Black Betsy

Absurd Stat Line of the Month

I was checking up the status of some of the White Sox's pitching prospects in Birmingham when I came across this stat line for Dewon Day. Now, Day, at 27 in Double-A, isn't much of a prospect. But I think you have to wake up and take notice when you see that a guy has 16 strikeouts against only 1 walk...in 5 and 2/3rds innings!! (And I'm not someone prone to use two consecutive exclamation points). That means that of the 17 outs Day has recorded, 16 of them have come by the strikeout, and at least his last 11 outs have come by the strikeout. Amazingly enough, he's also given up 5 hits in those innings, meaning that when players do put the ball into play on him, they are hitting .833. Maybe the most amazing combination of stats I've ever seen.

Meanwhile, Gio Gonzalez has 15 strikeouts against 3 walks in 10 1/3 innings, and some guy named Jack Egbert (of the flying under the radar Egberts) has 17 punchouts against 2 walks (and just 6 hits) in 12 innings. Spring phenom Adam Russell is the trailer of the pack with only 11 K's in 11 innings. I guess you will just have to try harder, Mr. Russell.

Sox 3, Minnesota 0?

I Take It All Back

90-72? More like 72-90 based on Day 1. But maybe it is good luck...like rain on your wedding day.

Kidding aside, I did take two good things away from this game, which were more or less hidden in the blowout result. (1) Bobby Jenks had a solid 9th inning with no walks and a strikeout to start the year. I think the game is 90% half-mental for Bobby, so getting off on the right foot is good for him. (2) The Sox touched up Borowski for two runs in the 9th. So Borowski gets off on the wrong foot. With Cleveland's bullpen problems of 2006, I think getting in the head of their relievers might be key.

So you sit Scott Podsednik...but you play Darrin Erstad? Worked, I guess....

Opening Day

Certainly not blogging a single post since September 2006 does not bode well for Black Betsy as a blog. I mean, after all, I've missed the Freddy Garcia trade (I thought it was bad but now it looks good) and the Brandon McCarthy trade (I think it stunk, as I voiced pretty vociferously on the White Sox e-mail list). But Opening Day is time for a fresh start for everything, right?

In thinking over this team, I think the Sox have tread water since the end of '06. I see them at about 90 wins again, which could be good enough for 1st place in the AL Central, or it could be good enough for 3rd (again). Here are the areas I see improving and declining:

• I think Mark Buehrle will be 20-30 runs better as a pitcher in '07. He had one minor bounce-back before, from '03 to '04 (4.14 ERA to 3.89 ERA - not really meaningful), and I cannot think of a reason why he would not improve. He is in his prime, he has had a good track record and, absent some unseen injury, he is about the same pitcher that posted a 3.12 ERA in '05. He may have pitched a ton of innings in his career, but we all know he is efficient with his pitches.
• I think Jose Contreras will be 10-20 runs better as a pitcher in '07. To me, he was pitching hurt almost all of last season. The Sox would have been better giving him a longer DL stint earlier in the year.
• Javier Vazquez and Jon Garland will be about the same, with Vazquez maybe being a touch better. I still think the guy is a loser, though. Call them a wash.
• John Danks is probably not going to cut it as a replacement for Freddy Garcia. I think he gives back 20-30 runs. Overall, that means the starters are probably 1-2 wins better this year than last.
• The bullpen is a bit stronger, but not by as much as people are talking about. I'd give them another 10-15 runs, for 1-2 wins as well.
• The offense is not going to be as good. Jermaine Dye will not repeat his stupendously good career year last year, and that will cost the Sox 20-25 runs.
• I think Konerko will probably do about the same, but Thome will be 20 runs worse, likely because of injury and natural decline. If the Sox get another 40 homer season from Thome, that will be a huge lift for the team.
• Joe Crede will probably be about the same Joe Crede we saw last year. Ditto for Pierzynski and Iguchi.
• That leaves three guys offensively: Podsednik, Erstad/Anderson, and Uribe. Podsednik I see as being about the same to maybe 5-10 runs better; for simplicity I'll call him a wash. As much as Erstad is a step in the wrong direction for the White Sox, I don't think that Erstad/Anderson is any worse than Anderson/Mackowiak in 2007. The problem is that I think Anderson would be 10-20 runs better than Erstad/Anderson on his own. I have the feeling, however, that Anderson will have the job full time by July.
• Uribe will be better this year. After an awful 2006 - the worst of his career - he'll bounce back to something like a .265/.300/.480 line. That will be, what, 10-15 runs better than '06.

Putting this all together, I guess I see the offense being down 30-40 runs this year, while the pitching staff will allow 30-40 fewer runs this year. That comes out pretty even in the wash.

