FanNation - The Republic of Sport

As a south sider by birth and upraising, I am an avid White Sox fan...And while this season has started out with ups and downs we are currently sitting 2.5 games above the Minney Twinkies...and 4.5 above the Indians, and this has me thinking...are we going to be a contender this season or just kind of hang around for a while and slide off....
Its been a 27-22 start so far to the season...and for some reason its good enough for first place...the reason i begin to be skeptic of this is for the fact that our team is not working on all cylinders....granted we are winning, but not in the team fashion we should be...So lets take a look at how we stand so far....
Hitting: Carlos Quentin aside (wow what a steal, thanks D-Backs!!)  We rank 27th in the league with a .244 BA....397 total hits....which is good enough to take the 28th spot and 218 runs scored and an OB% of 327, both good enough for an 18th rank...with these said, here are our leaders in order...
Carlos Quentin-This guy has been a great come back player this year...he was a GREAT prospect when the D Backs picked him up and has had injury problems in his first years of MLB...since then he was sent down to the minors last season and then released...and picked up by the good guys. He, thus far, has been a tremendous player...hitting .301 with 14 hrs 41RBI's...50 Hits... .415 OB% and .601 Slg%...with those stats he is a def contender for a come back player of the year award(by Viagra) and leads his team in every statistical hitting category...he is turning out to be a great pick up and great ball player...
Jermaine Dye-  The second best hitter for our team right now. .293 BA 49 Hits 8 HR and .348 OB%...Up in almost every hitting category from last season his has continued to produce, runs, hits and walks...look for him to maintain and continue his ways...
Joe Crede- Averaging .257 BA and 41 hits...Crede has been consistent to recent years as well…not expecting big things from him, but just consistent hitting like I said about Dye...
O. Cabrera,Paul Konerko, Nick Swisher and Jim Thome    All have been lack lusting this season...with not one hitting above .230, there has been a big question mark are there abilities this year. If they continue to slump, it will be hard pressed for the other 3, mentioned already, to continue to maintain there hitting ways....inconsistent hitting will be a huge downfall to this team...relying on two or maybe 3 hitters and your pitching isnt a way to win the division and def not a good way to make a statement in the playoffs...
With all these stats, not even breaking the top half of the league, it is, however, enough to take the 1 spot in the AL Central...and while this may be good enough for that, once the harder teams come along, this teams hitting will not be enough to get the job done...Overall grade C+
 
 
Pitching: Good guys pitching has been impressive thus far this season...they currently rank 2nd in the league with a 3.27 combined ERA for starting rotation... Sit at 2nd in the league with Earned runs with only 164....and 4th in the league with giving up 394 hits...
Gavin Floyd and John Danks taking top 10 spots on the ERA leader board have managed to maintain a low 3 to high 2 ERA...and Floyd gave up just 36 hits in just under 60 IP...while Danks gave up a little more with 52 in 58 IP as well...both showing somewhere around 15 win season potential...
Mark Buehrle on the other hand has struggled most of the season, and IMO will come around the longer the season goes on...Javier Vazquez has been consistent with a 3.43 and 65 IP and giving up 64 hits...he has 65 SO thus far leads the League with that stat...It seems to me that IF we continue to pitch at this rate we will be contending when the post season comes around...while that is a far cry from this point in time...our pitching is showing me that its possible right now... A-
 
Fielding...while they sit at the bottom 3/4 of the league with only 28 Errors, our fielding isn't showing many signs of incapability...A 985 fielding% isn't much off the leagues leader of 989%...B+
 
Division...Miney, Cleveland, Det and KC....
KC having a better year than most i still don not see them making any type of run at the Division... They have improved drastically but not to the point of being an actual contender..
Detroit-With big off season moves made, this team was suppose to be a top division leader...with horrendous pitching and ugly looking bats they have DEF. not lived up to the hype of what offseason experts have told us. While not all is dead in any division at this point, Detroit needs to make major adjustments and quick...seeing there is alot of baseball left, teams will only get better and better as it goes on...and any longer of this horrible play they will slip into a hole that is too far to recover from...
Minney-the complete opposite of Det. Most experts picked this team to be a bottom feeding team. With the release of many players, they were picked to struggle and maintain competition in this division. Oh how was every one wrong. They have played fairly well so far and have shhhh’ed the critics...While their record shows a different story of what im telling, they will be a contending team all season long. The biggest downfall I see is there hitting is relying too much on Mauer...this guy is good but not good enough to provide the team entire runs support season long...
Cleveland-We just swept um...and they looked like a bunch of newbie’s...they need to get consistent pitching...cliff lee is playing great but he needs to get tested...he has started against multiple last place teams and bottom feeders...im not sold on him yet...hitting- it is possible that it is worse than ours...the rank dead last with BA and hits are looking not much better. They needs to consistently hit the ball…they will have spouts where hits will come and go...this needs to pan out before i consider them staying up with Minney and Chicago...
 
As the season rolls on, and the competition grows harder and hard, the Good Guys will need to step up its hitting...and in a major way. They in NO way can win big this year with 3 hitters and pitching that needs to maintain its ways. With no run support on a consistent basis, the White Sox will fall, and will fall out of playoff contention...So, O. Cabrera, Paul Konerko, Nick Swisher and Jim Thom...start bringing your bats and earning that million dollar contract you signed for...otherwise take your minor league play...well down to the minors....If we can remain consistent with our pitching, we should be playing for a playoff spot come September... Keep it up good guys. Good start to the season...especially compared to the last one...