What's wrong with the White Sox offence?

Friday, July 20 2007 @ 10:24 AM EDT

Some say that the White Sox' decline this year was entirely predictable.  Was it?

Much of the blame for the Sox season to date falls on the offence.  The Sox are scoring runs at the poorest rate in the American League. How about a look back at the Marcel, Chone and ZIPS projections, courtesy of Fangraphs, for the Sox regulars to see how they have fared compared with the projections?

Here is the chart:

Player	Actual OPS	Marcel OPS	Chone OPS	ZIPS OPS
Thome	.987	.900	.941	.965
Konerko	.893	.902	.852	.907
Mackowiak	.771	.757	.732	.737
Dye	.725	.879	.884	.905
Iguchi	.720	.775	.773	.765
Pierzynski	.694	.753	.771	.737
Erstad	.652	.714
Uribe	.599	.757	.759	.747
Crede	.576	.788	.789	.797

They say that hitting is contagious.  Perhaps poor hitting is also contagious. Whatever the cause, it is a fact that three regulars, Dye, Uribe and Crede (and Josh Fields who replaced him), have to date grossly underperformed the consensus projections, and no regular has significantly exceeded them.   That is one way for a decent team to be out of the running at the All-Star break. The pitching has been poorer than expected, as well, but that is a story for another day.

This may perhaps provide solace for Jays fans.  It could be worse.

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