Clueless Cubs Falsely Mimic Sox

By: Peter Bernstein

There’s no point in comparing the talent level of the Cubs and Sox because, well, there’s no comparison. But it might be worthwhile to compare the philosophies of the two teams … to understand why one is on its way back to the playoffs and the other is headed for a second straight sub-.500 year.

The conventional thinking about the ‘05 Cubs is that they were too dependent on the home run and too prone to strike out.

“Why can’t they be more like the Sox and use their small ball ways to manufacture runs?” we’d hear so often.

But the small ball Sox were partly a myth created by a media that seems to believe that a ground ball to second is the height of baseball acumen. It was a media in search for answers that went against some convential statistical reasoning. In truth, the 2005 Sox hit six more home runs and struck out 82 more times than the Cubs. Not a sabermetric masterpiece, to be sure.

But the Cubs bought into the small ball myth.

This year, they rank among the teams that strikeout the least and, boy, has that produced dividends in the runs column. They went out and got a Scotty Podsednik-like player to ignite their offense. Podsednik is a decent player, but his value to the Sox last year must be weighed against this fact: the White Sox leadoff men (mainly Podsednik) ranked second to last in the league in runs scored in 2005. Whatever Scotty did for the team, he didn’t score a lot of runs, which is the one thing you would expect a great leadoff man to do.

And by that standard, the Cubs do not have a great leadoff man, as they rank 13th in the league in runs scored from the leadoff spot. But that shouldn’t come as a surprise when your leadoff man has a .275-area on base percentage.

Ah yes, on base percentage. The Cubs are baseball’s last holdout with regard to the importance of this statistic, and have been consistently. They rank 15th in the league in OBP right now, and the main reason for that is they remain philosophically opposed to the base on balls. They also rank 15th in the league in walks.

Thank goodness for those Pirates.

And if you think it’s all because of Derrek Lee’s injury, it’s not. The Cubs were last in the league in walks in 2005, 14th in the league in walks in 2003 and 2004 - the three years under Dusty Baker’s command.

Baker doesn’t exactly choose the Cubs roster, but he does seem to like a certain type of player … the kind of player who won’t take a walk.

There are worse things than having Neifi Perez on your bench like, for example, having him in your starting line-up batting at the top of the order. But for much of 2005, Baker had Corey Patterson and Neifi Perez batting 1-2.

And, believe it or not, it’s gotten worse this year. The Cubs 1-2 hitters have (as of this writing) 284 plate appearances and exactly 12 bases on balls.

Pathetic.

Now let’s return to the Sox for a moment. If there was one problem with the team last year it was that they didn’t walk much. They had an OBP in the low .320’s all year. So their biggest offensive addition was to get Jim Thome.

The Thome acquisition demonstrates the difference between the two teams. While the Cubs are trying to reduce their strikeouts and their reliance on home runs, the Sox are actually increasing theirs. Jim Thome is not small ball. Jim Thome is all about home runs, strikeouts, and walks. And so far in 2006, Jim Thome is also about runs. The Sox get it, or if they don’t, they go out and find it.

The Cubs on the other hand have succeeded in their goal of having a more balanced offense. Instead of not being able to score without hitting a home run, the 2006 Cubs have found several different ways to not score.

In the upside-down-world of Wrigleyville, that’s considered progress.

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Peter Bernstein teaches Economics at DePaul University and is a regular contributor to the Chicago Sports Review. His essay on steroids in baseball is appearing in the NY Times magazine, Front Page. Reach him at pbernstein@rcfecon.com.

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