Kenny Williams
met with the Sox before they went on to get swept by Oakland, their fourth straight loss, and came out with this to say:
Williams further explained how Jim Thome, the player in the deepest current slump on the White Sox, is still the team's most valuable player on offense because of his .411 on-base percentage. He added that playoff teams usually get on base at a .355 clip, once again illustrating to his young talent the importance of working the count and taking the free passes.
"So it's not all about batting average, and they need to understand that that walk that they take, that eight-pitch at-bat, that 10-pitch at-bat, wearing the pitcher down is just as important to the team's chances as that base hit," Williams said. "Everyone wants to get a base hit. The reason why I'm standing here is I didn't get enough of them.
That's all well and good, except that aside from the Sox's 2-3-4 hitters, the Sox didn't have one guy they could count on to get on base entering the season. Jermaine Dye could be included, but his claim is tenuous -- even though he lived up to expectations in 2005, he still finished the year with a .333 OBP, two points below the league average. So
before the injuries rolled in, the Sox had precisely two players with track records of working the count -- Thome and Paul Konerko.
In 2006, the Sox managed to have one of the top offenses because of a lot of good luck. They led the league in isolated power, (.184; league average .162), and that and their insanely high average with runners in scoring position (.307; league average .276) helped boost a solid-but-unremarkable batting average on balls in play (.309; league average .308).
This year,
the luck went away, and the offense went right with it. Even if the Sox brought the power, it wouldn't be enough to offset the .277 BABIP, 26 points lower than the league average, especially considering the Sox strike out at an above-average rate.
This season is basically a worst-case scenario come to life. Almost every hitter had a decent chance of collapsing -- and
every one of them did out of the gate. Except for Thome, of course. He injured himself.
That's why it's a little peculiar for Williams to diss relying on the base hit at this time, because that's exactly what the present roster is built to do. Scott Podsednik, Pablo Ozuna and Darin Erstad entered the season as the 1-2 punch; Pods and Ozuna had sub-.300 OBPs in the second half of 2006, and Erstad posted one above-average OBP over the previous six seasons.
Making matters worse, he traded the two non-sluggers who had the ability to draw walks, Tadahito Iguchi and Rob Mackowiak, for A-ball relievers. They averaged a .346 OBP between them, and it's scary to think of what the team's league-worst .319 OBP would look like without them.
The new crop of players don't offer much encouragement, either. Josh Fields, once he stops striking out every third at-bat, is the best bet to top 60 walks in a season. As it stands, Danny Richar is leading the pack, but he has more walks (8) than hits (7) in 41 at-bats. He is making pitchers work, but he's eventually going to have to make them afraid to feed him strikes if that's going to continue. Therein lies the rub with Jerry Owens,
who had a quality OBP in Charlotte but can't crack .300 here.
Williams singled out Andy Gonzalez, who, believe it or not,
is fourth on the team in OBP despite batting .223. He's also seeing a whopping 4.4 pitches per plate appearances, but he can be patient to a fault. I did a double-take when I saw both those numbers because
11 of his 35 strikeouts have been on three pitches. And the last two times that's happened, he didn't even take the bat off his shoulder.
It figures. The one guy who could be able to help is simply excruciating to watch. And that pretty much sums up your 2007 Chicago White Sox.