By Phil Barnes
Unlike the other five divisions in baseball, there is no clear-cut choice as to who is going to come out on top of the American League Central this season. Nobody should really be surprised by this for the simple reason that after 162 games last year, there still wasn’t a winner.
With all that said, no one is predicting the Sox to win the division, including Baseball Prospectus, whose PECOTA rating (as of 4/3/09) have the Sox winning 76 games, good enough for fourth in the division, just a win better than the lowly Royals.
While many Sox fans can get huffy and upset hearing that last season’s division winners are perceived this year as the equivalent of Kansas City, there were so many questions that have been unanswered until recently, it becomes hard to blame “experts” who have been looking at a depth chart all off-season with questions as to who was going to play where at more than half the positions.
Who will lead off? Who is in the rotation? Who will play center? Second? Third?

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Posted on April 6, 2009

By Ricky O’Donnell

Even days later, a lot Cubs fans are still devastated after watching their team get swept in the playoffs against the Dodgers. Really, they should be. This may have been the best Cubs team ever, and to see it all come crashing down in the course of three games is a lot to handle. Even though the team had a great year, it feels unfulfilled. I said last week that all a fan should really hope for out of their favorite baseball team is a division title. Baseball teams are, after all, built to win over the course of 162 games, not five. But it was a little different for the Cubs this year. From the onset it felt like their year. Any fan that is irrationally upset probably deserves to be.
When my White Sox got eliminated last night, I was bummed but not devastated. It’s always disappointing anytime your team’s season ends without a championship, but the Sox were never supposed to be in this situation anyway. While the Cubs’ hopes were sky high from the beginning, the Sox just sort of rolled along. No Sox fan should take this elimination too hard. They still had a really good season.

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Posted on October 7, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

As great as John Danks, Jim Thome and Brian Anderson were last night, the White Sox aren’t AL Central champs without assistant general manager Rick Hahn’s five-year-old son. When the Sox and Twins flipped a coin months ago to see which team would play at home if a play-in game was needed, Hahn’s son told his dad to call heads.
I can say with near certainty that if the kid got it wrong, the Sox wouldn’t be headed to Tampa Bay. If last night’s game were held in the Metrodome, you could bet A.J. would have dropped the ball during his collision with Michael Cuddyer at home plate, Danks would have gone down in the third inning with shoulder trouble, and Carlos Gomez would have hit for the cycle. Is there a worse building on the planet than the home baseball stadium of the Minnesota Twins? I think not.

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Posted on October 1, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

Throughout the entire summer, I said I wasn’t scared of the Twins. Their run differential wasn’t impressive, they relied too heavily on the statistic anomaly that is Livan Hernandez, and their bullpen was downright shaky.
The White Sox, meanwhile, had a good thing going. They clubbed more homers than any team in baseball despite abysmal seasons from Nick Swisher and Paul Konerko. They watched Gavin Floyd and John Danks step into their own. They kept Jerry Owens in Triple-A. Really, what more could you ask for?

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Posted on September 22, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

This was a tough week to be a White Sox fan, partly because they hardly played. Nothing is worse than a rainout, because a rainout means a day without baseball. Especially in times like these, when the AL Central race has never been tighter, no White Sox baseball makes for an excruciating day. Such is particularly the case when the Twins keep winning.
But lost in all the rain was this: Joe Crede has played his last game in a White Sox uniform. It’s not official yet, obviously, but it seems like a reasonable assumption now that the Sox have totally cleaned out his locker. Yes, name card included. (second item)

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Posted on September 15, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

This isn’t the first time Ozzie Guillen has seen his best player suffer a season-ending injury while fighting for a division title. It was 2004, Guillen’s first year as a manager on the South Side, when Magglio Ordonez was lost for the year after colliding with Willie Harris on the field. That injury happened in the middle of May, and without Ordonez, the Sox simply didn’t have enough offense to beat out the Twins for the division.
Could we be headed down the same road again, now that MVP candidate Carlos Quentin is likely done for 2008? Possibly, but as the Sox enter the week with a 2.5 game lead over the Twins and just 20 games left to play, they’ll have no excuses this time. There’s still enough offensive firepower to make the playoffs, but to do it, some of this year’s most expensive dead weight will have to start hitting.
It comes down to three players: Paul Konerko, Ken Griffey Jr., and Nick Swisher.

