Whenever you hear dopey TV talking heads and supposed baseball experts talk about White Sox leftfielder Scott Podsednik, they talk about the fact that he has more stolen bases than many entire Major League Baseball teams. (Currently, he has more than: 15 teams–San Francisco, Milwaukee (his old team), Arizona, Detroit, Cincinnati, Florida (yes, the Castillo-Pierre Marlins only have 20), Kansas City, Texas, Colorado, the Dodgers, Pissburgh, St. Louis (the Genius’ team has less?), Washington, Boston and of course Oakland. He has as many (26) stolen bases as Toronto.
That’s impressive.
Right?
It would be more impressive if he had more runs scored than stolen bases.
He doesn’t.
He has 26 of each.
So what exactly are all those stolen bases getting the White Sox?
Well, that depends. The Sox are 15th in the Major Leagues in runs scored, despite playing in a league that allows them to use a designated hitter. Of course, they like to use Carl Everett there, which is kind of like using your pitcher anyway. They are eighth in the AL in runs scored.
But they win with small ball. So they just have lots of guys on base all the time.
Right?
Well, their on base average as a team is .320. That’s 23rd in Major League Baseball. The Cubs even have a better on-base percentage than the White Sox. The Cubs is .326. And that’s bad. So .320 is really bad.
So where is all this small ball stuff then? Last year, US Comiskular Field or whatever it’s called was the easiest park in baseball to homer in. Easier than Coors Field. So the Sox decided they didn’t want to hit homers anymore.
Oh, that Kenny Williams, he’s genius!
His prize acquisition was Podsednik, for whom he traded his best hitter, Carlos Lee. Apparently he had to trade Carlos because Carlos liked to smack Damaso Marte on the neck in the clubhouse. Lee is currently trailing only the other Lee (Derrek) in the NL in RBI.
The Brewers, in fact, don’t miss Podsednik at all. He was not a particularly good defensive center fielder, and as crazy as Ozzie Guillen is, he even know to play Scott in left and leave Aaron Rowand in center. Even if Rowand is not terribly good.
The Brewers replaced Podsednik with a guy named Brady Clark. All we Cubs fans knew about Brady Clark was that in both 2003 and last year he cost the Cubs sure fire wins with circus catches in right field. He’s 32, he’s never been an every day player and never shown any real signs that he could be an every day player.
But Ned Yost has been running him out there every day in center, and frankly, the Brewers haven’t missed Podsednik at all. Yost benched Scott twice in 2004 for Podsednik’s obsession with stealing bases, even when the situation warranted him staying at first. Of course, it’s not like Scott was flush with stolen base chances, his on base average in 2004 was a hilarious .313.
This year, Podsednik is reaching base at a .368 clip. That’s pretty good. Not as good as the .393 he posted in the first half of his first full season in the majors with Milwaukee. But pretty good. He saw his OBA drop each half season.
First half 2003 – .393
Second half 2003 – .364
First half 2004 – .327
Second half 2004 – .296
That’s not a happy trend, is it? We’ll see how his go-around the American League works out.
Also, Podsednik’s OPS is interesting. Remember, he’s got a .368 on base average. So what do you think his OPS (on base plus slugging) is? .800? Ooh, maybe .850!
After all, Brady Clark’s is .865, and Brady’s not exactly Carlos Beltran circa the 2004 playoffs.
Podsednik’s is .683.
Huh? Wait, that has to be typo. Let’s try that again.
.683
Wow. His slugging percentage is a hilarious .315. He’s got six extra base hits in 165 at bats, they are all doubles.
So let’s compare Podsednik’s numbers to the guy who replaced him.
| AB | R | H | 2B | 3B | HR | RBI | BB | SO | SB | CS | Ave | Oba | Slg | Ops | |
| Podsednik | 165 | 26 | 46 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 23 | 23 | 26 | 7 | .279 | .368 | .315 | .683 |
| Clark | 212 | 39 | 70 | 12 | 0 | 6 | 23 | 15 | 19 | 4 | 7 | .330 | .393 | .472 | .865 |
The one glaring difference is that while Podsednik has stolen 19 more bases than Clark, Brady’s been gunned down just as many times. Apparently, Ned Yost likes to watch Brady run to his death.
Otherwise, Brady’s got Scotty in almost every category.
So if Scott’s not the key to the White Sox success, and if they are lousy in on base averge, thereby debunking the oft repeated crap about them playing “small ball”, why are they winning?
An early season schedule heavy on sub .500-teams (32 games against Kansas City, Oakland, Seattle, Detroit and Tampa) has helped. They also played the Cubs when they were under .500 and got the Twins six times in the first two weeks without Justin Morneau and with a hobbled Joe Mauer. But the Sox deserve credit for beating teams they should, not every team does that.
The real reason has been their pitching. The starters got off to an absurd start…wait, check that, two of the starters did. Mark Buehrle started 8-1 and Jon Garland was 8-0. When two fifths of your rotation is 15 games over .500 you’ll have a good record.
The Sox have allowed the fewest runs in the American league at 184, so their paltry 224 runs scored ends up being an impressive 40 runs more than they’ve allowed.
They are 16-7 in one run games. Those 23 are the most of any team in baseball. It’s not unheard of for a team to post a terrific one-run win loss record over a full season, but it’s unlikely.
