It don't mean a thing if it ain't got o-swing
There's a famous scene in Lombardi where the coach holds up a football and says, "Gentlemen, this is a football." At which point Max McGee says, "Slow, down, would ya coach? You're going too fast."
One can imagine Ricky Renteria holding up an appropriate picture and saying, "Gentlemen, this is the strike zone," only it would be damned near the entire White Sox team telling him he's going too fast.
If you follow the Sox, you know they have a problem drawing walks, You know they have a problem striking out. You know their hideous K/BB ratio.
But, what the heck, in case you forgot, last year the Sox drew 378 walks, dead last in the majors. They struck out 1,549 times, seventh-worst in the majors. That 4.1-to-1 ratio of walks to strikeouts was so far the worst in baseball that no other team, no matter how awful, was even in the rearview mirror. That has basically been the case for many years.
So far this year is a little better, heading into the St. Louis series with 53 walks (21st in the majors), and 182 whiffs (third-worst), producing a K/BB ratio of 3.43 to 1 (fourth-worst). However, that's only because newcomer Yasmani Grandal has 10 walks all by himself. And even with Grandal, the numbers are still awful.
Such numbers might be excusable if the Sox were super sluggers, but their 25 HRs only tie for 11th, and their 4.47 runs per game are a blah 17th. So and all-or-nothing slugging resume is no excuse.
But there may be an explanation.
Strike zone at mlb.com' s glossary.
White Sox hitters' interpretation of strike zone.
The re-emergence of Sox hitting in the final two games against Detroit may have been (a) a result of Dallas Keuchel's calling out teammates for going through the motions, (b) the return of Tim Anderson, or (c) batting against the dregs of a horrible pitching staff. Most likely it was a bit of each, but unless (c) had a much smaller role than is likely, there was bound to be regression.
And based on six hits in Saturday's doubleheader, and four walks to 10 Ks, regression arrived quickly on the doorstep.
Why? Plate discipline is why. Or heinous lack thereof.
FanGraphs is full of amazing stuff about plate discipline.
I'm way too old to become a deep stats guy, but I have become fascinated with that first item on the FanGraphs list, o-swing. If there's one thing that explains why the Sox are consistently mediocre offensively, why they walk so little and strike out so much, that's it. They swing at pitches outside the zone way, way too much.
Heading into the Cardinals series the 2020 White Sox o-swing rate was 34.2%, third-worst in the majors. Luis Robert is the worst, at a horrible 47.6% rate, which fans have to hope is just a case of a rookie learning to adjust to the major leagues. José Abreu is next on the team at 40.1, for which excuses are harder to come by. Then comes Anderson at 40, even though Tim gets some slack because he'll take a lot of outside pitches to right. (I've hear Steve Stone twice suggest Tim should pull the ball more on occasion. Love ya, Steve, but, in this case, please shut up unless you want the .240 hitter back.)
(José obviously was trying to do too much in years past, taking the whole offense on himself, which could have caused his problem. But he doesn't have to carry the load any more, and his o-swing rate has gotten worse.)
Last year, Anderson's 45.2% obviously worked for him, except for the failure to ever walk bit. But that figure led the team to another third-worst season, at 34.8%. In case you think Tim proves the stats lie, No. 2 on the team was Daniel Palka (remember him?), at 40.3.
You can keep going back all you want. The Sox were next-to-worst in 2018, 27th in 2017, 29th in 2016, etc. It's not an aberration, it's an institutional failure of major (league) proportions.
Even back in a good year, the 2005 Sox were 23rd in o-swing, but at only 23.7%, which goes to show that actually having some plate discipline and control of your swing doesn't have to go all the way back to Nellie Fox.
The Sox are a long, long way from "If it's a strike, Mr. Williams will let you know." And they're not good at it.
Typical result of Sox hitter taking a swing outside the zone.
Swinging at bad pitches can work for some. Yogi Berra was famous for it. Manny Sanguillen of the Pirates used to hit homers off the bill of his cap. Leury García and Yolmer Sánchez were pretty successful last year, at least at making contact.
But overall, it really, really doesn't work for the White Sox. It hasn't led to big power or lots of runs. In 2019, for example, they were 25th in HRs and 24th in runs per game. And that's including NL teams without DHs.
This year so far, the White Sox are doing OK, making contact on 60.3% of o-swings, which rates 13th in MLB, but don't count on it being more than a small-sample aberration. That's because last year they were 28th, in 2018 29th, in 2017 28th ... with a strangely successful contact rate of of 64.8% which placed them 10th in 2016. The 2005 champs ranked 11th.
You might think that leads to a bad swinging strike rate. You'd be right.
The Sox are 27th — that's fourth-worst — at swinging strikes this year, at 12.7%. They were 29th last year, dead last the year before, 26th in 2017, and 23rd in 2016.
So what can be the cause? I used to think Avi García was the culprit, because he was at or near the worst in MLB for several years, so pitchers knew they never had to throw him a strike. He had a career-lowest o-swing rate in 2017, and, sure enough, he hit .330. He got worse again in 2018, but improved greatly when he left the Sox for the Rays and Brewers.
But Avi's long gone, and the problem remains. Certainly it shows worst with those not trained in other teams' systems, since Robert, Abreu and Anderson perform so badly in the category. But it spills over.
Consider Todd Frazier. Frazier came to the Sox, had his worst o-swing rate since his rookie season, hit around the Mendoza line, left, and is now getting back to career norms.
So, while much of it has to be a systemic training failure throughout the organization, it can even impact newcomers, so something's wrong at the major-league level as well.
Is it, as I've seen hinted about Keuchel's grievance, a failure to prepare for pitchers? A failure to provide the necessary information? A failure to teach pitch identification throughout the system? A failure to hammer on players just what the strike zone is?
Should a whole bunch of coaching heads in the system be rolling? Should Ricky be more adamant about plate discipline, or video study?
Whatever the cause, if it's not fixed, the Sox offense will never reach the potential we fans all see in it.