Why Do White Sox Fans Like Scott Podsednik?

Well the answer to this is easy, he's batting (right now because he just got out) .287. Two days ago he was batting .297. Him batting close to .300 is the reason Sox fan love Scotty Pods right now (that and his boyish good looks)

People are still stupid and look at batting average and immediately assuming he's a good player. This upsets so me much! Well not really, but it is still is a bit frustrating to hear people raving about Scotty Pods right now. His career BA is about .270 so that BA is going to go down. But batting average is a meaningless stat, OBP is the one that matters. Scotty Pods' right now is .333. That's terrible, especially for a lead off hitter. Now Pods has never had a good OBP, yet people loved him in the past and that still boggles my mind.

To add insult to injury, the other "skill" Pods has in base stealing. He has a career 71% success rate in stealing bases which is decently good, but that dropped a bit when he came to Chicago. This year he has four stolen bases. But he has been caught three times. That's a 57% SB% this year.

This year Scotty Pods is stealing too much which is hurting the team, his OBP is pretty low (especially for a lead off hitter), and had a OPS+ of 79. Those are terrible terrible numbers, yet White Sox fan still like Scotty Pods.

However, he still is valuable to the team. First of all, Pods has actually been above average defensively posting a 9.6 and 13.2 UZR/150 at LF and CF respectively (although he does have a -3.2 UZR/150 at RF but he only started at right twice and once as a defensive replacement). Secondly, he's better than the other outfielders the Sox have. He's not better than Jermaine Dye and a healthy Carlos Quentin, but he is better than Dewayne Wise and Brian Anderson. So as I previously stated, he may not be good, but he's the best player the ChiSox have right now. And that fact is very disheartening to a White Sox fan such as myself.

So I can see why fans in Chicago are buzzing about Pods during his stint on this 2009 team, but I think these fans need to take what Podsednik is doing right now with a grain of salt.