But they can pitch this well all year, right?
Sure they can.
And in the meantime, Scotty can keep running and the media can tell us how great Ozzie Ball works.
You #$%$ piece of #$@!. I can’t @#$(ing believe you would #$@^ing write that about us. All we’ve @#)@ing done is win all year, and you are ^()&ing writing this #$)!. $)#@!!!!!!!
If you modify SLG by thinking that SBs add to total bases, but CS reduce both OBP and SLG, then his mOPS is a much better .760. Still not great. But if you can’t slug your way to second but can slap your way to first and steal second, shouldn’t it be the same as a double?
The better stat is the lack of runs scored despite at least 30 ish trips to scoring position.
Scotty has stolen 26 bags, and my heart.
And my sac.
You’ll like this, Chuck.
Corey’s OPS is almost 100 points higher than Scott’s. And we know how productive he’s been.
What I think is interesting is that given his current OBP, this is as good as it’s going to get for Scott. He’s never, in the minors, or the majors, shown that he can sustain a decent on base average.
Every day, the Sox remind me more and more of the 2001 Cubs. That ended so well, didn’t it?
It’s typical of the white media that you’d ignore the fact that in June I’ll swing a trade for Robbie Alomar to jumpstart us.
This article sucked. I didn’t see a single poop joke.
Shit,
I’m better than Podsednik is
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/players/profile?statsId=7510
Enough of this tripe. When’s the interview with me? And what gift do I get for appearing on desipio?
Len:
Danley’s is coming over to tear down your garage.
Or something.
Al Rohrman and I will come by and peep into your windows, Lenny!
Brady Clark is an excellent basestealer! Four out of 11 is good!
We’re more fun to obsess over than the Sox, we’re more fun to watch, and you don’t have to claim every few days that you don’t care about us.
It’s funny, one article is written about the over-hyped Sox, and a South Sider gets on here (like he/she does every day) and says we’re obsessing.
The big difference between Pods and Patterson is the OBP. Pods hits 1st. All his job is, is to get on base. If he gets on first to lead off the game, they have a good shot at taking a 1 run lead (runner on 1st, none out yields slightly less than 1 run per instance). If he steals second the yield is slightly over 1 run.
When Corey hits 1st he thinks his job is to get them to a 1 run lead by himself.
Personally, if you could transplant Pods’ numbers to Corey, I’d be happier.
As perhaps the longest-tenured Sox fan who frequents this site, honesty compels me to point out that this is the first exclusively Sox-themed article I have seen on Desipio. Ever.
Or something.
Personally, I prefer the Desipio Babes.
So do I!
Me, too!
By the way, that last picture was taken of me after Lester Holt asked me how big Andy’s sac is.
Killing two birds with one stone…
Yes the Sox resemble the ’01 Cubs. You may also recall that I broke Cub fans heart late in 2001 while playing for Cincinnati (Todd Walker was my teammate). In the first game after the September 11th attacks, I came up with runners on second and third and two out in the ninth inning with my team down a run. I lined a single down the right field line off of a trembling Kyle Farnsworth for a turnaround walk-off hit. This was about 6 games after Preston Wilson hit a two-out, three-run turnaround walk-off homer off of Tom Gordon in Miami.
The Wilson homer was the one most people remember. It was a crushing blow that the Cubs never really recovered from. Of course, they were still alive–barely hanging on–when I essentially ended your season with another heartbreaking blow.
Come to think of it, those two games sort of resemble last year’s Mets and Reds games. Sort of.
Anyway, just thought I’d drop in to let you know that I am quite the Cub Killer.
Posednik has made a effort to slap the ball instead of trying to drive it. He has shown the ability to hit for extra bases over the past coouple of years and this year is just trying to get on base. His sacrificing his slugging percantage to improve his on base percentage which is exactly what you want from your lead-off hitter.
As for his runs scored, it’s not really his fault that the middle of the order has failed to drive him in. If he was hitting in front of DLee instead of Konerko & Dye you could probably credit him with another 10 runs scored.
Anyway, I’m not sure what the Sox trading for Posednik has to do with Brady Clark. So the Brewers had a replacement for Pods. Great! Teams often do before they trade away one of their players. Will you analyze the Hawkins for Williams & Aardsma trade by analyzing how the rest of the Giants pitching staff performs?
“Hey, did you Jason Schmidt pitch that shut-out yesterday?”
“Yeah, the Cubs sure are stupid for trading for Jerome Williams.” Or something.
As for the rest of the article, I think every one knows that pitching and defense is the reason the Sox are off their great start. Some people have made the argument that the offense is more consistent this year, but hardly anyone heaping praise on it. Nice straw man!
As for Carlos, he’s definitely a great hitter. But Posednik does have offensive value and plays better defense. On top of that, the trade freed up money to sign El Duque and Pierzynski.
Overall, this is one of the worst articles I’ve read on Desipio – even worse than the Front Office.
Buda,
Love you pal! I’d love you even more if you could spell my name.
I’d love him even more if he could spell Buddah.
I’ll love everyone more when I really have 8 wins.
That was quite the obsessive piece.
Buda, thanks. Nothing like a Cubs winning streak to get arrogant fans belittling the Sox.
Punks.
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