a very solid team.
But at least the White Sox have something of an excuse to give; the Cubs have no excuse for the pathetic showing they put up in the NLDS when the Dodgers swept Chicago’s lovable losers from the postseason.
Now in 2009, both teams are looking to get back to the playoffs and possibly set up the first all Chicago World Series since 1906 when Big Ed Walsh, Nick Altrock and Doc White pitched the White Sox past the Tinker/Evers/Chance Cubs. That entire six-game Series attracted less than 100,000 paying customers through the turnstiles at the old West Side Grounds and South Side Park where the teams played then.
If the Cubs and White Sox get together this year to decide baseball’s big prize, there will be that many people milling around outside Wrigley for a game.
OFFENSE / DEFENSE
One thing the Chicago attack didn’t lack in 2008 was home run power. The White Sox led all of baseball with 235 round-trippers, the eighth straight season the team finished in the Top 4 of AL clubs in the HR category, and the eighth time in the last nine seasons they clubbed at least 200.
All of those bleacher bombs helped Chicago finish with 811 runs, fifth in the AL. Of course when you have a lineup laden with home run hitters – Eight regulars finished with at least 13 homers – it tends to affect your offensive ability in a negative manner elsewhere. In this case, those extra plodders contributed to grounding into an AL-high 157 double plays, with the league average 135.5.
While most of the pitching staff returns this year, a third of last year’s regular lineup will not be coming back after Nick Swisher changed his address to the Bronx, Orlando Cabrera went west to Oakland and Joe Crede shifted AL Central locations to Minnesota. Replacing those 49 HR, 230 runs and 22 of the team’s 67 steals – 19 from the legs of Cabrera alone – will be crucial to Chicago’s chances in 2009.
With Swisher splitting time between center and first last season, it appears his replacement in the outfield will be DeWayne Wise who has won the job over Brian Anderson. Both have enjoyed pretty good springs, with the final nod likely given to Wise who has decent base stealing potential hitting leadoff for the Sox this year as Guillen has indicated.
Right field belongs to Jermaine Dye who has had a slow spring but bounced back from an off-2007 to post 34 HR, 96 RBI in 2008. And left field is Carlos Quentin’s territory after his comeback season in 2008. Quentin missed all but one game in September with a wrist injury, and still topped Chicago with 36 HR and 100 RBI. Quentin also accounted for 20 of the team’s 63 hit by pitches last season.
Anderson will apparently be the only true outfielder on Guillen’s bench after the team asked for waiver on Jerry Owens this week.
Around the horn on the infield we start with Paul Konerko at first, Chris Getz taking over at second while Alexei Ramirez shifts to short, and Josh Fields at third. Konerko is coming off one of his worst seasons with his average dipping to .240 and battled some injuries that held him out of the lineup for about four weeks in June-July. So far this spring, he looks fine.
Getz was in a battle for the 2B job with Jayson Nix, and that was decided in part by Nix injuring a quad and being placed on the DL. It was also decided by Getz having a pretty fair spring.
After spending his time at second last season, Ramirez slides to shortstop this year to replace the departed Cabrera. Very slow out of the gate in his rookie campaign, Ramirez was hitting under .200 with one homer on May 24 last year before closing with 20 homers and a .305 average the rest of the way.
Fields takes over for Crede, and injuries have really retarded his entry into the majors. Healthy this spring, Fields is hitting over .400 with three dingers and has won the starting job. His competition for the job, Wilson Betemit, has also had a solid camp with a team-leading six homers, but he will ride the pines for now along with the remaining infield reserve, Bren Lillibridge.
The tools of ignorance will go to A.J. Pierzynski again, with Corky Miller his backup. And the bulk of the DH time will fall on Jim Thome who currently sits fifth among active players in career home runs with 541.
PITCHING
Most of the pitching staff that ranked sixth in the AL with a 4.11 ERA and third in strikeouts (1,147) returns for the 2009 season. That might qualify as both a blessing and a curse.
Certainly it’s a blessing for Guillen and pitching coach Don Cooper not having to get acquainted with a bunch of new faces. They know what the returning pitchers are capable of, and they (hopefully) know how to get them back on track when issues arise.
But it can also be a bit of a curse after some of the arms faltered last year, or in the case of one pitcher, the past two years.
The top of the rotation – Buehrle, Danks and Gavin Floyd – all did their jobs in 2008. That trio made exactly 100 starts between them, and the White Sox were 58-42 in those games. Chicago went 31-32 in games started by someone other than those three arms. Both Danks and Floyd have carried their fine seasons over into spring, with Buehrle struggling a bit.
The two arms at the back of the order this time will Be Jose Contreras and Bartolo Colon, with Colon the newcomer to the staff and replacing the spot formerly held by Javier Vazquez. Neither is having a very good spring, but there really isn’t anyone else ready to jump in and take their spots. Clayton Richard is also being knocked around this spring and will likely be the long reliever out of the pen to start things. Lance Broadway and Jeff Marquez were both sent to Triple-A Charlotte this week, with one or both an option later this season.
Bobby Jenks is back as the closer and has yet to allow a run this spring. He’s also whiffed six in seven innings of work, well ahead of the K/IP pace he had a year ago (38 K, 61.2 IP).
Octavio Dotel and Scott Linebrink entered camp as the most likely setup arms, and both will begin the season as the primary seventh and eighth inning arms. But both have had rough times in exhibition play and without someone bridging that gap from the starters to Jenks, the White Sox will be in no position to be in the AL Central hunt.
Lefty Matt Thornton has enjoyed a solid spring and could quickly supplant either Dotel or Linebrink in a setup role. Another reliever who has pitched well is Mike MacDougal who has 19 strikeouts in 12 spring frames.
D.J. Carrasco will work in long or middle relief to start the season as the club plans to take 12 arms north for Opening Day. Keep and eye on both righthander Jack Egbert and lefthander Randy Williams to be part of the staff at some point in 2009.
SCHEDULE
The White Sox will play some extra games on the road the first 6-8 weeks. Other than that, their biggest schedule imbalance is extra road trips to play the Angels and Mariners on the West Coast.
- 23-28 (Home-Away) through May
- 66-67 (Home-Away) through August
- 6-3 (Home-Away) vs. Orioles and A’s; 3-6 vs. Angels and Mariners
Chicago averaged 81.2 wins in the five simulation runs that were conducted several weeks ago. The back end of their rotation is very iffy right now, and while they will hit the long ball one again, will anyone be on base when Konerko, Dye and Thome connect?
The Greek is listing a break at 79½ wins with the Over priced at a nice +150 and the under sitting very juicy at -170. I might be tempted to make a small play on the Over. Betting Odds at 5Dimes show the White Sox at +500 to win the AL Central, +1725 to hoist the AL Pennant and +3500 to win their fourth World Series.