Your 2012 Chicago White Sox Predictions

[DaSox_05]

With Opening Day 16 days away and with the final roster just about set thanks to ChiSoxJuan's post write your own predictions in the same fashion. Player to Breakout, Regress and Overall Prediction. You can always choose the same player(s) just give your reasons. I wrote this up for the MLB forum for the White Sox which should be up in a few days.

Break Out Player: This is it for Gordon Beckham. I believe Gordon knows it to, he was drafted in the first round of the draft in 2008 (8th Overall). There was lots of hype surrounding him in college and in the minors. A lot of baseball “experts” believed he was the next Ian Kinsler/Michael Young type. He dominated the minors posting a .894 OPS in A, AA, & AAA. (259 AB’s) Gordon was called up in June 2009, and struggled at first, but as July came he started to dominate and finished the 2009 season by posting a .808 OPS and finished 5th in ROY voting, but did win Sporting News ROY. Now since then it’s been all downhill offensively. He posted a slash line of .252/.317.378 in 2010 and .230/.296/.337 in 2011. Although with his struggles at the plate Beckham’s defense never took a back seat. A career SS in college he played 3B in 2009 and struggled a bit with the new position and was eventually moved to 2B where he has dominated the position in 2010 & 2011. I am more hoping he will break out then thinking he will. With the White Sox having new coaches and a new manager this season it should help Gordon and I am hoping he will be posting a slash line similar to his 2009 season of .270/.347/.460.

Player To Regress:There is nothing really bad to say about Paul Konerko. I love the man and is probably the second best 1B in White Sox history behind Frank Thomas. The man has been great his whole career except for a bad 2003 season. But can he continue to post OPS’ North of .900 at age 36? He had a career high OPS of .977 in 2010 and a .906 OPS in 2011. Paulie has posted these outstanding numbers with pretty much no protection in the order as well. Konerko has also been hampered with hand injuries the last few seasons and has needed cortisone shots to help deal with the pain. With age and health not on his side I would expect him to be around his career OPS of .858. This is still very good but a regression from his last two very good seasons.

Overall Team Projection: Now the White Sox finished the 2011 season with a 79-83 record. This is bad but quite remarkable considering they had 4 regulars who had sub .300 OBP’s on the team. Which is unheard of especially on an AL team. This shows just how good their pitch was last year. I have a hard time believing that Rios, Dunn, Morel and Beckham will post sub .300 OBP’s in 2012. The White Sox traded away closer Sergio Santos and RF’er Carlos Quentin in an attempt to rebuild but Kenny Williams couldn’t do a full rebuild with a lot of bad contracts on the books. So he was forced to try to compete and rebuild at the same time, which is pretty damn hard to do. In losing those two players the White Sox are hoping Addison Reed (future closer) who I believe is better than Santos and young Cuban OF’er Dayan Viciedo will fill the void of the two traded away players. Chris Sale a young pitching rising star gets his chance in the rotation with the departure of Mark Buehrle (Signed w/Miami). Sale has been dominant in the bullpen, but was starter in college. Look for a breakout season for Sale. Rounding out the rest of the rotation is new #1 starter John Danks, a resurgent and finally healthy Jake Peavy, an always reliable Gavin Floyd and last year’s surprise Philip Humber. The White Sox bullpen is probably the biggest question mark on this team. As we all know bullpens are a crap shoot year to year and the White Sox have usually have had a decent bullpen. This year is different considering there are two spots to fill the Santos being traded and Sale moving to the rotation. Who will be the closer Thornton, Crain or Reed. I believe Thornton will start the year as closer but Reed will take over the job early to mid season. Now again I don’t believe the White Sox will be as bad offensively as last year and with the Tigers picked to win the division people will sleep on the White Sox so I predict the White Sox to finish second in the division at 84-78. But just to let you know the pre-season champ picked by the experts really never wins the AL Central as we have seen in the past.

[ChiSoxJuan]

Overall: Despite raking Kenny over the coals for most of his moves since '05, I'm still a Sox fan at heart. I believe in this pitching staff & I believe in Coop. I've seen how far the Angels & Rays got with a great pitch, no hit team last year so I believe if the Sox remain healthy they have a legit shot at the 2nd WC.

Here's how I see the AL:
untouchables: Yanks, Tigers, Angels

2nd place: Rays, Tribe, Rangers
3rd place: BoSox, CWS, Oak, Tor

The reason why I say the CWS have a legit shot at the 2nd WC is because I don't see great separation between these 7 teams. I know some of you believe in the Royals but that team never catches a break. Were not even into the regular season yet & they've got guys going down already. Logic dictates then that until they ACTUALLY have a good luck season, bad luck will continue to haunt them. You can never count out Minny but that prestigious farm system of their's did not produce at the Big league level last year & I don't think that's an easy thing to shake off. It has been a long time since I've seen them enter a season pitching weak as they are now.

I'm going to give Sox fans probably the biggest reason to hope for this season. Forget Hawk's dumb 60W, 60L, 42? theory. What matters most is WHERE teams line up in a schedule.

Apr:@(Tex&Cle), vs(Det&Bal), @(Sea,Oak), vs(Bos&Cle)
May:@(Det&Cle), vs(KC&Det), @(LAA,Cubs), vs(Min&Cle)
Jun:@(Tam), vs(Sea,Tor,Hou), @(Stl,LAD), vs(Cubs,Mil)
Jul:@(Min,NYY), vs(Tex,Tor), @(KC,Bos,Det), vs(Min)
Aug:@(Tex,Min), vs(LAA,KC,Oak), @(Tor,KC), vs(NY,Sea)
Sep:@(Bal,Det), vs(Min,KC,Det), @(Min,KC,LAA), vs(Cle,Tam)
Oct: @(Cle)

Cle is the most important opponent we will face because they'll establish our season for us in Apr & May & likely decide our fate to close out the season. KC is the 2nd most important because they start a key lengthy road trip after the break in July & represent the meat of 2 lengthy homestands & a road trip to close. Min is the 3rd most important just because they're in our div.

