Which Sox players have overachieved?

[fathom]

My fellow Sox fans: which players on the White Sox this season do you believe have overachieved? Shockingly, it's basically a lot of our pitchers that could be considered on this list. Based off of something JimH and Dick Allen said earlier, there's really none of the Sox hitters which have overachieved this season.

 

 

Here's my overachiever list:

- Garland

- Contreras

- Politte

- Cotts

- Hermanson

[Balta1701]

I'll take the whole list minus Garland and Contreras. Depending on your definition of overachieving. If you're talking about doing better than we thought they'd do, then your list is correct.

 

If you're talking about doing better than they should have done this year...then you have to leave Garland and Contreras off, because they have done this year EXACTLY what those guys should be doing based on their talent.

 

Cotts is close in there too.

[fathom]

I'll take the whole list minus Garland and Contreras.  Depending on your definition of overachieving.  If you're talking about doing better than we thought they'd do, then your list is correct.

 

If you're talking about doing better than they should have done this year...then you have to leave Garland and Contreras off, because they have done this year EXACTLY what those guys should be doing based on their talent.

 

Cotts is close in there too.

 

Overachieving compared to previous results and what was expected. Even if Garland and Contreras had the stuff, they've still had years much better than we would have expected.

[witesoxfan]

What would be fun to do is have a underachieved list too.

 

Rowand has hit incredibly worse this past year than he did last year(like 160 points or so below his OPS from last year), Uribe is not at an .830 OPS, but rather a .730, Marte's control has been horrible all year, El Duque has been anything but unhittable the past 2 months, and perhaps even Carl is in the underachieved category.

 

What would be interesting to see is how people view Podsednik. Did he underachieve or overachieve this year? Or was he about right?

[Balta1701]

Overachieving compared to previous results and what was expected.  Even if Garland and Contreras had the stuff, they've still had years much better than we would have expected.

Not here, as far as I'm concerned, this is exactly what I expected from both of them. Minus Garland's difficulties in the last month or two.

 

In a drunken stupor earlier this spring, before I was at this site, i was saying those 2 would have great years and you could put it in the book. Garland has had this coming for a long time, and so has Contreras.

 

The thing I couldn't predict was our bullpen. I was still impressed with Marte and Takatsu to start the year. Oops.

[fathom]

What would be fun to do is have a underachieved list too.

 

Rowand has hit incredibly worse this past year than he did last year(like 160 points or so below his OPS from last year), Uribe is not at an .830 OPS, but rather a .730, Marte's control has been horrible all year, El Duque has been anything but unhittable the past 2 months, and perhaps even Carl is in the underachieved category.

 

What would be interesting to see is how people view Podsednik.  Did he underachieve or overachieve this year?  Or was he about right?

 

You could make cases for nearly every Sox player that they've underachieved. I'm definitely of the opinion that Pods has performed at the low end of expectations for him. If you would have told me that he would have hit .290 this year, I would have never thought that I would be saying how overrated he is.

[Balta1701]

I think Podsednik was just about right until he got hurt.

 

He was basically hitting his career average, with his career OBP, with slightly reduced power numbers, and a ton of speed. I was expecting him to steal at least 70 this year.

 

The last 2 months have been horrid for Pods because of that damn injury.

[Balta1701]

Underachieved.

 

ARow; already mentionned.

Uribe; already mentionned. Man we were spoiled with his first 2 months last season.

Crede: this dude should be hitting with a higher average. When he gets going, he can hit .350 for a month. If he could just hit .250 when he gets cold, instead of 1 for 20, he'd be hitting nearly .300 on the year.

Everett; was fine until this last month or so where his average has plummetted.

 

And aside from ARow, the person who has most disappointed me with the bat is:

 

AJ Pierzynski.

 

I would rather have the .300 hitter version of AJ with 10 home runs than the .255 version of AJ with 19 home runs. Man, what happened to that obnoxious guy from Minnesota who just piled up the hits?

[Dick Allen]

Underachieved.

 

ARow; already mentionned.

Uribe; already mentionned.  Man we were spoiled with his first 2 months last season.

Crede: this dude should be hitting with a higher average.  When he gets going, he can hit .350 for a month.  If he could just hit .250 when he gets cold, instead of 1 for 20, he'd be hitting nearly .300 on the year.

Everett; was fine until this last month or so where his average has plummetted.

 

And aside from ARow, the person who has most disappointed me with the bat is:

 

AJ Pierzynski.

 

I would rather have the .300 hitter version of AJ with 10 home runs than the .255 version of AJ with 19 home runs.  Man, what happened to that obnoxious guy from Minnesota who just piled up the hits?

