Kuzul

The Chicago White Sox are finally back to .500 after their sweep of the Chicago Cubs this past weekend. Jake Peavy’s fifth win of the season on Sunday marked the fourth win in a row for the Sox, and now, they are scheduled to play the Minnesota Twins at home starting Tuesday, May 22.

While the White Sox are looking similar to the way they started last year in the sense that their pitching is good but their offense is struggling to catch up (with some blown saves sprinkled in here and there), there are plenty of positives to look at so far. Many of those positives are in the starting rotation, but this article is going to look at the Sox position players, or basically their lineup. 

Their lineup, from top to bottom, is very inconsistent, featuring many nice surprises, but also many huge disappointments (so far). I’m going to go through each hitter on the White Sox and list some pros, cons and what we can expect from them going forward (which includes predictions). 

Begin Slideshow

The Chicago White Sox put forward a decent, albeit somewhat unpleasant fight in the first game of the season. They fell in a 3-2 decision to the Texas Rangers on Friday. It was a melancholy start to the beginning of Robin Ventura’s tenure as White Sox manager.

A few players looked particularly good for the White Sox. Adam Dunn had a very pleasing start to the season. John Danks did fairly well in his start. Addison Reed did a solid job in relief.

Some didn’t do too well. Brent Morel was horrible each time he went to the plate. Gordon Beckham wasn’t that impressive.

Following is a look at some key points to Opening Day for the White Sox.

Begin Slideshow

As Opening Day for Major League Baseball approaches (not counting the two-game series in Japan), every team, no matter how they look on paper, has a shot to win it all.

Getting off on the right foot and winning on Opening Day, while not crucial to a team’s success, can go a long way towards building momentum, especially for clubs whose expectations for the 2012 season may be on the lower side.

As with any team, there is always an “X-factor” or wild card that can change the outcome of anything from one game to an entire season. These players can be anyone from a superstar returning from injury or an “off” season, to a young player trying to make a name for himself, yet somehow can find that his performance, or lack there of, will be directly related to his team’s performance.

Who will be the biggest X-factors this Opening Day? Who will surprise, disappoint, help or hurt their teams as the 2012 season begins?

Begin Slideshow

I’ve got some big news, White Sox fans.

In light of the openings in the White Sox bullpen, I have decided to forgo my career in sports journalism to challenge the likes of Hector Santiago, Gregory Infante, Dylan Axelrod, Brian Bruney, Zach Stewart and Eric Stults in their quest to make the big club.

In all seriousness, the existence of these openings in the White Sox relief corps isn’t necessarily reassuring for Sox fans. Keep in mind that Will Ohman already has his name penciled into the roster card.  Ouch.

Before I go on my usual rant, let me give some credit to Bruney for slimming down and looking exactly like from Frank on American Pickers (yeah, I watch the History Channel). His sleekness has proved to be successful in the early-going as the righty hasn’t allowed a run while striking out three in two appearances so far.

Axelrod, a 30th-round pick in the 2007 MLB Draft by the San Diego Padres, has been a cute, little side-story for a team that needs a spark of optimism and good energy. (Exactly what I can provide.)

When Kenny Williams shipped Sergio Santos to Toronto, he set up the White Sox bullpen for disaster.

Now, the group consists of a collection of parts primarily unwanted by the rest of the league that is headlined by set-up men Jesse Crain and Matt Thornton.

But wait, who will Robin Ventura call on to close out the nail-biters?

To this point, it seems as though the closer’s job is a three-horsed competition between Thornton, Crain and Addison Reed.

Thornton and Crain, league veterans, will undoubtedly be given the first crack at the opportunity because of their success in the league.  

Notice that I didn’t allude to their successes at closing ball games. Neither Thornton or Crain have exactly lit the world on fire in this stressful role.

Thornton was named the closer at the beginning of last season and fell flat on his face, converting only three saves in seven opportunities. Yeah, he faced a little bit of a bad luck with atrocious fielding behind him, but you can’t expect to blow four saves and still remain the closer of a team expecting to compete.

Crain, albeit masterful at times, has a propensity of serving up gopher-balls late in games. Although he did put together a great season (8-3, 2.62 ERA, 70 K in 67 G), he’s a set-up man. Let’s not try the Matt Thornton Experiment again.

Closing in the big leagues requires a certain type of mentality. Grit and mental toughness are absolute essentials towards success in the ninth inning. While I’m not questioning Crain’s mental toughness, he’s closed a mere four games in his MLB career. Let’s not make orange juice out of lemons. (I love making up mantras on the spot.)

At just 23 years old, Reed can still be molded into a major league closer. He possesses a big fastball/nasty slider combination and a deceptive delivery that can make him an immediate asset to the big club. During garbage time last season, the San Diego State alumni struck out 12 guys in six appearances in September. If my math is correct, that’s approximately two Ks an outing. 

