White Sox player review: AJ Pierzynski

October 7, 7:52 PMChicago White Sox ExaminerJJ Stankevitz

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AJ Pierzynski hit .281 with 13 home runs and 60 RBI.

Now that the 2008 season has come to a close for the Chicago White Sox, it's time we take a look back at the season examine just how well each and every player who wore the White Sox logo did in the previous six months.

The player: AJ Pierzynski

Position: Catcher

Vital statistics
Batting average: .281
OBP: .312
SLG: .416
OPS: .728
Home runs: 13
RBI: 60
Runs: 66
BB/K: 19/71

So what explains Pierzynski's jump from a .263 batting average in 2007 to a .281 clip in 2008? Pierzynski's BABIP (batting average on balls in play) was at .281 in 2007, and that jumped to .304 in 2008, which is very close to his career BABIP of .306.

In general, a player's BABIP should be around .120 ahead of his line drive rate. Pierzynski's line drive rate was .179 in 2008, so when you compare that to his .304 BABIP, that seems about right. Essentially, Pierzynski's 2008 performance is about what should be expected out of him at this point in his career.

Pierzynski is not going to hit for a lot of power—his ISO was at .135 in 2008, compared to a .144 clip for his career. He's not going to take a lot of walks (walk rate of 3.4 in 2008, the lowest of his career), but he's also not going to strike out a lot (13.3 strikeout rate, also the lowest of his career).

Pierzynski made contact with 84.87% of the pitches he saw in 2008, jumping over two percentage points from where it was in 2007. As a No. 2 hitter, Pierzynski did his job—the problem was that he wasn't exactly surrounded by the right players. If Pierzynski was hitting second in a lineup that wasn't as incredibly slow as the White Sox', it wouldn't have been all that bad. However, even when Carlos Quentin was healthy, the 2-6 spots in the order didn't possess much speed. This meant that the bases were often clogged, forcing the White Sox to rely on the home run to score—which they heavily did.

There wasn't a whole lot more the White Sox could have asked for offensively from Pierzynski. Yes, he had a pretty bad late-season slump that hurt his final statistics, but for most of the year, he was hitting between .290-.300 with an OBP around .320.

And, again, that's about what the White Sox can expect from Pierzynski at this point. He'll get hits, make contact, but not get on base at the rate you'd like to see.

Remember, though, that good offensive catchers are not easy to find. With Pierzynski behind the plate, the catcher position is not an offensive black hole for the White Sox.

Pierzynski also did a relatively good job calling games this year. It's easy to nitpick a few bad pitch selections here and there, but for the most part, Pierzynski did a good job noticing tendencies of his pitcher and the opposing hitters and calling pitches accordingly. Where Pierzynski is lacking is his ability to throw baserunners out, but when the White Sox were trotting Gavin Floyd, Jose Contreras, and Javier Vazquez to the mound in nearly half the starts made by the pitching staff, it's not easy to have good caught stealing numbers for a catcher.

Regardless, Pierzynski is not a good defensive catcher—he has not been one since leaving Minneosta, and he won't be one for the rest of his career. That's just who Pierzynski is, and it certainly isn't a complete indictment of his play.

Pierzynski came up with some big hits for the White Sox this year, most notably his early-July walk-off home run off the Indians' Masahide Kobayashi in extra innings. He had runs where he was hitting the ball extremely well—usually marked by Pierzynski staying on the ball and taking it up the middle or the other way—and then he had some streaks where he wasn't hitting the ball well.

Overall, though, Pierzynski had himself another solid season for making just $5.5 million. The OBP may have been lower than it should be, but that's a product of Pierzynski being so aggressive. Pierzynski has been a more passive hitter—in 2003, his OBP was .360—but he's come a long way from his heyday in Minnesota. Maybe someday he'll return to his high-OBP days, but at age 31, it's unrealistic to expect that.

Keep in mind that catchers usually start to see a decline in their offensive statistics around their early-mid 30's. Pierzynski is locked up for 2009 and 2010 with salaries of $6.25 million in each year. If he can put up similar stats to his 2008 numbers in the next two years, then the White Sox should be satisfied with his performance.

Next player review: Paul Konerko