Thursday, September 22, 2011

A bright spot in the dark White season

It has been a really frustrating season for the White Sox. They have the 5th highest payroll in baseball at about a 130 million dollar payroll (at 76 wins, $1,710,526 a win, and a WASP of 5000). Big money failures like Adam Dunn (who is putting up a historically bad season) and Alexis Rios have fueled the failure. However, as in most cases, there are some shining lights. Recently, the biggest has been Alejandro De Aza. At the end of the 09 season, the White Sox claimed De Aza off waivers from the Marlins. His salary for this year has not been released (and it was 390,000 in 09) and he is arbitration eligible at the end of the year, so it is safe to say he is making about $400,000 this year. Despite being called up late and only playing in 47 games, he has been very valuable, with a 1.9 WAR and playing every outfield position. This gives him a great WASP of 210.5. His OOP is a nice 419 (not too far behind Cameron Maybin), and a PPG of 1.34 (better than both Cameron Maybin and Starlin Castro). He is another guy who strikes out a lot (about 1/5th of his at-bats, he also walks 8% of the time, a 2 strikeouts to 1 walk ratio is a nice ratio), but is still pretty productive, because when he hits the ball, magic happens (a .400 Batting average on balls put in play). It is very possible that the White Sox will use De Aza to replace Juan Pierre or Alexis Rios as they attempt to rebuild this team.

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