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Posted on September 9, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

Like most Sox fans, Gavin Floyd didn’t have high hopes for himself heading into this season. Why else would he make a bet with teammates that he would shave his head if he won more than 12 games in 2008?
But since grabbing that razor after an August 10 win over the Red Sox, hair is the only thing Floyd has lost. In four starts following the haircut, Floyd is 3-0, never allowing more than more than three runs in any start.
Really, Floyd’s recent success shouldn’t be all that surprising – he has been consistently good the entire season. What’s weird is that most Sox fans, myself included, still don’t believe what they’re seeing.

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Posted on September 2, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

There will always be a disconnect between baseball fans who are into sabermetrics and people who view the game through a more, um, traditional lens. If you grew up learning that the way to play baseball is to bunt, steal, and hit-and-run, it probably won’t matter how many studies show that that isn’t necessarily the most efficient way to score runs. People are generally stubborn, and don’t want to relearn something they already know.
But I’ve never understood when those people blast teams for “hitting too many home runs.” A home run scores at least one run, and scoring runs is kind of the whole point of the game. The Sun-Times’s Greg Couch has done it a couple times this year, once famously bashing Alfonso Soriano for being selfish by trying to hit homers (uh, what?), and more recently wondering if the White Sox can do any real damage in the playoffs by relying so heavily on the long ball.
But if the Sox keeping mashing the way they have been lately, scoring 13 or more runs three times in a four-game stretch last week, even the most old-school critics will realize that hitting a boatload of homers is a pretty great way to win baseball games.

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Posted on August 25, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

If you watched the White Sox this past week, you noticed something familiar: Carlos Quentin was rather awesome. But his four homers in the last six games aren’t all that surprising. Quentin has been the best hitter in the American League all year long, and as the season starts to wind down, his numbers look even more eye-popping. At his current pace, Quentin will hit 43 home runs. You can expect him to finish with over 120 RBI as well, and post one of the highest OPS’ in White Sox history.

Beachwood Baseball: The Cub Factor SportsMonday will appear on Tuesday this week.

And that got me thinking, how many players would you rather start a team with than Quentin? Age is certainly a factor in this equation, and at 25, Q! has time on his side. Sure, a lot of baseball superstars are more established, and Quentin has just started his career. But anyone who thinks he may be a one-year wonder hasn’t done their homework. Quentin was always supposed to be really good. After being a first-round draft pick in 2003, Quentin OPS’d over .900 in four minor-league seasons. His failures early in his career as a Diamondback were largely a mixture of bad luck, injuries, and adjusting to life in the majors at a very young age. I’m confident that this is just the start for him.

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Posted on August 11, 2008

By Ricky O’Donnell

Sure, Ken Griffey Jr. has his flaws. If you read White Sox blogs this week, that is abundantly clear. He’s a borderline terrible defensive player – particularly in center field where he has started twice in his three game White Sox career – and isn’t nearly the five-tool player he once was. Things happened. Griffey got hurt, he got old, and it’s the reason the Sox were able to acquire him without giving up anything of value.
Don’t be mistaken, though: Griff can still rake at the plate. The 103 OPS+ he posted in Cincinnati is well above average, even if he’s staring at the lowest slugging percentage of his career since his rookie season in 1989. Griffey’s plate patience will be valuable wherever he is on Ozzie’s scorecard, and he’s on pace to smack nearly 30 homers. That makes him a useful bat in any lineup.

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Posted on August 5, 2008