Back to the Future

Thomas Boswell, the great columnist for The Washington Post, inspired today's edition of The Update (hey, if they can use italics, why can't we?). Boz referred to Baseball-Reference.com's feature that correlates a player's statistical performance with other players' stats. We're using it today to look at White Sox players and their most similar players through the same age. What intrigues us -- though we freely admit that this is pretty unscientific -- is what the similar players did the following year.

For example, we looked at DH Jim Thome's most similar player through age 36 (Thome's age last season), who happens to be Hall of Famer Mike Schmidt. We then looked at how Schmidt performed at age 37, the age Thome will be this season. The 37 year-old Schmidt did pretty well. He played in 147 games, had 522 at bats, hit .293 with 35 homers and 113 RBI, and had on-base and slugging percentages of .388 and .548, respectively. Thome, and every Sox fan who roots for him, would take that no questions asked for 2008.

Let's look at the infield, or our best guess at what the infield will be when the season starts.

• Catcher A.J. Pierzynski's similar player through age 30 is Todd Walker. At age 31, Walker's stats were 129 G, 372 AB, .274 BA, .352 OBP, .468 SLG, 15 HR, and 50 RBI. Nothing to write home about, but not too bad either.
• !st Baseman Paul Konerko's similar player through age 31 is Kent Hrbek. Hrbek's stats at age 32 were 112 G, 394 AB, .244 BA, .357 OPS, .409 SLG, 15 HR, and 58 RBI. Not exactly the bounce back season we were looking for.
• Juan Uribe (yes, we're awarding him the second base job for now) is similar to Darrell Porter through age 27. Porter's stats at age 28 were 118 G, 418 AB, .249 BA, .354 OPS, .342 SLG, 7 HR, and 51 RBI. The average looks good by comparison to last year, but not much else looks good at all.
• New shortstop Orlando Cabrera through age 32 matches up with B.J. Surhoff. Surhoff's stats at 33 were 162 G, 573 AB, .279 BA, .332 OPS, .457 SLG, 22 HR, and 92 RBI. With Cabrera's Gold Glove at short, those offensive stats would be just fine.
• Josh Fields is too new to have a similar player entry yet and Joe Crede's similar player through age 29, Fernando Tatis, didn't play as a 30 year old. So there's no comparison's to look at for the hot corner.

Well, that's it for today. We'll take a look at the outfield and pitchers later. Go Sox!