Low Expectations Leave White Sox Sitting Pretty

By: Ben Nelson

What are you so afraid of Sox fans? You’d think that the White Sox had raised another white flag during the off-season from the negative energy coming from the South Side. Much of this malaise is simply a product of watching the other side of the city spend money.The North Siders currently carry the city bragging rights after an NLCS appearance, and seem to have gotten better in the off-season. The Sox have subtracted talent from a team that fell short of winning a bad division last year. But a closer look at the 2003 season will tell you that excluding the playoffs, the Cubs won only two more games than the White Sox last year.

What does this tell you? Winning the division and advancing in the playoffs make all the difference in perception, which leads to the huge advantage that the Sox have in the 2004 bragging rights race. In short, if you handicap this season, the Sox have a better chance of exceeding expectations than the Cubs.

First let’s look at what the Cubs need to do. Anything short of a World Series will simply be a repeat of last year. Yet winning the NL Central will be a much tougher task than it was a year ago.

The Houston Astros have always been a dangerous offensive team, but with a pitching staff of Roy Oswalt, Andy Pettite, Wade Miller, Roger Clemens and Tim Redding, they are now downright scary. When the Cardinals are healthy they have just as much claim to the title of division favorites as anyone, and while runs by Cincinnati or Pittsburgh are unlikely, stranger things have happened. Nothing would be stranger than a run by Milwaukee, but that still leaves plenty of competition in the NL Central. So it is safe to say that the Cubs have a long road ahead of them just to meet expectations.

Then we have the rest of the AL Central to look at. Perhaps Minnesota’s greatest advantage completely disappeared this off-season when both LaTroy Hawkins and Eddie Guardado left the Twins’ bullpen as free agents. Also, don’t expect rookie catcher Joe Mauer to step in and put up the same numbers as A.J. Pierzynski right away. The Twins are still tough, but could be much more vulnerable than the 2003 model.

The Kansas City Royals were a miracle last year, going from a 62-100 record in 2002 to 83-79 in 2003. While they have added Juan Gonzalez and Matt Stairs, they still don’t have the firepower of the Sox and now have a few key players with a history of injuries. The Royals may be ready to consistently compete, but I wouldn’t put money on it. They could just as easily lose 90 than win 90.

Detroit will need a lot more than Pudge Rodriguez to become a competitive team, while Cleveland is quite a ways away from mounting an attack. A division title in the AL Central is still a relatively undemanding task for the right team.

So why the 180° in confidence this year? Last year the White Sox were expected to easily win the weak AL Central. They failed but still finished a respectable ten games over .500. This year the field has diminished but the state of the Sox seems very much the same.

The offensive corps going into 2003 was Magglio Ordonez, Frank Thomas, Carlos Lee and Paul Konerko and the pitching staff was anchored by two solid starters in Mark Buehrle and Bartolo Colon. This year Colon is gone, but Esteban Loaiza certainly achieved everything we hoped from Colon last season. So why not plug Loaiza into Colon’s spot in the “on-paper” analysis? Don’t forget that the other big losses, Roberto Alomar, Carl Everett and Scott Sullivan, didn’t start the season with the Sox. When it comes down to it, the 2004 White Sox, at this point and time, aren’t that much different than that of 2003. As the Sox have proven in recent years, just because you are the best team on paper doesn’t mean you’re going to win the division, but it sure doesn’t hurt.

What really killed the White Sox last year was a lack of chemistry. No one knows what effect Ozzie Guillen will have on this dysfunctional family, but the chemistry can’t get much worse. A true shakeup may be just what the doctor ordered.

There are many Chicagoans that say they don’t care in regards to what happens on the other side of the city, or even those who say they root for both teams. But for most White Sox fans, the true measure of success is still beating their neighbors to the north.

While the two payrolls in Chicago are moving in opposite directions, that doesn’t necessarily mean the win totals will follow. After all the World Series saw a team with $52 million payroll beat one with $156 million. The White Sox just might be the dark horse that comes out of nowhere this year … or at least out of the Cubs’ shadow.

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