One other thought -I see a midseason run on Andruw Jones to solve the White Sox's centerfield problems. I could see the Sox shipping Gio Gonzalez and Josh Fields for a half season of Andruw. That could really change the outlook for the '07 White Sox. Pray for a bad first half by the Braves.

On the blogging front, I hope to go to biweekly posts. I'm trying to calendar them for regular updates on things I like to know - who is walking in the minors, trade prospects, hidden performances, etc. If it doesn't work, and I don't post, I apologize in advance. I'll even give you a refund of whatever you paid to read this....

I Don't Get It Either

That's what I wrote to someone on the Sox e-mail list about this Sox team. Despite terrific offseason acquisitions like Jim Thome and (as it looked at the time) Javier Vazquez, this team is struggling down the stretch. It has been losing to Kansas City. It could not close the deal against the Devil Rays. And they have lost consistently to Minnesota - 4 out of the 6 games they played.

Let's place the blame squarely where it lies: the starting staff. Of course, that's been said before by every sports writer in Chicago as well as Ozzie Guillen time after time. But it's not that the starting staff has failed, but it's how surprising it is that the starting staff has failed:

• Contreras really and truly looked like he turned the corner last year. In fact, he looked effortless - like Don Cooper had turned a switch. We didn't necessarily expect a Cy Young season, but a low 3 ERA and consistent performance looked like it was in the cards.
• Buehrle was as consistent a pitcher as there is in the league. You can generally mark him down for a 3.2-4.1 ERA and a .600 winning percentage. In only 1 year out of the last 5 - 2002 - has he even been above 4.0 and not been 6 games over .500
• Garcia has been a consistently good to very good pitcher - he's never had an ERA above 4.52, and he's in his prime (he turned 30 during this season).
• Garland had a great year in 2005 and is coming into his prime. In the second half, he is the one guy holding the rotation together. Yet his poor performances early stuck him with an ERA above 4.40.
• Vazquez has great stuff, and pitched well in the past, and had the luxury of being a 5th starter. But he is a loser. I mean, this guy just seems to pitch well enough to lose every game. Like there is some loser aura around him. He's been given the lead in 23 of the 26 games he has started! To only come out with an 11-8 ERA is, well, startling. He's lost the lead more often than he's protected a lead. Inexcusable.

This team, in this division, with the offense being produced this year, should have won 105-110 games. Seriously. To have 4 of your 5 starting pitchers perform well below their career performance (with a footnote on Contreras) is very poor luck, or even poor coaching.

It seems very likely that the pitching will rebound next year - perhaps with some changes to the rotation (I'm hoping that McCarthy is IN and Vazquez is OUT). Of course, it's unlikely that Dye or Thome, as they age, will be able to reproduce their production this year, and even Crede and Konerko are near the top of their performance charts.

Of course, the 2005 White Sox seemed to get by with an average offense....

Not Blogging Doesn't Work

Two months since the last post on Black Betsy. Blogger fatigue, exhibit A. Lots of things have gone on since, new house, selling old house, trying to do some business, saving kids from burning abandoned amusement park, solving crimes and creating a new hip Sudoku / crossword puzzle game called "Put The Letters There! No, There!" (title to be finalized - needless to say, you will be playing it three times a day the rest of your life and will gladly hand over thousands of dollars to me each year for solution books).

It's clear that me not blogging about the White Sox doesn't help the White Sox. Since my last post, they've gone 28-25. That's bad baseball, and the proprietors of this Blog apologize for any poor play this blog has caused.

In that time, the team has gone to pieces. Especially the pitching:

Mark Buehrle: .318 / .356 / .533 AVG/OBP/SLG against
Freddy Garcia: .304 / .346 / .556 against
Javier Vazquez: .304 / .359 / .477 against
Jose Contreras: .273 / .335 / .411 against
Jon Garland: .253 / .299 / .387 against

One of these things is not like the other. Only Jon Garland has been a good pitcher in the last two months, while Contreras has been about average, and Buehrle, Garcia and Vazquez have all been bad pitchers. No one should therefore be surprised that the Sox have played 28-25 ball during that period.

That does not fully answer the question as to why the Sox are 3-11 in their last 14 games (before that, they had been 25-14 since my last post). That answer is simple: the hitting has caught up with the pitching in collapsing. And it's not due to a real lack of getting men on base or hitting for power; instead, the Sox have consistently failed to hit with men in scoring position and have consistently failed to get runners in from third with less thant two outs. Someone called it corpseball a while ago, and that's about right.