Punch-outs aside, Reed is still young enough where he can develop the intensity and “Kenny-Powerness” to close out the nail-biting, leg-shaking White Sox victories. 

Apart from the the bullpen, the White Sox starting rotation and lineup seem to be pretty set in stone. 

The rotation boasts the likes of John “$65 million No. 4 starter” Danks, Gavin “The Phillies drafted me instead of Mark Teixeira” Floyd, Jake “I won a Cy Young before the recession” Peavy, Phil “I hope the magic that invaded my body last season doesn’t wear off” Humber and Chris “Why am I included with this bunch of schmos” Sale.

Don’t keep get me started on the starting lineup. Obvious highlights include Adam “If I strike out quickly on three pitches, maybe the fans won’t notice” Dunn and Alex “I’m going to buy a $12 million diamond tiara with all the money I’m owed” Rios.

But, at least the team now features Kosuke Fukudome. Joking aside, his signing was one of Kenny’s better moves. Finally, an outfielder who can actually read a fly ball. What a concept.

Dan Johnson, former “Moneyball” first basemen of the Oakland Athletics, will hopefully bring some good defense and OBP to a team that could use another lifetime .235 hitter.

The fact that I have to mention Dan Johnson in my column isn’t necessarily an optimistic foreboding for the 2012 White Sox.  

Although the Pale Hose might not compete for the pennant, Sox fans should look on the bright side.

While 20 different pitchers might get their 15 minutes of fame in the White Sox bullpen, I won’t be one of them.  

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Adam Dunn‘s numbers weren’t very glamorous at the end of last season.

After it was all said and done, Adam had a mere .159 batting average with 415 total at-bats.  He batted only .128 in the month of September.

But Dunn’s new manager Robin Ventura is excited about him, according to this quote from csnchicago.com’s Chuck Garfien, via his Twitter account:

“Ventura on Adam Dunn: “He’s on our squad. He’s not going anywhere. I’m patient and I know it’s there.”

Encouraging news for a player who many fans have questioned even being in the lineup.

But Dunn has been his own toughest critic.  Arriving at spring training, he talked about the immediate things on the agenda, which includes working with new White Sox hitting coach Jeff Manto.

“We’ll kind of go over some things and see what he wants me to do and how he wants me to approach the season and kind of go from there,” said Dunn in the Chicago Tribune, who struck out 177 times in the 2011 season.

“My main goal is to be ready for Opening Day, and that’s what I’ll do.”

But Dunn worked hard to counter his slumping numbers in the offseason.  Working on the fundamentals of his swing by taking several batting exercises, he hopes to find the success he had in 2009 when he batted a career-best .267.

We’ll have to see if the batting practice pays off.  Surprisingly enough, if you ask Adam about it, he’s not so optimistic.

“No, other than I’ll probably be a little better in [batting practice] than normal,” Dunn said.  “Other than that, I don’t know.”

His desire to compete at a high level and bring his team success is still there.

“My goal is to be ready for opening day, and that’s the ultimate goal,” Dunn said. “It doesn’t matter to me if I go out and hit .500 with 20 home runs this spring. That probably won’t translate over to the season.”

Of course, better numbers can always turn his attitude around.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Chicago White Sox fans are witnessing what is quite possibly the most sour free-agent signing in franchise history as Adam Dunn goes through a nightmarish season.

Dunn stunk in April. He stunk in May. He’s currently stinking up June.

He stinks against righties. He stinks against lefties. So far in 2011, Dunn has served up hot donkey stink on ice for the White Sox.

The sad news is that the only course of action may be to keep the stench in the lineup until Dunn starts to come out of the funkiest funk seen on the South Side since…I can’t remember since.

Jermaine Dye’s last half of 2009 comes to mind, but we didn’t have three more seasons at an average of $14.75 million to look forward to. The tough part to swallow is that fact that we have no choice but to look forward.

What’s transpired up to this point is too gruesome to dwell on for long, but here goes.

Dunn managed two hits in Friday night’s loss to Washington. Of course, it took him 14 innings to do it. Dunn’s previous multi-hit game was back on May 14. Going into this month, his numbers (.185, five home runs, 23 RBI) suggested that he had nowhere to go but up.

Wrong.

Dunn’s June as of Saturday morning? A .161 average, two homers and six RBI. That’s against several familiar National League opponents.

Dunn looks like a beaten man at the plate. He is hitting .020 against left handed pitching. Even when he connected with what looked like a two-run homer in the sixth, Roger Bernadina was able to go over the wall and stick another shiv in the side of Big Donkey.

That’s how things go when you’re in a valley. Right now, Dunn is the Sultan of Slump.

