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Chicago White Sox

Can the White Sox be this bad? Outside of DH Jim Thome's .281 AVG, no other current regular is hitting higher than 2B Tadahito Iguchi's .257. That 5th round pick on Jermaine Dye got you 10 HRs with a putrid .216 AVG. The brilliance of passing on the most-hyped firstbasemen and grabbing Paul Konerko in the 9th round? 9 HRs and a .244 AVG.

But it may be the best time to buy now. MSM reports are emerging about how bad the White Sox are and how various pre-season methodologies predicted this. There is no better way to cement facts than having MSM prognostications come true!

A common way to sniff out buy-low players is to check for abnormally low BABIPs. With the assumption the player will return to league averages, you grab him and get all upside! Could the same thing work for entire teams?

The White Sox's team BABIP is an astoundingly low .257. The next worst one is the Cardinals .281! The best is the Tigers at .325. The MLB average is almost exactly equi-distant from the Card and Tigers at .298. And the White Sox are 24 points lower the the Cards.

This screams, "BUY LOW!"

TEAM BABIP
Chicago Sox 0.2568
St. Louis 0.2806
Cincinnati 0.2815
Houston 0.2838
Arizona 0.2838
Oakland 0.2863
LA Dodgers 0.2864
Toronto 0.2869
San Francisco 0.2875
Texas 0.2891
San Diego 0.2896
Milwaukee 0.2921
Washington 0.2931
Pittsburgh 0.2943
Baltimore 0.2949
National League 0.2957
Minnesota 0.2962
Kansas City 0.2971
Major League Baseball 0.2981
American League 0.3004
Philadelphia 0.3023
Boston 0.3032
Chicago Cubs 0.3046
Atlanta 0.3074
NY Mets 0.3089
Seattle 0.3099
Tampa Bay 0.311
Colorado 0.3132
LA Angels 0.3133
NY Yankees 0.3135
Florida 0.314
Cleveland 0.3194
Detroit 0.3245

Unless the trends in HR Park factors are reflective of a systematic decline in ability. What happened to U.S. Cellular Field as a great HR ballpark? The park factors are 1.402 in 2004, 1.375 in 2005, 1.307 in 2006 and just 1.148 in 2007.