The Chicago White Sox are coming off a very disappointing season in which they finished 4th in the American League Central. The team won 72 games and only finished ahead of the Royals by 3 games. This isn’t the team that won the World Series in 2005, but they shouldn’t be as bad as there were last year. Manager Ozzie Guillen needs to get the team to show some sort of improvement or he could be looking for a new job. The team lost won of its better starting pitchers in Jon Garland, but did add solid setup men in Octovio Dotel and Scott Linebrink. To help what seemed like a team wide slump on the offensive end, the team added outfielders Nick Swisher and Carlos Quentin. They also added sure handed SS Orlando Cabrera, who had one of his best seasons at the plate last year. The team should be a lot better than last year, but they just don’t have the talent to compete with the Tigers and Indians.
Pitching:
The team needs dependable starter Mark Buehrle to win more than 10 games. The only White Sox pitcher to do so was Javier Vazquez who went 15 – 8. Jose Contreras seen his ERA jump to a career worst 5.57 last year, and will need him to return the pitcher he was when he came over from the Yankees. The team will rely on the young arms of John Danks and Gavin Floyd to fill in the bottom part of the rotation. These guys are still young and still have yet to prove themselves in the big leagues. The bullpen should be a little better with Dotel and Linebrink coming in to protect the lead for closer Bobby Jenks. This unit posted the third worst ERA last season with a 4.77 ERA. We don’t expect a much better year from these guys; they just didn’t add enough starting pitching.
Offense:
This should be a better offense than the team put on the field last year. With the additions of Swisher and Quentin to Jermaine Dye in the outfield they should have much better power numbers from the outfield. The big bats of Jim Thome and Paul Konerko should improve on their sub par seasons. They weren’t the only two to have down years as C A.J. Pierzynski and 3B Joe Crede had worse years in 2007 than 2006. Cabrera should be able to step into the leadoff nicely, as he is a good contact hitter who hit a career best .301 last season with the Angels.
Defense:
The team wasn’t much better on the defense side of things. They gave up way to many extra outs and struggled throwing out base runners. Cabrera is a stud at SS and should help improve the defense up the middle. They need to keep Dye, Pierzynski, and Konerko healthy as none of them committed more than 5 errors. If they are able to improve their defense in 2008, it would really help the arms of the young pitchers they are hoping can fill the voids in the rotation.
Prediction:
This is not a playoff team, but we had trouble deciding if they were better than Minnesota. We think that both teams are very equal, but if we had to pick we would take the White Sox to finish ahead of the Twins. Putting them 3rd in the Central behind the Tigers and Indians.
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