Chicago White Sox 2004 Season Preview

by David Marasco

One of the few bright spots for the White Sox

The big splash last year was Moneyball by Michael Lewis. It's the tale of Billy Beane, the genius running the Oakland A's front office. No doubt just about every GM in the game picked up the book and read it, scratched his head, and then went out and hired some Ivy League grad who actually knows what a correlation coefficient is. The one exception might be Kenny Williams of the Chicago White Sox.

He's the exact kind of GM who looks bad in the stathead glare. Not that you need numbers to make him look bad, this is the same guy who engineered the James Baldwin trade with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Sox sent Baldwin to Chavez Ravine for Onan Masaoka, Gary Majewski and Jeff Barry. The problem is that Williams thought that he was getting Jonathan Berry, a 23-year-old pitching prospect, instead he ended up with Jeff Barry, a 32-year-old minor league outfielder. Williams has given up young arms again and again during his tenure in the hope of getting the one "proven vet" pitcher to get them over the top. But this season he did something that made even the most steady South Side statheads shudder. He hired Ozzie Guillen as the new manager for the White Sox.

Remember that OBP and walks are the keys to Beane's formula for success. Here's a look at Ozzie's walk totals:

Year	Games	Walks
1985	150	12
1986	159	12
1987	149	22
1988	156	25
1989	155	15
1990	160	26
1991	154	11
1992	12	1
1993	134	10
1994	100	14
1995	122	13
1996	150	10
1997	142	22
1998	95	25
1999	92	15
2000	63	6

It's true that he didn't have many strikeouts, but this is because he rarely was at the plate long enough to see strike three. He put the ball into play as soon as possible. "I didn't strike out much" isn't worth a lot when you have a lifetime OBP of .287.

Worse yet, read this article excerpt from the February 29, 2000 edition of the Chicago Tribune:
LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla -- Ozzie Guillen wanted Frank Thomas to become more than just the best right-handed hitter in the major leagues. He and others on the White Sox tried to make him understand the importance of also being a complete player and a caring teammate.

'He's not the kind of guy to be around young talent,' said Guillen... 'To be "the man" you have to move runners over; run the bases hard. He's not going to hit a ground ball and run down the line hard to show a kid how it's done. That's not Frank.'

'Frank let Ozzie and Robin do the dirty jobs, and he took at all the credit,' Guillen said.

On one hand, it is understandable why the Sox hired Guillen. They are a team with an unpopular owner, and their star players aren't media friendly - Frank Thomas has Barry Bonds' attitude towards the press, but lacks Barry's intelligence, Bonds can spin together a great interview when he feels it fits his needs. Frank can't, and manages to come out with statements like "Jackie Robinson isn't important." Meanwhile, Magglio Ordonez, the other star on the squad, speaks Spanish and does not reach out to the English-language media. Guillen was a fan favorite who worked well with the local sports reporters. In addition, the Reinsdorf administration has made a strong commitment to minority hiring in the past. Those are the plusses. On the other hand Ozzie clearly believes that littleball is the way to go, even in these small-ballpark, toaster-sized strikezone, steroid-inflated hitter days. His teams will underperform at the plate because he doesn't know what a good batter is supposed to do. The Sox should look into hiring OBP machine Tony Phillips as a bench coach. Yes, a crack-smoker with anger control issues would make a better in-game decision-maker than Ozzie Guillen.

Most teams look to their corner outfielders, first baseman and DH for the lumber in the lineup. The White Sox are no different, and the quartet of Carlos Lee, Magglio Ordonez, Paul Konerko and Frank Thomas was a mixed bag last season. At first glance Lee seems to have turned the corner. Compare 2003 to 2002, .291/31/113 to .264/26/80 - but closer inspection shows that his walks dropped from 75 to 37. His slugging percentage improved slightly from .484 to .499, but his OBP dropped from .359 to .331. He hasn't turned any corners, he's hit a plateau, and not a high one. Guillen won't be the person who turns his walk rate around. On the other side of the outfield, Ordonez declined slightly from an excellent 2002, dropping to a .317/.380/.527 season. His slugging drove an OPS that was good enough for ninth in the league. In fact, his OPS was better than the North Side right fielder with cork in his bat. He losses credit in our society because we do our math in base-10, he had 29 homers and 99 RBIs, and somehow isn't worth nearly as much as a 30/100 player. As much as Ordonez might be underrated, Paul Konerko at first hasn't lived up to his hype. He managed to bounce back from a horrible first half to complete a season that was merely awful - .234/.305/.399. Players who come up with those numbers at first base don't spend much time in baseball. Compare those numbers to Frank Thomas, who came back from the dead last year. Don't be fooled by the .267 batting average, Big Frank rolled in with a .390 OBP to go with 42 dingers (his .562 SLG was good for sixth in the league). Not bad for a guy who had the "diminished skills" clause in his contract triggered.

As for the rest of the lineup, Joe Crede continues to show improvement out at third base. He puts together a good glove with a decent bat, and has some time to improve. Going up the middle, Miguel Olivo won't make Sox fans forget Ron Karkovice, but with more tutoring from Sandy Alomar Jr. the catcher should be capable. Centerfield will be contested by the likes of Aaron Rowand and Joe Borchard, two guys who seem to be losing their can't miss labels. Finally, the middle of the infield is held down by the aging Jose Valentin, while Willie Harris and Juan Uribe look to fill second base. There won't be any great things coming out of this bunch, the Sox need three of the big four to deliver excellent seasons at the plate, or the pitchers will be laboring for nothing.

Most years the big question mark for the White Sox is "which Frank Thomas will show up?" This year the question is "will the smoke and mirrors work for Esteban Loaiza again?" He came through big at 21-9 with a 2.90 ERA and the most strikeouts in the AL. Is this just a flash in the pan, or is it for real? If he suffers from regression to the mean, the Sox are going to be in trouble. Both Jon Garland and Mark Buehrle had off years. In the 1990s the Sox were able to bring along their young arms, only to burn them out (Jack McDowell, Alex Fernandez, Wilson Alvarez, Jason Bere...), but ten years later the Sox seem to have problems taking their blue chip pitching prospects to the next level. Garland and Buehrle haven't blossomed to their full bloom. From there, the rest of the rotation could go in any direction.

The bullpen? The Sox dealt for Billy Koch during the last offseason. He dropped from 44 saves to 11 saves. One of Billy Beane's strategies is to dump expensive closers in favor of cheaper talent. Kenny Williams isn't interested in any of those ideas. It's going to be a long season on the South Side, made even longer by the probable success of the Cubs.