So IMHO, it comes down to this: At least 30 wins vs these 3 & the Sox will be in WC contention 'til the end. At least 33 wins vs these 3 & the Sox likely end the season with a WC. At least 36 wins vs these 3 & the Sox are challenging Det for the div. If you doubt that then look at that schedule & place in those 36 wins & explain to me how that doesn't provide great momentum for this season?

I'm too optimistic after looking at the sched to list players likely to regress. I hope others will avoid doing that as well.

The breakout player for the Sox will be De Aza. Whether we can get 36 wins from Cle, KC, & Min will depend on it. If you project what he's done for the Sox so far over a full season I don't have any doubt that the pundits will view him as the breakout player for the Sox. I'll go a step further. If De Aza has break out power #'s before the break he's likely an MVP contender then.

[Muttman73]

I hate to bring him up, but with Ozzie gone...for the first time in awhile I am pretty optimistic about this team. At least I know now, that if they lose it's because of the players and not some ego driven move by him.

[Knuckleball Rob]

I have 3 who have the potential to break out

1. Morel:
If my perceptions about him last year are correct and his development
culminated in his September numbers ... I think he'll continue such and be
great.
2. De Aza:
If he maintains his OBP and plays a very good D ..... He could be the man.
He definitely has to avoid the injury bug however that has plagued his big
league development.
3. Sale:
This could be a magical year for him as a starter. He definitely has all the
tools to succeed plus he'll have a very good game caller to throw to along
with one of the best pitching coaches in the bigs.

[JDIsMyGod23]

We need everything to go right to even have a chance. So with that in mind, thinking only half of what we need to happen will actually happen, we finish like 8 or back. With that being said, I am still pretty optimistic.

[sager729]

My 3 to break out are

1. Chris Sale
2. Addison Reed
3. Dayan Viciedo

[BushLeague]

Breakout Player: I guess this is more of a bounce back then breakout player, but I'll say Adam Dunn. At 32 years old he should have a few more good seasons left in him, I refuse to believe he's just dunn(pun intended). Hopefully with a change in coaching staff, and another year to be more comfortable in a bigger market he can get back to the stat lines were used of seeing out of him.

Player To Regress: I'll say Alejandro De Aza. While I don't think he'll be bad, I do think he'll take a step back from the sick numbers he was putting up last year. Last year he had a BABIP of .404 and when that drops down more towards the norm I believe we'll see see that he can be a decent major leaguer but nothing close to a special player.

Overall Team Projection: I'm more opptimistic then a lot of experts I've heard talk about the team. I think we"ll see some of our big money players bounce back a bit, and I expect the team to stay competitive for most of the season. However in the end I think Detroit has to much and I expect to see them pull away late and finish 5-6 games ahead of us.

[DaSox_05]

Yea I fully expect De Aza's BABIP to come down. But I too think he will have a good season.

[Sockeye]

82-80, 3rd in division

Based mainly on Ozzie being the **** outta here....

[getfoul]

Here are my old school numbers for the starting 9:

De Aza: .272/8/51
Pierzynski: .274/11/60
Rios: .261/23/85
Konerko: .287/29/97
Dunn: .248/34/101
Ramirez: .274/21/76
Morel: .277/17/68
Viciedo: .262/22/64
Beckham: .248/12/58

[sweetnsour]

breakout: Floyd- i think its his time to bounce back up- contract looms soon too and pitchers for some reason respond to this. something like 15-10, 3.45 ERA WHIP 1.27
regression: Konerko- if only for the fact that he is playing way above the mean. regression is bound to come back to normal Pauly numbers such as .280, .379, .490 with near 30 HR and 85+ RBI

Sox record- 81-81 - they overachieve a bit but don't world beat. they beat some big boys but still lose to KC and the Twinkees 12 times. I say we will be .500 at least with Tribe and like .444 with Tigers.

Also I hope that our young players make improvements this year-no feet dragging on their development.
I want to see Sale pitch decent but not mind blowingly well.
Morel needs to get his avg or slg up consistently and/or strike out less often.
Beckham needs to stop regressing- either hit for power or avg- just pick one, and steal some bases too.
De Aza needs to consistently have an OBP above .333.
Dayan needs to not K as much- walk a little more and look to drive the ball not just go for all power- Dayan could be a doubles machine if he wants to- he is built like one.

Hope that our other young pitchers (Reed, Stewart, Molina, Castro, Axelrod) show improvement and consistency this season. I'm sure Reed will be fine but I want at least 2 of those other guys to become at least avg bullpen arms

[StrandedCub]

Who do you guys think is going to start the year being the closer? Anybody "ahead" in the competition?

[DaSox_05]

Who do you guys think is going to start the year being the closer? Anybody "ahead" in the competition?

I think its going to be Thornton to start the year and Addison Reed taking over maybe a month or so in.

[sager729]

I also think Hector Santiago is going to make a name for himself as a lefty reliever.

[Sox71]

I think its going to be Thornton to start the year and Addison Reed taking over maybe a month or so in.

Agreed, it is not Thornton's role. This will be just like last year when Santos took over the role in late April.