 

These guys may have underachieved according to Sox fans and Sox management's projections, but you really can't say they underachieved when looking at their entire careers. Rowand had a big offensive season last year. For whatever reason he is hitting like the Aaron Rowand before 2004. Uribe is having a career average year. He had a big offensive season last year, but career wise he is exactly where you could expect him. Crede is having a typical Joe Crede season. He may have ability to be greater, but expecting and counting on that would probably make a baseball executive a former baseball executive. AJ is down on average, but the homers up. Everett is really about where you could expect him, except he may actually have more homers than you could have thought using his career numbers, age, injuries etc. Like I mentioned before, I really don't think there is anyone offensively who you could say is playing anything but a hair below what you could expect, as there is no one really having a career-type year. Fathom pointed out the pitching with about 5 or 6 guys maybe overachieving, and I couldn't agree with him more. Its the difference between this White Sox team and the others the past several seasons. Put the pitching performance of 2001-2004 with the Sox 2005 line-up and you have a team battling Detroit for 3rd in the AL Central.

[thedoctor]

i would say iguchi, although it's probably only in my eyes because i did not expect him to be as productive as he's been.

 

i thought he'd hit around .250 with little power and i expected him to have big-time difficulty fielding considering the transition to grass fields. i also expected him to really struggle early in the season, which did not happen.

 

in those respects, he's overachieved in my mind.

[Guest JimH]

IMO there are few overachievers in terms of raw stats on this team.

 

Cliff Politte

 

Dustin Hermanson

 

Neal Cotts

 

Contreras and Garland are fulfilling their long untapped potential and while it's good to see I would not categorize it as overachieving.

 

I would put Iguchi in the overachieving category because he was such an unknown coming into the year. Despite having some holes in his game, he has been a terrific addition.

 

As for the rest of them ... I would say most have done what's reasonably expected or to some degree, moderately underachieved. Pierzynski's batting average sticks out. Podsednik's defense.

 

To go all the way, there have to be some guys overachieving and that hasn't been the case. If there's good news, sometimes the overachieving can come in the playoffs and that carries the team. A great example was Al Weiss, 2B of the '69 Mets. He used to play for the White Sox, was an awful hitter, but was hot during the playoffs and World Series that year.

[Steve9347]

My fellow Sox fans:  which players on the White Sox this season do you believe have overachieved?  Shockingly, it's basically a lot of our pitchers that could be considered on this list.  Based off of something JimH and Dick Allen said earlier, there's really none of the Sox hitters which have overachieved this season.

 

 

Here's my overachiever list:

- Garland

- Contreras

- Politte

- Cotts

- Hermanson

 

You have to include Tadahito Iguchi.

[Dick Allen]

Maybe you do have to include Iguchi, but if you looked at what the guys at Baseball Prospectus and some other sources had him pegged at was .280 with 12-15 homers and about 15 steals. Almost exactly where he's at. KW probably had him pegged here as well or he wouldn't have given him the contract he gave him.

[southsideirish71]

Last year we had two guys K more than 100 times. That was Paulie with just over a 100 and Valentin with 139.

 

So far this year.

 

Arow 112ks wtih 29bb

Gooch 109ks with 45bbs

Kong 103ks with 73bbs

 

Dead has 95ks and Everett has 91ks.

 

The free swinging Juan Uribe has only 73ks.

[Chisoxrd5]

Arow 112ks  wtih 29bb

 

 

Wow he has been BAD this year at the plate...that ratio makes me :puke

[DonkeyKongerko]

Last year we had two guys K more than 100 times.  That was Paulie with just over a 100 and Valentin with 139.

 

So far this year.

 

Arow 112ks  wtih 29bb

Gooch 109ks with 45bbs

Kong 103ks with 73bbs

 

Dead has 95ks and Everett has 91ks. 

 

The free swinging Juan Uribe has only 73ks.

 

I looked at the AB statistics to try and gauge this. Everett has had the same number of ABs as Juan Uribe this year with 453. He is striking out about 1 in every 5 ABs. After last year, I can honestly say I expected more from Aaron Rowand than what he has shown in 2005. Crede's season numbers now are looking better than Everett's, something I wouldn't have expected to happen a few months ago, especially when comparing someone batting 9th to someone batting 3rd.

 

I can't really be a good judge of Gooch's stats because he had alot of adjustments to make early on and has had a ton of ABs this year where he has had to give up a couple of strikes to let Pods try and steal.

[elrockinMT]

My fellow Sox fans:  which players on the White Sox this season do you believe have overachieved?  Shockingly, it's basically a lot of our pitchers that could be considered on this list.  Based off of something JimH and Dick Allen said earlier, there's really none of the Sox hitters which have overachieved this season.

 

 

Here's my overachiever list:

- Garland

- Contreras

- Politte

- Cotts

- Hermanson

 

 

Fathom, I think I would be looking at the list of underachievers. That's why we have a 2 1/2 game lead versus having already clinched this thing.

[fathom]

Fathom, I think I would be looking at the list of underachievers. That's why we have a 2 1/2 game lead versus having already clinched this thing.

 

In due time my friend.