With opening day one week away not only are the Chicago White Sox in the toughest division in baseball but they still have many questions that need to be answered within their own organization. In 2005 when the White Sox held the title of World Series champions they were built on pitching and defense. Although the defense may have returned with the additions of Orlando Cabrera and Nick Swisher the pitching certainly is still a question mark. When you lose a starting pitcher such as Jon Garland you lose 200 innings and anywhere from 15 to 18 wins. Not only that but you move Jose Contreras up to the number 3 spot in the rotation and that might be asking too much from someone who went 10 and 17 with a 5.57 ERA and is believed to be around 40 years old around major league baseball. Also the White sox are asking a lot from young pitchers John Danks and Gavin Floyd even though they are very unproven major league ball players. At times early last year Danks looked like he could pitch in this league but towards the end he looked as if he might have been better off down in the minors as he went 0 and 6 with a 7.62 ERA in August. When it comes to Floyd no one knows who were going to see start the year. In September Floyd had a 3.19 ERA and looked like the pitcher who they thought he could be when he was the main part of the Freddy Garcia deal but prior to that he looked as if he might turn out to be a major bust. I would say the biggest question mark for the 2008 White Sox is without a doubt the starting rotation.
The biggest positive from this team should definitely come from the offense even though their not so sure who the leadoff hitter is going to be. They’ve flirted with the idea of putting Nick Swisher in that spot but that wouldn’t be the best move seeing that Ozzie likes to run and Swisher doesn’t possess the speed of a Scott Podsednik. My guess is you will see a lot of Jerry Owens against right handed pitchers and Pablo Ozuna against lefties. One thing that’s not good about this is that I can’t remember the last real contender that had a leadoff hitter by committee and that might put a lot of pressure on the new number 2 hitter Orlando Cabrera. Besides that, expect Jim Thome to have a pretty standard Thome like year around 30 to 35 home runs and Paul Konerko should return to form. Joe Crede is back as your starting third baseman sending Josh Fields back to Triple A and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. It should make the defense better but lets hope that he can return to form at the plate seeing as Fields put up some pretty good power numbers. Another new face in the lineup is Nick Swisher. He should put up some good numbers at homer friendly U.S. cellular field but was brought here to get on base and that’s what the Sox will need him to do. Expect the White Sox offense to be better in 08 as Jermaine Dye and A.J. Pierzynski return to form as well.
Last year the White Sox bullpen was among the worst in the majors so they went out and spent 30 million on Scott Linebrink and Octavio Dotel hoping they can get the ball to Bobby Jenks. Dotel is coming off an injury that saw him only throw 33 innings and had a 4.11 ERA. Linebrink was having a decent year until traded to the Brewers where he posted a 7.59 ERA in July and a 5.40 ERA in August. However, got back to form and had a 2.31 ERA in September. Linebrink said the trade affected him on the mound when he first got there but as he adjusted he began to pitch well down the stretch. Hopefully they will create a nice bridge to Bobby Jenks as he is the most dependable in the bullpen. The 2008 Chicago White Sox have some questions that need to be answered in the next week but this group should be better then last year even though the division is even harder then a year ago.
Keywords: White sox
