Why The White Sox Won't Win The AL Central In 2009

Let me preface this article by saying I'm a huge White Sox fan. I'm not some guy trying to be a hate-ah and I'm definitely not a Cubs fan trying to be a douchebag (aka being a Cubs fan).

The highlight of the team is their pitching. Individually, I think their top four starters (Peavy, Floyd, Buerhle, and Danks) are top five in the league and I'm a big fan of the back end of their bullpen with Putz, Jenks, and Thorton. We sabermetricians (yes, I'm considering myself a sabermetrician) love to analyze how a pitchers stats would look using data like FIP (for Matthew Berry, Nate Ravitz, and everyone out there, FIP stands for Fielding Independent Statistics). And it's this very concept that sabermetrics fails to realize- teams play games with defenses. Just like economists assume people are rational, sabermetrics seem to assume we play games with no defense.

Sure, once the ball is hit off the bat, where that ball lands is completely and utterly random. However, a better defense with a greater range will be able to cover more ground so that random spot where the ball lands will end up being in a pitchers glove. Not only that, pitchers can control, over a full season, whether they are a ground ball or play ball pitcher. A guy, like Mark Buerhle for example, is a ground ball pitcher. He hopes for contact and most of the time, when the ball is hit, it goes on the ground. The best infield defense will be able to pick up that ball on the ground and get that player out. However, when you pitch for contact, you rely on your defense to get outs and the crappier your defense is, the more guys you allow on base before you get three outs.

You hear the old cliche, no not "offense wins games, but defense wins championships"- the other one- "pitching and defense". The reason it's not pitching alone, because a pitcher can't strike EVERYBODY out (even Nolan Ryan and Tim Lincecum need their defense SOMETIMES). And the crappier pitcher you are, the more you need to rely on your defense (Although even the the Brewers defense won't make Jeff Suppan good).

Which brings me to my central thesis: the White Sox defense is so bad that it will negate their pitching talent so as to not win the division.

Last year, Jayson Nix was an amazing defender. In 52 games at 2B he had a 14.5 UZR/150 and a 4.8 RF/9. (He also helped out a bit at third posting a 4.9 UZR/150 and a 2.2 RF/9 in 12 games). So despite walking 9.7% of the time, a .249 BABIP, and great defense- the Sox reward him by taking him out of the lineup. While it's a good thing they didn't replace him with Chris Getz (-6.7 UZR/150 and 5.0 RF/9 in 106 games), they still did replace him with a crappy defender- Gordon Beckham.

At third base, Beckham had negative defensive value with his -2.0 Fielding Value (maybe fangraphs need to be a BIT more creative with their stats). He had a -2.8 UZR/150 and a 2.8 RF/9 in 102 games. While this is a very small sample size and the dude is INCREDIBLY young and played SS in college, I am not optimistic that Beckham will produce positive defense playing at a harder defensive position.

But even as bad of a season as Beckham had last year, the brilliant Kenny Williams decided to upgrade with the fabulous Mark Teahen.(I guess the sarcasm on the page doesn't come off as well as it does in my head). Here's Teahen's UZR/150 for the past four years: -10.9, -23.9, 0.4, and -17.6 at 3B. Teahen's total UZR/150 at third is -10.1.

Now we move on to the infield that actually produced. First, we have Alexei Ramirez. Probably the best proof that Gordan Beckham can be good defensively. In 2008 Ramirez posted an awful -12.5 UZR/150 and a 3.9 RF/9 to a +2.4 UZR/150 and a 4.4 in 2009.`This shows positive signs that Ramirez will still have positive defense, he's still only a league average SS defender. Last year, Ramirez was the 18th best SS defender. I know I should be happy that the hardest defensive position produces positive results, but it's still disappointing to see Alexei be just one step above being negative.

Lastly, we move to the Paul Konerko. Last year was Konerko's best defensive season posting a +3.2 UZR/150. However, this was inconsistent with Konerko's previous seasons. He has never had a positive UZR/150 above .08 and four out of the past eight years, Konerko had a negative UZR/150 so the chances that Konerko's defense will even be positive is pretty low.

However, I am optimistic about the White Sox outfield next year. Sure, they're stuck with Carlos Quentin's -14.1 UZR/150 and 0 RF/9 in 223 games in the OF, but adding Juan Pierre is a HUGE upgrade from Jermaine Dye and Alex Rios had an uncharacteristically awful year last year. Last year, JD had a -24.5 UZR/150 and a 2.0 RF/9 so Juan Pierre's career 5.6 UZR/150 should be a big step up. Also, Alex Rios has a career 12.3 UZR/150. Plus here's his OF UZR/150 for the past four years minus 2009: +9.7, +13.7, +9.2, +27.5. His his -5.8 UZR/150 is extremely out of the norm for him and even is he return to his floor (about a +9.0), he should be MUCH better than what he was last year and what DeWayne Wise and Brian Anderson were.

So maybe it's just the cynic in me, but I just don't see the defense as a whole being all that good. 1B, 2B, 3B, and LF will all probably have negative UZR/150. So even though the OF will be much improved and the SS will be positive, I feel the defense as a whole will be below average- thus negatively affecting the pitching staff and thus losing enough games to not win the division.

Although I hope I'm wrong.

NOTE: I wrote this post thinking that Rios and Pierre would be really bad defenders and to my dismay and already halfway done, I realized they will be huge upgrades to the 2009 OF. So maybe that OF will help the pitchers a lot more than I thought but I still contend the Sox stay close all year and either the Twins and Tigers win it. That's just the cynic in me.