Tag Archives: White Sox

Free Agency: Mike Clevinger and Jose Abreu

Free Agency has begun. There has been a lot of smaller moves but SP Mike Clevinger and 1B/DH Jose Abreu have found new homes. These guys are well known players in their own right. Let us begin with Mike Clevinger.

The right handed Clevinger got his Major league start in Cleveland with the former Indians, current Guardians. He was then a part of that famous San Diego/ Cleveland in which a bunch of players that helped the Guardians get to ALDS. Meanwhile in San Diego with the Padres, Clevinger remained for 2 years. However, Clevinger missed 2021 with an Tommy John surgery. Clevinger has signed with the White Sox for 1 year 12 million dollars. The story of Mike Clevinger, statistically is one of constant improvement and consistent performance. Despite the fact, he bounced around to three different teams in his 6 years of MLB experience. Let’s take a look:

When you look at Clevinger stats, you can see why the White Sox took a chance on him. Of course 12 million for 1 year is a prove it deal. But his consistent sub 4.00 ERA since 2017, and his consistent 140+ ERA+ since 2017 kind of tells you how good he is. If you look at the 6 year average for HR/9, BB/9 and SO/9, Clevinger is a mid-tier, 3-4 starting pitcher. On a bad staff, he’s probably a 2 starter. HIs SO/9 is great at 9.5 and walk rate is good enough. The concern will be his HR/9 which at 1.1 is a bit high. This is was a good move for the White Sox. He also joining an already good rotation with Lucas Giolito, Dylan Cease and Lance Lynn.

A former, career long White Sox Jose Abreu has decided to join the World Series Champions, Houston Astros. In his age 36 season, with 9 years of MLB experience. Abreu signed a 3 year 58.5 million dollar contract with the Astros. He throws and bats right. Abreu has a laundry list of accomplishments including a MVP, Rookie of the Year, 3x sliver slugger, and 3x All Star. Abreu has been a good hitter his whole career. The stats back this up. His time at DH kinda speaks for his defense at first base. That being said, after letting Trey Mancini go, I think the Astros made a great move. Lets see the stats:

I usually don’t go full fat stat brick but notice the award column. He has a lot of votes of MVP in multiple different years. You can also see the multiple times that Abreu led league in some offensive category, once in hits, twice in RBI and once in slugging percentage. If you look at his 9 year averages, you would easily pick a .292 BA/.354 OBP/.506 SLG/.860 OPS hitter to be on your team. Thats what you want your designated hitter to look like. I believe that despite his age, at the end of his deal he will be 39, the Astros won’t regret it. Abreu will continue to produce at a high level assuming he can stay healthy.

Thanks for reading! Also make sure to check out my social media page and subscribe to the blog for updates!

Thank you to Baseball Reference and Baseball Savant for the statistics.

Chicago White Sox: FIP Problem

The Chicago White Sox have seriously failed the expectations put upon them in the beginning of this year. Last year they lost to the Houston Astros in the ALDS. But this year it was expected by Las Vegas odds that the White Sox would around 91.5 wins O/U. They were expected to most likely run away with the division (AL Central) plus be the cream of the AL. Unfortunately it’s not working like they thought it would. They find themselves down 8 games in the AL Central to the rival Cleveland Guardians. Even worse they find themselves 6.5 games back from a 3rd wildcard spot. I looked at their hitting and it’s been a struggle especially early on in the season. But then I went to their pitching staff and found some very concerning indications of why they blew expectations. 

I want to start with the analytic called FIP that’s in the title. FIP stands for fielding independent pitching. Here’s an explanation of how its calculated by Baseball Reference: 

“this stat measures a pitcher’s effectiveness at preventing HR, BB, HBP and causing SO

(13*HR + 3*(BB+HBP) – 2*SO)/IP + Constantlg

The constant is set so that each season major-league average FIP is the same as the major-league avg ERA”

FIP is a good indicator of two things. The first is how good or bad is the defense behind each pitcher. The second thing is how good the pitcher actually is. I want to talk about the pitchers first then I’ll discuss the White Sox horrid defense. There are 10 pitchers on the White Sox staff with FIPs over 3. Six of those have FIPs over 4. The most concerning is SPs Michael Kopech and Lucas Giolito along with RP Jose Ruiz. All of these pitchers have FIPs of 4.49, 4.12, 4.33 respectively. Meaning they just aren’t pitching great. This is backed up by their poor ERA+ of 112, 79, and 87 respectively. If you needed any more evidence Giolito’s WHIP is 1.477 and Ruiz’s WHIP is 1.447. WHIP is BB+H/ IP and it calculates the amount of baserunners a pitcher generates over the course of an inning throughout the season. Having runners on base increases the chances a pitcher will give up runs. (Duh) But it hurts more when your offense is struggling. 

Enough with grinding on the pitching staff, let’s turn to the defense who doesn’t escape blame. In the AL, the White Sox defense ranks 15th out of 15 teams. The team has made 100 errors (September 23) this season. The worst offenders have been All Star Shortstop Tim Anderson and Second Baseman/ Outfielder Josh Harrison with 12 errors each. The White Sox also have Jose Abreu and Leury Garcia committing 10 errors each. This means 44 errors out of 100 are just by 4 players. That’s nearly half!  

As you can tell when the White Sox look back on this season they need to work on their pitching and their defense. Not to mention their offensive struggles. This post also gives you a nice look at how FIP and WHIP can be used to understand the difference between good pitching and bad pitching. ERA or even ERA+ doesn’t tell the whole story. It also makes the defense accountable. White Sox will probably miss the playoffs because of this. 

Thanks for reading and consider subscribing to the blog. Also check out my social media page.

Thanks to baseball reference and baseball savant for the statistics.