The upside is that the Sox are a much better team than they have been playing. They weren't over their heads at 31-15 on May 25, and could pick it up any time. But "turning it on when they need to" has never been a strength of the White Sox.

But, the turn around can start today. No time like the present.

The Value of 8 Good Starts

I just noticed that we are coming up on the one-year anniversary of the end of Jon Garland's hot start to the 2005 season, in which he won his first eight starts. Those were heady days. Garland cooled off considerably from that point, going 10-10 the rest of the way with a 3.90 ERA to finish with an 18-10 record and an overall 3.50 ERA.

During the offseason, Garland signed a 3 year, $29 million contract extension based on his very good 2005 season.

Last year, I mused that Sox fans have been fooled by hot starts by mediocre pitchers before. And I compared - perhaps flippantly - Jon Garland's hot start to that of Jon Snyder in 1999. Snyder collapsed to the tune of a 6+ ERA and was basically never heard from again.

But there is a lesson to be learned from Snyder's collapse, and it is shown in Garland's performance since his perfecto start last year. Since May 23rd last year, Garland's line has been this:

13-12 W-L, 212 1/3 IP, 231 Hits, 105 ER, 33 HR, 47 BB, 112 K, 4.45 ERA

Does that remind you of anyone? Like the Jon Garland of 2002-2004? With the exception of the walk column, the Jon Garland since 5/23/05 has been the Jon Garland of 2002-2004. Almost exactly what you would expect.

It's not that Garland is incapable of being a good pitcher. But it's also true that if Garland is really nothing more than he was in 2002-2004 and 5/23/2005 through today, it's also entirely possible that he could have a good, 8-start run like he did in early 2005 and have it be no more than a fluke. Indeed, given a long career, every pitcher has bouts of respectability, even quality.

But it's another thing to turn that bout of respectability into $29 million over three years. I think Sox fans should have been more critical of the Garland contract, and I guess I regret not being more critical myself. I have a feeling it is going to wind up being a bad deal. $11 million per year in 2007-2008 for a league-average pitcher.

Blowing Leads, and the Bullpen

I wrote a detailed response to someone's point on the Sox e-mail list, so I thought I'd cross-post here:

From: Big Unit
To: Sox e-Mail Listserv

What bothers me is the Sox have blown enough games already to have opened up
a pretty good lead, despite Detroit's hot start.

From: Comic Book Guy
To: Sox e-Mail Listserv

Blown enough games?

Aren't they 20-9?

From: SuperNoVa
To: Sox e-Mail Listserv

Well, the odd thing is that they've blown big or late leads in a bunch of
their 9 losses:

Game 2 vs. Cleveland (up 1 in the 8th, Logan serves up tying dinger to
Pronk)
Game 3 vs. Royals (up 6-0 in the 5th inning, Garland blows big lead)
Game 4 vs. Royals (up 1 in the 8th, Politte serves up 2-run homer to
Sweeney)
Game 10 vs. Blue Jays (up 5-2 in the 4th, Vazquez gets hammered)
Game 29 vs. Kansas City (up 1 in the 9th, Jenks blows save)

So of the 9 losses, the Sox blew big leads (3 or more runs) or late leads 5
of those 9 games. This team is 20-9, but it could easily be 25-4.

I take this as a good thing and a bad thing. The Sox are so good that they
have a chance to win almost every game they are in. If you are "in" 25 out
of 29 games, losing 5 of those 25 isn't bad at all. Seems about par to me.
Great teams are "in" almost every game.

It's a bad thing inasmuch as the bullpen looks like the Achilles' heel of this team. They need bullpen help relatively soon. Right now, only Jenks and Cotts look anything like reliable relievers. Shoot, I'd settle for someone like Luis Vizcaino right now.

The Sox have some assets in AAA - think Chuck Haeger (<0.70>

April ERV

The Sox wrapped up the month of April 17-7. They did so with nearly equal contributions from their pitching and hitting: the hitters were 20.66 runs better than average, while their pitchers were 17.47 runs better than average. As a team, that is +38.13, or about 1.6 ERV per game.

ERV Player of the Month goes to Jim Thome, who was +17.19 ERV on his own.

ERV Pitcher of the Month goes to Jose Contreras, who put up a +13.08 ERV.