At this point, the White Sox have decided to keep Dunn in the lineup, as opposed to bringing a guy like Dayan Viciedo for most of Dunn’s at-bats. No one deals for that contract, and sending Dunn to the minors won’t help and just humiliates a guy who by all accounts is showing up every day and trying to get his act together.

The best that we can hope for is that for some stretch of time Dunn is able to put together a productive streak in the second half. We can only hope that the White Sox will be contending if and when that happens.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

Baseball season is coming up and the American League Central is promising to be one of the most competitive divisions this season. I have come up with six different reasons why the White Sox will be the most exciting team to watch within this division.

The White Sox are always full of excitement, exemplified last year by the feud between Guillen and Williams, by the 30-game stretch in which the White Sox went 25-5, and by the addition of Manny Ramirez—one of the biggest characters in all of baseball.

This season promises to be even more exciting, as the White Sox have added some new pieces to their roster, while retaining the main pieces from last year. Oh yeah, Kenny Williams and Ozzie Guillen still work on the South Side.

Begin Slideshow

Do strikeouts really matter with a big time slugger? Many fans groan and complain about the strikeout rates. Players like Carlos Pena, Adam Dunn, Dan Uggla and Mark Reynolds have made this statistic very visible year after year. It appears Mark Reynolds can out do himself for the single season strikeout record on an annual basis.

This article is going to focus on Dunn and Pena in specific. The main reason for this is to remove the variable of stolen bases and speed. The fact that Reynolds can steal 20 bases a season varies the results. The assumption of this article is that Dunn and Pena will rely on others to knock them in from first base.

I took a look at the benefits of these sluggers taking a walk versus striking out. In 648 plate appearances, Dunn walked 77 times. In 582 plate appearances Pena walked 87 times. How beneficial were these walks to the team? I went through the game logs and highlighted any games where one run made a difference in either a loss or a win. It turns out in 23 games won or loss by a run, Pena drew a walk which resulted in a run only four times. Two of these were wins. Out of 71 games where Pena drew a walk, only two wins were decided by the resulting run. On the other hand, Dunn scored after walking in eight of 18 games decided by one run. Only three of those eight games were victories. So Dunn drawing a walk only helped his team win three times. These figures show that walks do not make a significant impact on their team by the slugger.

Couple these figures with the fact that the two players likely to hit behind Pena this year combined to hit into 22 double plays. This year Dunn will have two players who combined to hit into 37 double plays, hitting behind him.

This article obviously does not adjust for the variable effects of players keeping a rally alive or killing it.

After everything is said and done, these statistics tell me walks don’t win games for these two slow moving sluggers. So the next time you feel like groaning about another strikeout, don’t. The free pass probably wouldn’t have mattered anyways.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com

As spring training gets underway in Florida and Arizona, we take one last look at the recent Major League Baseball offseason and how the various trades and acquisitions will affect the fantasy landscape for 2011.

While there was much more movement than the players listed below, this is a fantasy roster comprised of the most notable players per position that will be wearing different uniforms from Opening Day 2010 and should be on radars come draft time 2011. Not all players in this article are necessarily top-tier options, but each carries some value all the way through the mid-to-late rounds if you have a position of need during your draft.

Begin Slideshow

Since the franchise’s move to the Nation’s capital in 2005, the Washington Nationals have had relatively quiet off-seasons. In 2010, the Nats bucked that trend in a big way.

Gone are Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham and their unsightly attempts at defense. In are the smooth-fielding Jayson Werth and Adam LaRoche.

If Ian Desmond and Nyjer Morgan can play up to their potential defensively, Washington should be one of the better defensive teams in the NL.

With the additions of Rick Ankiel, Jerry Hairston Jr., and Matt Stairs to Mike Morse and Wilson Ramos, the Nats may finally have a bench they can count on.

The National’s have had bullpen problems since that magical 2005 season, but 2011 looks to be the end of that nightmarish run.

The Nats’ already lethal triumvirate of Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard, and Sean Burnett has been bolstered by the arrival of the flame-throwing Henry Rodriguez, who seems to have solved the control problems that plagued him in Oakland.

And don’t underestimate the recoveries of Jordan Zimmermann and Jason Marquis. After missing nearly all of last year with injuries, the two talented hurlers could be like found money in 2011.

If Livan Hernandez and John Lannan can pick up where they left off in 2010, the Nationals may have one of the deepest staffs in all of baseball.

Unfortunately, those are gigantic ifs.

For all the moves that Nationals did make, there was just as many that they failed to get done.

The team still lacks a top of the line starting pitcher, despite the best efforts of GM Mike Rizzo. And the Nationals will struggle to fill the power void left by big Adam Dunn.

Make no mistake, while the Nationals will be improved, they will still struggle to win 80 games in 2011.

But it should be fun to watch, despite the absence of a Mr. Strasburg. But fear not, he’ll be back in 2012—with his friend Bryce.

Read more MLB news on BleacherReport.com