White Sox Bullpen Brings The Heat

Kenny Williams has a reputation as being a schizophrenic GM in terms of the talent he chooses to supply the White Sox any given season. One year he is playing Ozzie Ball the next he falls in love with the Long Ball. After several seasons of having DJ Carrasco and Ehren Wasserman tossing whiffle balls out of the bullpen, Williams decided to load up on nothing but fireballers. If you don't throw 94, you can't get a parking space in the dome the White Sox call a stadium (take that Sox fans!). Shockingly, only one member of this elite group is a product of the Sox minor league system, and he was just drafted a month ago in the 2010 draft. And as fangraphs has shown, increased velocity is correlated with increased strikeouts, especially at higher velocities. So here is the breakdown of the White Sox bullpen.

Matt Thornton - 96.1 mph, 12.17 K/9

Sergio Santos - 95.8 mph, 9.15 K/9

Chris Sale - 95.5 mph, 11.37 K/9 15K in 6IP in AAA

Bobby jenks - 94.9 mph, 11.3 K/9

Tony Pena - 94.3 mph, 4.89 K/9 WTF?

JJ Putz - 94.0 mph, 10.53 K/9

Scott Linebrink - 93.9 mph, 8.44 K/9