Batting

Pitching

Player	Total	April	Home	Road
Buehrle	8.52	8.52	4.33	4.19
McCarthy	2.88	2.88	4.09	-1.21
Politte	-4.08	-4.08	-3.16	-0.92
Thornton	0.62	0.62	0.75	-0.13
Garcia	-2.49	-2.49	-2.80	0.31
Logan	0.15	0.15	0.29	-0.14
Cotts	0.54	0.54	-1.19	1.73
Jenks	2.31	2.31	3.69	-1.38
Contreras	13.08	13.08	6.85	6.23
Garland	-7.35	-7.35	2.30	-9.66
Vazquez	3.28	3.28	-0.13	3.41
Team	17.47	17.47	15.04	2.43

Fielding:

Player	ERV
Crede	-0.92
AJ	-0.11
Thornton	-0.29
Iguchi	-1.46
Podsednik	-0.23
Garland	-0.61
Total	-3.62

Player of the Game tracking:

Dye - 6
Konerko - 6
Thome - 4
Iguchi - 4
Crede - 2
Anderson 1
Uribe 1

Pitcher of the Game tracking:

Contreras - 5
Buehrle - 3
Vazquez - 3
Garland - 2
McCarthy - 2
Cotts - 2
Logan - 2
Garcia - 1
Thornton - 1

Sox 6, Los Angeles of Anaheim 5

Pitcher	ERV
Garland	-1.38
Thornton	0.24
Politte	0.28
Cotts	0.52
Total	-0.35

Team ERV: 0.30 (Shields wild pitch).

Player of the Game: Joe Crede

Pitcher of the Game: Neal Cotts

Sox 2, Los Angeles of Anaheim 1

Pitcher	ERV
Contreras	3.10
Thornton	0.11
Jenks	0.44
Total	3.65

Player of the Game: Jermaine Dye

Pitcher of the Game: Jose Contreras

Public Service Announcement

Read Johnny Mostil's Razor.

Sometimes I fear that I'm one of Doug's only readers, and that is a crying shame. He's the best analyst of Sox baseball there is, period. If you are a Sox fan, you should like Doug's writing. He's a reformed stat-head, who looks much deeper that AVG/OBP/SLG lines indicate. He looks for the context that makes the statistics meaningful.

Here's an example. You might think Jhonny Peralta is a great hitting shortstop. And he is a very good hitter - he banged out 24 home runs last year. Doug wasn't satisfied with Peralta's stat line based on his own observations, so he went inside Peralta's game log to discover that, for the most part, Peralta didn't hit good pitching. The overwhelming portion of his home runs were off bottom of the rotation starters or bottom-of-the-bullpen arms.

Similarly, while Cleveland put up the league's best run differential last year, Doug went behind those numbers to determine that Eric Wedge was, for the most part, leaving in his starters in garbage time situations, who then were running up scores or making blowouts closer. Wedge was managing to his player's stats, thereby making the team's performance look better.

While not every one of Doug's posts is going to be a winner, I really enjoyed his post yesterday about the team's performance thus far. Doug put into words what a lot of Sox fans are feeling - we've got a great record thus far, but we are uneasy because the Sox aren't winning in the same way they won last year. That's been inchoate in my mind for a while, and I almost got there with this post.

AJ's Hot Lukewarm Start

Sox 8, Los Angeles of Anaheim 5

Hooray for Jeff Weaver. After dominating the Sox early in his career (or so it seemed), he's really turned it around and become a reliable victory for the Sox. His control was non-existent, even if he had his strikeout pitch working, and he grooved a number of cookies for Sox hitters to munch on. Only Jermaine Dye homered for the Sox.

The Angels helped out with a number of bad defensive plays. Adam Kennedy couldn't reach Podsednik's weak two-out grounder up the middle of the second, and then Garret Anderson gator-armed Iguchi's long fly (which I thought was an easy home run off the bat) to left. All in all, the five-run second inning was largely a set of Angel gifts.

Oddly enough, the Sox have batted 9 men in an inning several times, but have not sent more than 9 to the plate. This is great for your scoresheet or spreadsheet, but it would be nice to put up a 7 spot or so.

Jim Thome looks like he is heading for a slump to me. He didn't make contact with some juicy pitches last night.

Here is your ERV scoresheet / boxscore:

Pitcher	ERV
Garcia	0.10
McCarthy	-0.98
Cotts	0.42
Jenks	0.11
Total	-0.35

Player of the Game: Paul Konerko

Pitcher of the Game: Neal Cotts

Seattle 5, Sox 1

Pitcher	ERV
Buehrle	-0.38
Jenks	-0.48
Total	-0.87

Player of the Game: Paul Konerko

Pitcher of the Game: None awarded (no pitchers with positive ERV)

Laughers

Is it me, Or have we already been on the upside of more laughers this season than all of last season?

Sox 13, Seattle 3

Pitcher	ERV
Vazquez	1.79
Logan	-0.14
Total	1.65

Player of the Game: Tadahito Iguchi

Pitcher of the Game: Javier Vazquez