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

Late Wednesday night time, 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 effectively into the night, so I wished to get a head begin on Friday’s piece and decide a subject earlier than I went to mattress. That’s after I noticed this, from Bizarre Twitter agenda-setter and Batting Round podcast host Lauren:

i feel all of the 2024 white sox group information ought to stand however by some means 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 in all probability seen one thing about how the AL Central has 4 groups with profitable information, however the White Sox have been so dangerous they’ve dragged the division as an entire dozens of video games beneath .500. This enjoyable truth depends on the Detroit Tigers maintaining their heads above the break-even level — a fragile tightrope act if ever one existed — however it speaks to an thrilling chance: That the White Sox is likely to be so dangerous they’re breaking the curve for everybody.

What should you hopped into the time machine and It’s a Fantastic Life‘d Jerry Reinsdorf when he was in regulation faculty? Present him what his legacy has develop into. 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 an alternative of creating a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} as an expert finder and exploiter of loopholes in tax regulation, you went into one thing extra mundane and fewer profitable? Felony protection, perhaps? Household regulation?

On a league-wide stage, not an entire lot would have modified. Should you erased the White Sox from the report — each the group’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 share would improve… 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 thus far exterior the norm as to skew all the statistical define of main league baseball in such comparatively small portions.

However whereas these drops of White Soxiness can’t shade all the 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 common hitter into Alex Bregman or Isaac Paredes. For different gamers, it’s achieved much more than that.

Baseball Reference has a nifty stat known as tOPS+. It operates like every other -plus stat, in that it scales to 100, however as an alternative of evaluating a participant’s efficiency to league common, it compares the participant’s OPS inside a break up to the participant’s general OPS. (OPS+ isn’t as exact a software as wRC+, however this publish 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 — virtually 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. Virtually precisely the identical variety of gamers have a tOPS+ of 150 or higher (42) as have a tOPS+ beneath 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 should you take the worst group… perhaps for the reason that founding of the World Collection, and put them up in opposition to among the best hitters of all time?

There are 18 seasons in MLB historical past by which a participant took no less than 20 plate appearances in opposition to one group and posted an OPS of two.000 or greater. 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 group 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 residence 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 share.

These six video games, out of 136 in complete, raised Soto’s seasonal slugging share 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 among the best seasons of his profession — even in opposition to good groups — Soto has a reasonably excessive ground.

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

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

The participant who’s benefited essentially the most from taking part in the White Sox obtained 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 in keeping with his profession norms: Prior to now 4 seasons, he’s by no means had a wRC+ decrease than 77 or greater 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 residence 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 residence runs. Towards 28 non-White Sox groups, McKinstry’s seasonal wRC+ is 65, not 80.

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