Let’s Act Just like the White Sox Don’t Exist

Late Wednesday evening, I used to be poking across the web searching for inspiration. A badly timed bout of author’s block had stored me engaged on my Spencer Schwellenbach article properly into the night, so I needed to get a head begin on Friday’s piece and choose a subject earlier than I went to mattress. That’s once I noticed this, from Bizarre Twitter agenda-setter and Batting Round podcast host Lauren:

i feel all of the 2024 white sox workforce information ought to stand however someway participant information ought to get expunged. like, the MLB stat nerd neighborhood has an obligation to determine how stuff was dealt with when people had been held chargeable for plagues that effected cities in babylon

— lauren (@Very__Regular) September 5, 2024

Over the previous few days, you’ve most likely seen one thing about how the AL Central has 4 groups with successful information, however the White Sox have been so dangerous they’ve dragged the division as an entire dozens of video games underneath .500. This enjoyable reality depends on the Detroit Tigers protecting their heads above the break-even level — a fragile tightrope act if ever one existed — nevertheless it speaks to an thrilling risk: That the White Sox is perhaps so dangerous they’re breaking the curve for everybody.

What in case you hopped into the time machine and It’s a Fantastic Life‘d Jerry Reinsdorf when he was in legislation faculty? Present him what his legacy has turn out to be. Little question he’d be fascinated by the surprising course the Kennedy political dynasty has taken over the previous 60 years, however focus, Jerry, focus. What if, as a substitute of constructing tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} as an expert finder and exploiter of loopholes in tax legislation, you went into one thing extra mundane and fewer profitable? Felony protection, possibly? Household legislation?

On a league-wide stage, not an entire lot would have modified. If you happen to erased the White Sox from the document — each the workforce’s personal stats and people gathered by their opponents — you’d wipe out roughly 11,000 plate appearances. However the league-wide batting common, OBP, and strikeout and stroll charges would stay unchanged. The league’s slugging proportion would enhance… from .401 to .403.

White Sox video games solely account for 1/fifteenth of the league’s motion, and abject as they’ve been, they’re not to date outdoors the norm as to skew the whole statistical define of main league baseball in such comparatively small portions.

However whereas these drops of White Soxiness can’t coloration the whole ocean, they’re fairly potent when taken in isolation:

The opposite 29 groups have a mixed wRC+ of 117 in opposition to the White Sox, which turns the typical hitter into Alex Bregman or Isaac Paredes. For different gamers, it’s completed much more than that.

Baseball Reference has a nifty stat referred to as tOPS+. It operates like some other -plus stat, in that it scales to 100, however as a substitute of evaluating a participant’s efficiency to league common, it compares the participant’s OPS inside a cut up to the participant’s total OPS. (OPS+ isn’t as exact a instrument as wRC+, however this submit is extra about enjoyable details than science anyway.)

As of Thursday, 121 gamers had taken 15 or extra plate appearances in opposition to the White Sox this season. Seventy-eight of them — nearly two-thirds — had a tOPS+ over 100, that means they carried out higher in opposition to the White Sox than in opposition to the remainder of the league. Nearly precisely the identical variety of gamers have a tOPS+ of 150 or higher (42) as have a tOPS+ underneath 100; in different phrases, the White Sox are as more likely to make a hitter 50% higher than regular as they’re to make him worse.

In some circumstances, so much higher.

What occurs in case you take the worst workforce… possibly because the founding of the World Collection, and put them up in opposition to top-of-the-line hitters of all time?

There are 18 seasons in MLB historical past through which a participant took at the very least 20 plate appearances in opposition to one workforce and posted an OPS of two.000 or larger. These 18 seasons have a tendency to return fairly just lately: All however three are from the six-division period, and 5 are from the previous eight seasons. That’s as a result of the 30-team league and unbalanced schedule has allowed a hitter to hit that candy spot the place he hits sufficient to indicate up on this search, however not a lot that small sample-weirdness begins to even out.

Are fashionable gamers beating up on single opponents greater than, say, Ted Williams or Babe Ruth beat up on the St. Louis Browns? Only for enjoyable, I seemed up Williams’ team-by-team splits from 1941, and he hit .426/.578/.918 in 83 plate appearances in opposition to the Browns and .444/.588/.905 in 85 plate appearances in opposition to the Philadelphia A’s. Think about how sick you’d get of watching an all-time nice beat the hell out of your workforce 20 video games a 12 months.

All of that is to grease the skids for the notion that in six video games in opposition to the White Sox, Juan Soto went 10-for-24 with six dwelling runs and 9 walks. That’s a wRC+ of 421. After I typed that quantity out for the primary time, I reflexively put a interval in entrance of it, as a result of my mind scans any three-digit quantity that prime as a slugging proportion.

These six video games, out of 136 in complete, raised Soto’s seasonal slugging proportion by 34 factors and his wRC+ by 11 factors. However as a result of he’s a future Corridor of Famer within the midst of top-of-the-line seasons of his profession — even in opposition to good groups — Soto has a fairly excessive flooring.

Let’s take a barely much less achieved hitter: Alec Bohm. Now, Bohm’s no slouch — he was an All-Star this 12 months and is within the midst of his finest full season within the main leagues. What makes him fascinating is that, because of the interleague play schedule, he bought to face the White Sox solely thrice, totaling 14 plate appearances.

However he made essentially the most of them: 6-for-12 with two dwelling runs, a 340 wRC+. That was adequate to boost his wRC+ 5 factors — once more, in simply three video games.

The participant who’s benefited essentially the most from enjoying the White Sox bought a couple of extra cracks at them:

Tigers utilityman Zach McKinstry leads the league in tOPS+ in opposition to the White Sox. He hasn’t carried out in addition to Soto in absolute phrases, however he’s coming from a a lot decrease baseline.

McKinstry is having a season according to his profession norms: Up to now 4 seasons, he’s by no means had a wRC+ decrease than 77 or larger than 82. This 12 months, he’s hitting .226/.283/.354, which is a wRC+ of 80, in 98 video games.

Seven of these video games got here in opposition to Chicago, and in them McKinstry went 8-for-18 with two dwelling runs. The video games in opposition to the White Sox account for 7.1% of McKinstry’s season by each video games performed and plate appearances, however in these seven video games he produced 13.8% of his hits, 23% of his weighted runs created, and 50% of his dwelling runs. In opposition to 28 non-White Sox groups, McKinstry’s seasonal wRC+ is 65, not 80.

So what would occur in case you had been in a position to wipe this 12 months’s White Sox out of the historic document? Plenty of issues, most of them frankly insignificant. However in case you did, I wager Zach McKinstry can be extraordinarily displeased.