After suffering through an abysmal 2011 season, White Sox designated hitter Adam Dunn is off to a fantastic start this year.

Last season, the 31-year-old Dunn put up a career-low .266 weighted on-base average (wOBA), or 59 wRC+, in nearly 500 plate appearances. His on-base percentage — which normally was a strength for the slugger — was .292, or 62 points below his previous career low when he was 23. Most disturbing was the sudden disappearance of his power. Dunn has always been a high-strikeout, high-walk, high-slugging player. But last year, Dunn posted an isolated power of only .118. To put that into perspective, consider this: Dunn’s ISO was only two points higher than Nyjer Morgan’s (.116). Dunn also saw his HR/FB ratio drop to 9.6% in a hitter- and home-run-friendly park. His previous career-low was 17.8%, all the way back in 2002.

But now? Well, we’re seeing the old Adam Dunn. Through May 7, he has managed a .394 wOBA, which is fueled by a .364 OBP, .321 ISO and a 28.1% HR/FB. And both the ISO and HR/FB numbers are better than his career highs. The obvious question is whether these numbers are sustainable. Given how quickly outcomes like BB% and HR/FB stabilize, there’s a good chance that Dunn’s end-of-season numbers could be similar to what they are today. The question I have is what is Dunn doing differently? To get a better handle on this, I took a look at Dunn’s performance on specific pitches in different locations.

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The Chicago White Sox and Oakland Athletics engaged in a marathon 14-inning contest on Wednesday afternoon that featured two blown saves, a game-tying home run from each team’s cleanup hitter, and perhaps even a budding closer controversy in the Windy City.

Left-hander Hector Santiago surprised many when he seized the closer role for the White Sox out of spring training. The 24-year-old had only pitched 5.1 innings about Double-A prior to this season — those innings came in a very brief stint with the big league club last July before getting sent back down to Double-A — but he impressed enough to be named closer this spring after surrendering only one earned run in eleven innings.

Selected by the White Sox in the 30th round of the 2006 Draft, Santiago started his professional career as a reliever, but was transitioned into the starting rotation last season. He has always been able to miss bats. His career strikeout rate in the minors was 9.6 K/9. He throws 93-94 MPH with the fastball from the left side, which is certainly a skill that does not grow on trees, but his newly-developed signature pitch – the screwball – is what has suddenly catapulted him to the big leagues. It’s the pitch that makes him different. It’s the pitch that could help him find success at the highest level.

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Gordon Beckham has not lived up to expectations. After being selected eighth overall by the Chicago White Sox in 2008, Beckham was expected to be one of the team’s future stars. And after a strong rookie season, it looked like Beckham might achieve that goal. Since then, however, Beckham was struggled mightily. For the 25-year-old, 2012 is a make-or-break year. The early signs do not look encouraging.

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According to the raw neutrality of the win probability chart, the Seattle Mariners actually had a chance to win the game last Saturday:

Source: FanGraphs

But it did not know — nor did the players know — what day it was. A.J. Pierzynski did not realize the significance of that first pitch, sailing wide to his glove side. Philip Humber may have even felt a twinge of frustration as that first toss missed so poorly. And Paul Konerko had no way of knowing what he started when he took that first grounder and tossed it to Humber for out number one.

They were all witness to and participants of a rare and wild event.
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Over the weekend, Philip Humber had the game of his life, throwing the 21st perfect game in baseball history against the Seattle Mariners. While the Mariners have a lousy offense and Safeco Field is a fantastic place to pitch, those factors shouldn’t diminish what Humber accomplished. A lot of good pitchers have faced a lot of lousy offenses over the years, and only 20 men before Humber had managed to go 27 up, 27 down. This is the apex of a single game performance in the sport, and Humber has now etched his name into the history books.

He’s also serving notice that last year’s breakout season may not have been a fluke.

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Chris Sale was among the elite relief pitchers last season with the White Sox, throwing 71 tremendous innings in just his second professional season. But the White Sox never saw Sale’s long-term future in the bullpen. The Sale-as-starter project got it’s first MLB regular season test Monday night against the Indians, and the 23-year-old lefty passed with flying colors. Sale breezed through 6.2 innings against the Indians, allowing just one run on three hits and two walks in leading the Sox to a 4-2 victory.

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There really is no point in sugarcoating things. The 2012 season will probably not be a pretty one on the south side of Chicago. The Detroit Tigers have put together a rather impressive, playoff-worthy team while the White Sox… have not.

Despite the dark clouds hanging over U.S. Cellular, there is a ray of sunshine for White Sox fans. The club appears set to open the season with four rookies on the 25-man roster; clearly fans would prefer to watch their team steamroll its way into the playoffs but watching young players develop should be a small consolation.

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Dave Cameron laid out the methodology behind the rankings last Friday. Remember that the grading scale for each category is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland
#27 – Pittsburgh
#26 – San Diego
#25 – Minnesota

Chicago’s 2011 Ranking: #14

2012 Outlook: 43 (21st)

Boy, things looked a lot better last season. Armed with the highest payroll in team history and fresh off of signing Adam Dunn, the White Sox were the pre-season favorite to win the AL Central. Dunn responded to his new team with a historically bad .159/.292/.277 slash line. Dunn’s failure at the plate was far from the only issue. All of the White Sox high profile acquisitions cratered last season. Alex Rios looked completely lost at the plate — hitting .227/.265/.348 — and Jake Peavy pitched 111.2 innings with a 4.92 ERA. On top of those issues, Gordon Beckham once again failed to live up to his promising rookie season, and Juan Pierre received 711 underwhelming plate appearances. Thankfully, Paul Konerko continued to defy Father Time — posting the fourth best season of his career at 35-years-old.

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With disabled list information available going back 10 years, I have decided to examine some league wide and team trends.

League Trends

To begin with, here are the league values for trips, days and average days lost to the DL over the past 10 years.

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Dare to dream.

On Thursday, we looked at Fielding Independent Offense (FIO) — as well as the Should Hit formula — and decided to toss stolen bases into the equation. The result were, let’s say, brow-elevating.

Today, we are going to put that result — the FIO formula — into action.

In the timeless words of Sir Samuel Leroy Jackson: “Hold onto your butts!”
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